A process-based approach to estimate point snow instability

Reuter, B.; Schweizer, J.; van Herwijnen, A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-837-2015

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-837-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-837-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

Research article

|

04 May 2015

Research article |

| 04 May 2015

A process-based approach to estimate point snow instability

B. Reuter, J. Schweizer, and A. van Herwijnen

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Final revised paper (published on 04 May 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Nov 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC C2799: 'RC - invited review', B. Jamieson, 02 Jan 2015
- RC C3160: 'Review', J. Bruce Jamieson, 20 Feb 2015
  - AC C3186: 'Authors' final comments', Benjamin Reuter, 06 Mar 2015
  - AC C3190: 'Authors' final comments', Benjamin Reuter, 09 Mar 2015
RC C2912: 'RC - invited review', Evgeny A. Podolskiy, 18 Jan 2015
- AC C3188: 'Authors' final comments', Benjamin Reuter, 06 Mar 2015
- AC C3191: 'Authors' final comments', Benjamin Reuter, 09 Mar 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Benjamin Reuter on behalf of the Authors (10 Mar 2015)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (19 Mar 2015) by Florent Dominé

This paper received favorable reviews and only minor modifications were requested. The revised version is essentially acceptable, but I still recommend minor changes intended to improve the clarity of the paper. These are listed below.

Lines 159-160: suggested alternate wording:
The penetration depth was calculated from equation (5) by integrating the penetration resistance F from the snow surface to PS until a threshold absorbed energy ea= 0.036 J is reached. The value of ea has been determined ….

Line 199: suggested alternate wording:
i.e. density and thickness of slab layers were set to fixed values.
By the way, are those values somewhat arbitrary? If this is the case, then perhaps add the word “arbitrary” to your sentence.

Line 201. Would it be useful to specify that the value of the Poisson ratio has little influence, and perhaps briefly quantify it? Some readers may wonder.

Line 225. Would it be useful to explain why gamma=1?

Line 254. Would “obtain” be more appropriate than “receive”?

Line 351. Suggested alternate wording:
comparable to that of Mahajan and Joshi (2008)

Line 376. The response to Podolskyi’s last comment may not be sufficient. It seems to me legitimate to include references here, as suggested by the reviewer. Furthermore, I also agree with the reviewer that discussing the limitations of the use of your approach by snow professionals. These limitations may be reduced in the future, but what are they today? One or two sentences here would be welcome.

Line 183. It may be nice to the reader to understand why the SMP gives strength values that are so different from those obtained by other methods. The fact that it is an indentation test may not be viewed as a sufficient explanation. You may want to elaborate, especially since your reply to Jamieson appear to include some elements of response.

After these minor changes are considered, the paper will be accepted.

Florent Domine

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AR by Benjamin Reuter on behalf of the Authors (20 Mar 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (28 Mar 2015) by Florent Dominé

AR by Benjamin Reuter on behalf of the Authors (29 Mar 2015)

Short summary

We present a novel approach to estimate point snow instability based on snow mechanical properties from snow micro-penetrometer measurements. This is the first approach that takes into account the essential processes involved in dry-snow slab avalanche release: failure initiation and crack propagation. Comparison with field observations confirms that the two-step calculation of a stability criterion and a critical crack length is suited to describe point snow instability.