Table Of ContentSnow and Ice-Related
Hazards, Risks,
and Disasters
Volume Editors
Wilfried Haeberli
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Colin Whiteman
University of Brighton, UK
Series Editor
John F. Shroder
University of Nebraska at Omaha, US
AMSTERDAMlBOSTONlHEIDELBERGlLONDONlNEWYORKlOXFORD
PARISlSANDIEGOlSANFRANCISCOlSINGAPORElSYDNEYlTOKYO
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Contributors
IanAllison,AntarcticClimateandEcosystemsCooperativeResearchCentre,Hobart,
Australia
Bernardo Pulgar´ın Alzate, Servicio Geolo´gico Colombiano, Observatorio Vulcan-
olo´gicoySismolo´gicodePopaya´n,BarrioLomadeCartagena,Popaya´n,Colombia
OlegAnisimov,StateHydrologicalInstitute,St.Petersburg,Russia
Lukas U.Arenson,BGCEngineeringInc.,Vancouver,BC,Canada
Perry Bartelt, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos,
Switzerland
AnkeBebiolka,Bundesanstaltfu¨rGeowissenschaftenundRohstoffe(BGR),Stilleweg,
Hannover,Germany
Tobias Bolch, Department of Geography, Universityof Zurich, Switzerland; Institute
forCartography;TechnischeUniversita¨tDresden,Dresden,Germany
Jenny Brandefelt, Svensk Ka¨rnbra¨nslehantering AB (SKB), Blekholmstorget, Stock-
holm,Sweden
Michael Bru¨ndl, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos,
Switzerland
Bol´ıvar E. Ca´ceres Correa, Instituto Nacional de Meteorolog´ıa (INAMHI), Corea,
Quito,Ecuador
Terry V. Callaghan, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativa¨gen,
Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; Department of Botany, National Research Tomsk State
University,Tomsk,Siberia,Russia
Mark Carey,RobertD.ClarkHonorsCollege,UniversityofOregon,USA
HanneH.Christiansen,ArcticGeologyDepartment,TheUniversityCentreinSvalbard,
UNIS, Longyearbyen, Norway; Center for Permafrost, CENPERM; Department of
GeoscienceandNaturalResourceManagement,UniversityofCopenhagen,Denmark
John J. Clague, Centre for Natural Hazard Research, Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby,BC,Canada
WilliamColgan,GeologicalSurveyofDenmarkandGreenland,Copenhagen,Denmark
Simon Cook, School of Science and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan
University,Manchester,UnitedKingdom
PattyA.CrawBurns,DepartmentofNaturalResources,DivisionofMining,Land&
Water,Lands Section,Fairbanks,AK,USA
xiii
xiv Contributors
Reynald Delaloye, Department of Geosciences, Geography, University of Fribourg,
Fribourg,Switzerland
KeithB.Delaney,NaturalDisasterSystems,DepartmentofEarthandEnvironmental
Sciences,UniversityofWaterloo,Waterloo,Ontario,Canada
PhilipDeline,EDYTEMLab,Universite´deSavoie,CNRS,LeBourget-du-LacCedex,
France
LydiaEspizua,InstitutoArgentinodeNivolog´ıa,Glaciolog´ıayCienciasAmbientales
(IANIGLA),Mendoza,Argentina
StephenG.Evans,NaturalDisasterSystems,DepartmentofEarthandEnvironmental
Sciences,UniversityofWaterloo,Waterloo,Ontario,Canada
TracyEwen,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
Urs H. Fischer, Nationale Genossenschaft fu¨r die Lagerung radioactiver Abfa¨lle
(Nagra),Wettingen,Switzerland
LuziaFischer,NorwegianGeologicalSurvey,Trondheim,Norway
SvenFollin,SFGeoLogic AB,Ta¨by,Sweden
CaptainDavidFowler,RetiredCanadianCoastGuardCaptain,McDougall,ON,Canada
IsabelleGa¨rtner-Roer,DepartmentofGeography,UniversityofZu¨rich,Switzerland
Marten Geertsema, Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations,
PrinceGeorge,BC,Canada
Marco Giardino, GeoSitLab, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universita` di
Torino,Italy
Hugo Delgado Granados, Departamento de Vulcanolog´ıa, Instituto de Geof´ısica,
UniversidadNacionalAuto´nomadeMe´xico,Me´xico
Stephan Gruber, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton
University,Ottawa,Canada
WilfriedHaeberli,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
William D. Harrison, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK,
USA
AndreasHasler,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
Tobias Heckmann, Department of Physical Geography, Catholic University of
Eichsta¨tt-Ingolstadt, Germany
SarahHirschorn,NuclearWasteManagementOrganization(NWMO),Toronto,ON,
Canada
ChristianHuggel,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
Matthias Huss, Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH,
Zurich,Switzerland;DepartmentofGeosciences,UniversityofFribourg,Switzerland
JerrilynnJackson,Department ofGeography,UniversityofOregon,USA
Michal Jenicek, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland;
Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Faculty of Science, Charles
UniversityinPrague, CzechRepublic
Contributors xv
MarkJensen,NuclearWasteManagementOrganization(NWMO),Toronto,ON,Canada
Margareta Johansson, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science,
LundUniversity,Lund,Sweden
AndreasKa¨a¨b,DepartmentofGeosciences, UniversityofOslo,Norway
Siegfried Keller, Bundesanstalt fu¨r Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR),
Hannover,Germany
Laura Kennell, Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), Toronto, ON,
Canada
MattKing,SchoolofGeographyandEnvironmentalStudies,UniversityofTasmania,
Hobart, Australia
Martin Kirkbride, Geography, School of the Environment, University of Dundee,
UnitedKingdom
Oliver Korup, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam,
Germany
MichaelKrautblatter,TechnischeUniversita¨tMu¨nchen,Germany
Ivana Kubat, National Research Council of Canada, Coastal and River Engineering,
Ottawa,Ontario,Canada
Alexandre W. Lai, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, Integrity Management
Department, Fairbanks,AK,USA
Florence Magnin, EDYTEM Lab, Universite´ de Savoie, CNRS, Le Bourget-du-Lac
Cedex,France
Stefan Margreth, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos,
Switzerland
Hans Peter Marshall, Department of Geosciences and Center for Geophysical
InvestigationoftheShallowSubsurface,BoiseStateUniversity,ID,USA
SamuelMcColl,PhysicalGeographyGroup,InstituteofAgricultureandEnvironment,
MasseyUniversity,PalmerstonNorth,Australia
GrahamMcDowell,DepartmentofGeography,McGill University,Montral, Canada
Patricia Julio Miranda, Escuela de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad
Auto´nomadeSan LuisPotos´ı,Frac.Talleres, Me´xico
JeffreyMoore,DepartmentofGeologyandGeophysics,UniversityofUtah,SaltLake
City,UT,UnitedStates
PatriciaMothes,InstitutoGeof´ısico,Escuela Polite´cnicaNacional,Quito,Ecuador
Jens-Ove Na¨slund, Svensk Ka¨rnbra¨nslehantering AB (SKB), Blekholmstorget,
Stockholm,Sweden
StefanoNormani,CivilandEnvironmentalEngineering,UniversityofWaterloo,ON,
Canada
GennadyA.Nosenko,InstituteofGeography,RussianAcademyofSciences,Moscow,
Russia
Gerardo Carrasco Nu´n˜ez, Centro de Geociencias, Campus UNAM Juriquilla,
Quere´taro,Qro
xvi Contributors
Jim E. O’Connor, U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon Water Science Center, Portland,
Oregon,USA
Atsumu Ohmura, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Swiss Federal
InstituteofTechnology(E.T.H),Zurich,Switzerland
Galina B. Osipova, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow,
Russia
FrankPaul,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
Ce´sarPortocarrero,IndependentConsultant,Huaraz,Peru
Jorge Corte´s Ramos, Departamento de Vulcanolog´ıa, Instituto de Geof´ısica,
UniversidadNacionalAuto´nomadeMe´xico,Me´xico
Ludovic Ravanel, EDYTEM Lab, Universite´ de Savoie, CNRS, Le Bourget-du-Lac
Cedex,France
JohnM.Reynolds,ReynoldsInternationalLtd,Mold,UK
Hugo Moreno Roa, Servicio Nacional de Geolog´ıa y Miner´ıa (SERNAGEOMIN),
ObservatorioVolcanolo´gicodelosAndesdelSur(OVDAS),Rudecindo,Temuco,
Chile
Mohamed Sayed, National Research Council of Canada, Coastal and River Engi-
neering,Ottawa,Ontario,Canada
Philippe Schoeneich, Institut de Ge´ographie Alpine, Universite´ de Grenoble, CNRS,
Grenoble,France
Ju¨rg Schweizer, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos,
Switzerland
JanSeibert,DepartmentofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland;Department
ofEarthSciences, Uppsala,University,Sweden
Jan-OlofSelroos,SvenskKa¨rnbra¨nslehanteringAB (SKB),Stockholm,Sweden
Dmitry Streletskiy, Department of Geography, George Washington University,
WashingtonDC,USA
DarrelA.Swift,DepartmentofGeography,UniversityofSheffield,UnitedKingdom
Martin Truffer, Geophysical Institute and the Department of Physics, University of
Alaska,Fairbanks,AK,USA
Alec van Herwijnen, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos,
Switzerland
AlexanderVasiliev,Earth CryosphereInstituteRAS,Moscow,Russia
LuisVicun˜a,Department ofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
PatrikVidstrand,SvenskKa¨rnbra¨nslehanteringAB (SKB),Stockholm,Sweden
AndreasVieli,DepartmentofGeography,UniversityofZurich,Switzerland
ColinWhiteman,SchoolofEnvironmentandTechnology,UniversityofBrighton,UK
Editorial
Foreword
Hazards are processes that produce danger to human life and infrastructure.
Risksarethepotentialorpossibilitiesthatsomethingbadwillhappenbecause
of the hazards. Disasters are that quite unpleasant result of the hazard
occurrence that caused destruction of lives and infrastructure. Hazards, risks,
and disasters have been coming under increasing strong scientific scrutiny in
recent decades as a result of a combination of numerous unfortunate factors,
manyofwhicharequiteoutofcontrolasaresultofhumanactions.Atthetop
of the list of exacerbating factors to any hazard, of course, is the tragic
exponential population growth that is clearly not possible to maintain indefi-
nitely on a finite Earth. As our planet is covered ever morewith humans, any
naturalorhuman-caused(unnatural?)hazardousprocessisincreasinglylikely
to adversely impact life and construction systems. The volumes on hazards,
risks, and disasters that we present here are thus an attempt to increase un-
derstandings about how to best deal with these problems, even while we all
recognize the inherent difficulties of even slowing down the rates of such
processes as other compounding situations spiral on out of control, such as
exploding population growth and rampant environmental degradation.
Some natural hazardous processes such as volcanos and earthquakes that
emanatefromdeepwithintheEarth’sinteriorareinnowayaffectedbyhuman
actions, but a number of others are closely related to factors affected or
controlled by humanity, even if however unwitting. Chief among these, of
course, are climate-controlling factors, and no small measure of these can be
exacerbatedbythenowobviousongoingclimatechangeathand(Hay,2013).
Pervasive range and forest fires caused by human-enhanced or induced
droughtsandfuelloadings,mega-floodingintosprawlingurbancomplexeson
floodplainsandcoastalcities,biologicalthreatsfromlocustplaguesandother
ecological disasters gone awry; all of these and many others are but a small
part of the potentials for catastrophic risk that loom at many different scales,
from the local to planet girdling.
Infact,thedenialofpossibleplanet-widecatastrophicrisk(Rees,2013)as
exaggerated jeremiadsinmedia landscapes saturated with sensational science
stories and end-of-the-world Hollywood productions is perhaps quite under-
standable, even if simplistically short-sighted. The “end-of-days” tropes pro-
moted by the shaggy-minded prophets of doom have been with us for
centuries,mainlybecauseofBiblicalversewrittenintheearlyIronAgeduring
remarkably pacific times of only limited environmental change. Nowadays,
xvii
xviii EditorialForeword
however, the Armageddon enthusiasts appear to want the worst to validate
their death desires to validate their holy books. Unfortunately we are all
entering times when just a few individuals could actually trigger societal
breakdownbyerrororterror,ifMotherNaturedoesnotdoitforusfirst.Thus
we enter contemporaneous times of considerable peril that present needs for
close attention.
Thesevolumes we address here about hazards, risks, and disasters are not
exhaustivedissertationsaboutallthedangerouspossibilitiesfacedbytheever-
burgeoninghumanpopulations,buttheydoaddressthemorecommonnatural
perilsthatpeopleface,evenwhileweleaveaside(fornow)thethinkingabout
higher-level existential threats from such things as bio- or cybertechnologies,
artificialintelligence,ecologicalcollapse,orrunawayclimatecatastrophes.In
contemplating existential risk (Rossbacher, 2013) we have lately come to
realize that the new existentialist philosophy is no longer the old sense of
disorientation or confusion at the apparently meaninglessness or hopelessly
absurd worlds of the past, but instead an increasing realization that serious
changesbyhumansappeartobeafootthateventhreatenalllifeontheplanet
(Kolbert,2014;Newitz,2013).InthegeologicaltimesoftheLateCretaceous
anasteroidcollisionwithEarthwipedoutthedinosaursandmuchotherlife;at
the present time by contrast, humanity itself appears to be the asteroid.
Misanthropicviewpointsaside,however,anincreasedunderstandingofall
levels and types of the more common natural hazards would seem a useful
endeavortoenhanceknowledgeaccessibility,evenwhileweattempttofigure
out how to extract ourselves and other life from the perils produced by the
strongclimatechangesoobviouslyunderway.Ourintentinthesevolumesisto
show the latest good thinking about the more common endogenetic and exo-
genetic processes and their roles as threats to everyday human existence. In
this fashion, the chapter authors and volume editors have undertaken to show
you overviews and more focused assessments of many of the chief obvious
threats at hand that have been repeatedly shown on screen and print media in
recent years. As this century develops, we may come to wish that these ex-
amples of hazards, risks, and disasters are not somehow eclipsed by truly
existential threats of a more pervasive nature. The future always hangs in the
balance of opposing forces; the ever-lurking, but mindless threats from an
implacable nature, or heedless bureaucracies countered only sometimes in
small ways by the clumsy and often febrile attempts by individual humans to
improve our little lots in life. Only through improved education and under-
standingwillanyofushaveachanceagainstsuch strongodds;perhaps these
volumes will add some small measure of assistance in this regard.
Specifically in this volume, the chapters presented herein show us the
myriadhazards,risks,anddisastersassociatedwiththecryospherethatbedevil
those who live in the higher latitudes and altitudes of the Earth where ice
abounds. These regions are where the solid and liquid phases of the H O
2
system are always problematic for humans to deal with anyway, and now
EditorialForeword xix
undergoing the various regimes of climate change, are being subjected to
variouschangesofstateandlocationoftheH Osystemthatcancausefurther
2
problems.WilfriedHaeberliandColinWhitemanhavehadamanydecadesof
essential personal experience studying, teaching, and writing about the
dangerous phenomena associated with the cryosphere, with the result that the
twowereabletoattractasuiteofchapterauthorswhohavegivenusalmostall
the essentials to better understand and avoid such risks. Thermokarstic
degradation of permafrost, Arctic coastal erosion, damaging glacial surges,
snow avalanches into populated regions, variable sea-level changes; these are
justafewofthecryospherichazardsandrisksthatareevermoreproblematic
of late as the magnitude of damaging climate change in the high latitudes is
even larger than in mid- and tropical latitudes. Similarly in the cryospheric
regions of high altitude, the changes are also profound as cliffs collapse
throughpermafrost-andglacier-lossdebuttressing,lossofmeltwatersupplies,
ice collapse, and other related phenomena.
This volume offers a fresh new look at hazards, risks, and disasters asso-
ciated with the snow and ice of the world, and as such is of considerable in-
teresttothosewholiveinplacesthataresubjecttofreezeandthaw.Asworld
climates continue to change, in fact, and as sea levels vary as a result of
melting glaciers and shifts in gravitational attraction, the problems associated
with changes in the cryosphere will reverberate outward around much of the
world into countries close to sea levelbutfar from the polar regions. Perhaps
the changes of the far-away cryosphere will appear to them to be relatively
unimportant,butforsomelowlandcountries,theirverysurvivalintothefuture
will be highly doubtful. Thus attention must be paid to the cryospheric phe-
nomena discussed in this book, even by those apparently far from such con-
ditionsoftheH Osystem;thisvolumedoesofferconsiderableinsightandnew
2
observations.
John (Jack) Shroder
Editor-in-Chief
REFERENCES
Hay,W.W.,2013.ExperimentingonaSmallPlanet:AScholarlyEntertainment.Springer-Verlag,
Berlin,983p.
Kolbert,E.,2014.TheSixthExtinction:AnUnnaturalHistory.HenryHolt&Company,NY,319p.
Newitz,A.,2013.Scatter,Adapt,andRemember.Doubleday,NY,305p.
Rees,M.,2013.Denialofcatastrophicrisks.Science339(6124),1123.
Rossbacher,L.A.,October,2013.Contemplatingexistentialrisk.Earth,GeologicColumn58(10),64.
Foreword by
Charles Harris
Snow and ice occur widely at higher latitudes and altitudes as perennial,
seasonal, or sporadic elements of the Earth’s surface and near surface,
depending on climatic conditions. Such snow and ice phenomena include ice
sheets, glaciers, permafrost, snow fieldsdsea, lake, and river ice, and
constitute the Earth’s cryosphere. The cold regions of the Earth are charac-
teristically inherently hazardous, due to their topography, the dynamics of
largeicemasses,andthedistinctivecryogenicgeologicalprocessesassociated
with phase changes from ice to water. Such hazards are diverse and their
associated risks to people, infrastructure, and economic activity are undoubt-
edly becoming greater as population densities increase.
In addition, however, if we are to accurately forecast the potential scale and
distribution of future hazards associated with, or arising from, the Earth’s
cryosphere, it is critically important that the response of these thermally
sensitive environments to changing global climate is understood and accu-
rately modeled. Hence, the challenge that the present volume addresses is to
present our current knowledge of snow- and ice-related hazards and their
distribution,bothspatiallyandtemporally,togetherwithourunderstandingof
theimpactthatlikelyfutureglobalclimatechangesmayhaveonthescaleand
distribution of these hazards. Site-specific, very short-term events such as
localized landslides or snow avalanches lie at one extreme of spatial scale,
impacts on the hydrological cycle and water resources of drainage basins
provide an example of potential intermediate scale hazard and risk, whereas
the truly global scale includes the effects of sea level changes on coastal en-
vironments and communities. Temporal scales likewise range from the virtu-
allyinstantaneous,suchasthereleaseofasnowavalanche,throughdecadesor
centuries over which time the volume of ice sheets and glaciers may change
significantly, to tens of millennia, when the Earth may experience further
glacial periods with serious potential impacts on, for instance, deep nuclear
repositories.
Scientific and technological advances in measuring snow and ice phe-
nomenaandmonitoringtheirchangesinspaceandtimehavegreatlyincreased
our knowledge and understanding of cryospheric phenomena; this knowledge
isnowincreasinglyappliedtoriskassessmentandavoidance,andtoinforming
strategiesdesignedtoincreaseourresiliencetohazardousevents.Thepresent
volumebringstogethercontributionsfromaninternational group ofscientists
and covers a very wide spectrum of hazards that arise from the presence of,
xxi
