Dr Chris
Keylock
(1) Snow avalanche dynamics
I am a member of the EU-funded SATSIE project that is studying the dynamics of avalanches, either in the field or by experiments on snow or idealised granular material. We work on a field site in Norway and experimental sites in France and Italy. The image above illustrates some aspects of our work. These include: The effect of avalanche dams on the flow dynamics (the deflecting wall at Flateyri, Iceland is shown as well as a powder cloud overtopping the dam at Ryggfonn, Norway); Installation of pressure sensors at the Ryggfonn test site; Pressure measurements recorded during an avalanche.
(2) Avalanche risk analysis
Avalanche damage to a house in Iceland
I have worked on a variety of aspects of avalanche risk analysis, including the statistical characterisation of risk and the numerical modelling of avalanche dynamics. The first image illustrates the relationship between avalanche travel distance (expressed in terms of a dimensionless runout ratio) and the percentage of avalanches exceeding this distance for a hypothetical "average" avalanche path in Iceland.
(3) Avalanches and climate
In some recent work we discovered a significant relationship between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and snow avalanching in Iceland. This relationship was most clearly expressed using a cumulative index for the NAO. The image shows the value for this index (the CNI) for winter months in different years. The number of avalanches in a month is given by the dotted line. The recent rise in this index and the effect upon avalanche frequency is apparent.