EXTREMES is a project within the ETH domain, which has the goal to improve the understanding of rare events. SLF participates in the project in order to better understand the spatial distribution, and natural variability of heavy snowfall events

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How much snow evaporates and is returned to the atmosphere in the form of water vapour? Field measurements, numerical modelling and wind tunnel experiments provide new discoveries.

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The operational model of the Swiss avalanche warning service is available as an integrated software package.

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The snow cover plays a central role on the occurrence of permafrost. In order to better understand the interaction processes between snow cover and permafrost, researchers investigated the influence of different parameters on soil temperature and composition of snow cover.

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Erosion, transport and deposition of soil and snow have considerable influence on soil moisture, desertification and land degradation. Plants are able to modify these processes simply by reducing the surface exposed to the wind, by trapping particles in motion and by absorbing momentum from the flow.

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The Swiss Experiment (SwissEx) is an initiative of the Competence Centre Environment and Sustainability (CCES), headed by WSL/SLF which has been created to provide a platform for large scale sensor network deployment and information retrieval and exploitation.

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Modelling of the Antarctic snow pack with SNOWPACK to study the mass and energy exchange processes. A bibliographic research compile the actual knowledge about snow modelling in Antarctica.

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The transport of snow by wind is an important factor for avalanche danger as well as ecology and hydrology in mountainous environments. Investigations of airflow and snowdrift are carried out using field data and model. Field experiment for airflow and snow deposition/accumulation studies were held at the Gaudergrat ridge, located near Davos, accumulation and erosion studies.

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In many dry areas around the world, wind erosion gradually converts fertile land into deserts. Wind tunnel and laboratory experiments are conducted to investigate how plants and mycorrhizal fungi protect the soil from wind erosion.

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Field measurements of the snowpack structure and stability with the aim to identify the causes spatial variability. Comparing modelled patterns obtained by the model ALPINE3D with field data in order to assess the model accuracy and to determine the causes of spatial variability. Relate modelled output to avalanche activity and predicted avalanche danger degree.

Available languages: German  English