ERTH 2415 Lecture 18: ERTH 2415 – LECTURE 18
29 Nov 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Snowpack: a composed of several layers with different characteristics. Cohesion: property of the particles of a material to stick together. Powder snow in which 95% of volume is void space. Cohesive snow is wet (meaning there is liquid particles between ice) and compact (meaning the snow particles densely packed and tightly bounded). Snow crystals: new snow that is characterized by 6-sided crystals (diameter ~ 0. 5mm). Aging crystals are more rounded, densely packed, and cohesive. Within the snowpack, weak layers are sandwiched between strong layers. They form in 3 different ways: when wind is increasing during a storm, depth hoar, surface hoar. Hoar: large crystals formed by the deposition of water vapor into ice. Often grown on existing crystals and some are feather shaped. When these crystals grow, the density of the snowpack decreases. These crystals tend not to gain strength as they are compacted within the snowpack.
