Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

2nd Edition - February 12, 2021
Imprint: Elsevier
Editors: John F. Shroder, Wilfried Haeberli, Colin Whiteman
Language: English
Paperback ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 7 1 2 9 - 5
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 7 1 3 0 - 1

Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters, Second Edition, provides you with the latest scientific developments in sea level rise, permafrost degradation, rock/ice avalan… Read more

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Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters, Second Edition, provides you with the latest scientific developments in sea level rise, permafrost degradation, rock/ice avalanches, glacier surges, glacial lake outburst floods, ice shelf collapses, climate change implications, causality, impacts, preparedness and mitigation. The book takes a geo-scientific approach to the topic while also covering current thinking about directly related social scientific issues that can affect ecosystems and global economies. Special emphasis is placed on the rapidly progressing effects from global warming on the cryosphere, perspectives for the future and latest scientific advances, and technological developments.

Cover image
Title page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Contributors
Editorial foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: Snow and ice-related hazards, risks, and disasters: Facing challenges of rapid change and long-term commitments
Abstract
Acknowledgments
1.1: Introduction
1.2: Costs and benefits: Living with snow and ice
1.3: Small and large, fast and slow, local to global: Dealing with constraints
1.4: Beyond historical experience_ Monitoring, modeling, and managing rapid and irreversible changes
Chapter 2: Physical, thermal, and mechanical properties of snow, ice, and permafrost
Abstract
Acknowledgment
2.1: Introduction
2.2: Density and structure
2.3: Thermal properties
2.4: Mechanical properties
2.5: Electromagnetic and wave properties
2.6: Summary
Chapter 3: Snow and ice in the climate system
Abstract
3.1: Introduction
3.2: Physical extent of the cryosphere
3.3: Climatic conditions of the cryosphere
Chapter 4: Snow and ice in the hydrosphere
Abstract
4.1: Introduction
4.2: Snow accumulation and melt
4.3: Glaciers and glacial mass balance
4.4: Hydrology of snow- and ice-covered catchments
4.5: Concluding remarks
Chapter 5: Snow, ice, and the biosphere
Abstract
Acknowledgments
5.1: Introduction
5.2: Adaptations to snow, ice, and permafrost
5.3: Snow and ice as habitats
5.4: Snow as a moderator of habitat
5.5: Ice as a moderator of habitat
5.6: Permafrost as a moderator of habitat
5.7: Vegetation as a moderator of snow, ice, and permafrost habitats
5.8: Conclusions
Chapter 6: Ice and snow as land-forming agents
Abstract
Acknowledgments
6.1: Glacial processes and landscapes
6.2: Periglacial and permafrost processes and landforms
6.3: The role of snow in forming landscapes
6.4: Conclusions and outlook
Chapter 7: Mountains, lowlands, and coasts: The physiography of cold landscapes
Abstract
7.1: Introduction
7.2: Physiography of the terrestrial cryosphere
7.3: Glaciers and ice sheets: Extent and distribution
7.4: Permafrost types, extent, and distribution
7.5: Glacier-permafrost interactions
Chapter 8: A socio-cryospheric systems approach to glacier hazards, glacier runoff variability, and climate change
Abstract
Acknowledgments
8.1: Introduction
8.2: Integrated adaptation in dynamic socio-cryospheric systems
8.3: Glacier and glacial lake hazards
8.4: Volcano-ice hazards
8.5: Glacier runoff, hydrologic variability, and water use hazards
8.6: Coastal resources and hazards
8.7: Discussion and conclusions
Chapter 9: Integrative risk management: The example of snow avalanches
Abstract
9.1: Introduction
9.2: Risk analysis
9.3: Risk evaluation
9.4: Mitigation of risk
9.5: Methods and tools for risk assessment and evaluation of mitigation measures
9.6: Case study “Evaluation of avalanche mitigation measures for Juneau, Alaska”
9.7: Final remarks
Chapter 10: Permafrost degradation
Abstract
Acknowledgments
10.1: Introduction
10.2: Drivers of permafrost and active-layer change across space and time
10.3: Observed permafrost and active-layer changes
10.4: Permafrost modeling and forecasting
10.5: Permafrost degradation and infrastructure hazards
10.6: Coastal erosion and permafrost
10.7: Summary
Chapter 11: Radioactive waste under conditions of future ice ages
Abstract
Acknowledgments
11.1: Introduction
11.2: Timing of future glacial inception
11.3: The glacier ice-groundwater interface_ Constraints from a transect of the modern Greenland Ice Sheet
11.4: Deep glacial erosion in the Alpine Foreland of northern Switzerland
11.5: Tunnel valleys in Germany and their relevance to the long-term safety of nuclear waste repositories
11.6: Assessment of glacial impacts on geosphere stability and barrier capacity—Canadian perspective
Chapter 12: Snow avalanches
Abstract
12.1: Introduction
12.2: The avalanche phenomenon
12.3: Avalanche release
12.4: Avalanche flow
12.5: Avalanche mitigation
12.6: Avalanche forecasting
12.7: Concluding remarks
Chapter 13: Glacier surges
Abstract
Acknowledgments
13.1: Introduction
13.2: Properties and causes of glacier surges
13.3: Case study 1: Medvezhiy and Geographical Society Glaciers, Central Pamirs, Tajikistan
13.4: Case study 2: Surges of Glaciar Grande Del Nevado Del Plomo, Central Andes, Argentina, and related disasters/hazards
13.5: Case study 3: A surge-like flow instability of Belvedere Glacier, Italian Alps, and associated hazards 2001–2003
13.6: Case study 4: Surging glaciers and the Trans Alaska Pipeline System: potential hazards and monitoring
13.7: Surge-like instability of two glaciers in the Aru range, Western Tibet, and their subsequent detachment
13.8: General conclusions
Chapter 14: Glacier-related outburst floods
Abstract
Acknowledgments
14.1: Introduction
14.2: Flood sources
14.3: Outburst mechanisms and flood magnitude
14.4: Downstream flood behavior
14.5: Outburst floods and climate change
14.6: Risk assessment and reduction
14.7: Summary
Chapter 15: Ice loss from glaciers and permafrost and related slope instability in high-mountain regions
Abstract
Acknowledgments
15.1: Introduction
15.2: Mechanisms of cryosphere control on slope stability
15.3: Case studies
15.4: Conclusion and outlook
Chapter 16: The occurrence and mechanism of catastrophic mass flows in the mountain cryosphere
Abstract
Acknowledgments
16.1: Introduction
16.2: CMFs in the mountain cryosphere—General characteristics
16.3: Mass flows involving mainly glacier ice (glacier avalanches and large-scale glacier detachments)
16.4: Mass flows involving mainly fragmented rock (rock avalanches)
16.5: Mass flows involving a mixture of glacier ice and rock (ice-rock avalanches and flows)
16.6: Debris flows I; nonoutburst related flows
16.7: Debris flows II: Lake outburst-related flows
16.8: CMFs in the mountain cryosphere: Discussion
16.9: Summary and conclusions
Chapter 17: Hazards at ice-clad volcanoes: Phenomena, processes, and examples from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile
Abstract
Acknowledgments
17.1: Introduction
17.2: Volcano-ice interactions
17.3: Deglaciation and eruptive activity
17.4: Volcano-ice interactions as disaster generators: Mount St. Helens and Nevado del Ruiz
17.5: Volcano-ice interactions in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile: Dealing with related hazards
17.6: Specific aspects of hazard/risk assessment at ice-clad volcanoes
Chapter 18: Floating ice and ice-pressure challenge to ships
Abstract
18.1: Introduction
18.2: Ice ridges
18.3: Pressure buildup and dissipation
18.4: Regional conditions and incidents of besetting
18.5: Pressured ice on the Great Lakes
18.6: Freshwater ice
18.7: Causes of ice under pressure in the Great Lakes
18.8: Environmental concerns
18.9: Shipping concerns
18.10: Dealing with pressured ice_ A ship master’s perspective
18.11: Conclusion and perspective for the future
Chapter 19: Retreat instability of tidewater glaciers and marine ice sheets
Abstract
Acknowledgments
19.1: Introduction
19.2: Tidewater glacier retreat instability and calving
19.3: Triggering and forcing mechanisms
19.4: Marine ice sheets and ice shelves
19.5: Wider implications as hazards
Chapter 20: Ice sheets, glaciers, and sea level
Abstract
Acknowledgment
20.1: Contemporary Sea-level rise in a geologic perspective
20.2: Recent sea-level rise: Sources and measurement
20.3: Recent glacier and ice sheet contribution to sea-level rise
20.4: Future cryospheric contribution to sea-level rise
20.5: Implications of sea-level rise
20.6: Concluding remarks
Index

John F. Shroder

Dr. John (Jack) F. Shroder received his bachelor’s degree in geology from Union College in 1961; his masters in geology from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst in 1963, and his Ph.D. in geology at the University of Utah in 1967. He has been actively pursuing research on landforms and natural resources in the high mountain environments of the Rocky Mountains, the Afghanistan Hindu Kush, and the Karakoram Himalaya of Pakistan for over a half century. His teaching specialties have been primarily geomorphology, but also physical and historical geology and several other courses at the University of Nebraska at Omaha where he was the founding professor of the Geology major. While there he was instrumental in founding the Center for Afghanistan Studies in 1972, and he was the lead geologist for the Bethsaida Archaeological Project in Israel in the 1990s. He taught geology as an NSF-, USAID, and Fulbright-sponsored professor at Kabul University in 1977-78, as well as a Fulbright award to Peshawar University in 1983-84. He has some 63 written or edited books to his credit and more than 200 professional papers, with emphases on landslides, glaciers, flooding, and mineral resources in Afghanistan. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received Distinguished Career awards from both the Mountain and the Geomorphology Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers. In the recent decade as an Emeritus Professor, he served as a Trustee of the Geological Society of America Foundation where he set up a research scholarship, the Shroder Mass Movement award for masters and doctoral candidates. For the past two decades, he has been the Editor-in-Chief for the Developments in Earth Surface Processes book series of Elsevier Publishing, as well as the 10-volumes of the Treatise on Geomorphology, and the Hazards, Risks, and Disasters book series, both in second editions. Recently, Dr. Shroder was ranked among the top 2 percent of researchers worldwide by the October study conducted by Stanford University.

Affiliations and expertise

Senior Research Scholar, Center for Afghanistan Studies, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Geology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

Wilfried Haeberli

Wilfried Haeberli is professor emeritus at the Geography Department, University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on high mountains, impacts from climate change, glacier and permafrost monitoring, natural hazards and ice-age paleoglaciology. He obtained his PhD in Geography at the University of Basel (1974) and his habilitation in glaciology and geomorphology at ETH Zurich (1985). From 1989 to 1995 he led the Glaciology Section at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology of ETH Zurich, from 1995 to 2013 he was full professor of Physical Geography at the University of Zurich, from 1986 to 2010 he was the first director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) of IACS/ICSU, UNEP, UNESCO and WMO and from1998 – 2003 he served as a vice president of the International Permafrost Association (IPA). As a member of the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOP-C) from 1996 to 2009 he was responsible for the integration of cryosphere components as Essential Climate Variables into the terrestrial part (Global Terrestrial Observing System; GTOS) of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). He has been actively involved in various functions with the second to the fifth IPCC assessments and works as an expert and consultant concerning high-mountain hazards and climate-change impacts in various countries of South America, Asia and Europe

Affiliations and expertise

Department of Geography, University of Zurich - Irchel

Colin Whiteman

Colin Whiteman was Principal Lecturer in Physical Geography in the School of Environment and Technology at the University of Brighton. He obtained his PhD in Pleistocene Stratigraphy at the University of London (1990). As Course Leader for the BSc. Physical Geography degree at Brighton, he taught a range of associated subjects, introducing the first course on climate change and, in particular, one on Cold Region Hazards. The latter topic was subsequently developed into a student text book, “Cold Regions Hazards and Risks”. He has led student studies in Norway and Iceland and carried out published geomorphological and stratigraphical research in these countries and in Arctic Canada

Affiliations and expertise

School of Environment and Technology, Brighton University, UK

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Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

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John F. Shroder

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