ИСТИНА

The talk will concentrate on various subjects related to snow and avalanche research. Other than air, water, soil and rocks, and perhaps clouds, it is hard to think of any other substance as widespread as snow. In a good winter, snow covers 50 million square kilometers of the Northern Hemisphere, nearly 50% of the total land area. Water molecules to snowflakes, snowflakes to layers, layers to snowpacks, snowpacks covering vast fields, forests, mountains, glaciers, and frozen oceans. Over vast areas of the Earth, more than a third of the total annual precipitation falls as snow. Snow reflects sunlight, snow insulates the ground, snowmelt produces runof, the mechanical properties of snow affect the way we function and travel... Highly complex material, natural hazard... People love to ski and sled on it, and watch it fall from the sky. Few people, however, know how snow works and observed. What is snow metamorphism and how it works? What makes it possible for us to slide over, whether that means falling on sidewalks or skiing down a mountain? What properties of snow lead to avalanches? How to plan and protect infrastructure in an avalanche terrain?