Division I: Snow and Avalanches

Division Head: Rebecca Mott-Grünewald
Deputy Head: Vincent Vionnet

Snow as a material exhibits fascinating physical properties that play an important role in the interaction with the atmosphere and that influence the climate. Snow chemistry is also a key element in this interaction context as well as canopy and vegetation. Finally snow mechanics is relevant in many context of every day life in cryospheric environments. Thus snow properties need to be investigated and understood at very different scales from the microstructure, to snow pits, to slopes, and up to the continental scale.

At the macro-scale the study of snow-cover evolution is, for example, intimately linked to avalanche formation. Snow in movement or avalanche dynamics as well as drifting and blowing snow are further important fields of snow science. Furthermore, these three topics are linked to natural hazards and their mitigation.

The Division Snow and Avalanches aims at promoting collaborative work and discussion among snow scientists, scientists from other fields working with snow as well as engineers and practitioners to find a common language for describing and better understand the above snow and snow-related processes. Furthermore, this Division is a good platform for independent model validation and intercomparison.