Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters PDF
Preview Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters
Snow 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 Elsevier Radarweg29,POBox211,1000AEAmsterdam,Netherlands 225WymanStreet,Waltham,MA02451,USA TheBoulevard,LangfordLane,Kidlington,Oxford,OX51GB,UK Copyright(cid:1)2015ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans, electronicormechanical,includingphotocopying,recording,oranyinformationstorageand retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.Detailsonhowtoseek permission,furtherinformationaboutthePublisher’spermissionspoliciesandourarrangements withorganizationssuchastheCopyrightClearanceCenterandtheCopyrightLicensingAgency, canbefoundatourwebsite:www.elsevier.com/permissions. 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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
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