Wet slab avalanches: theory and recent research…or what do we really know about wet slabs?
Peitzsch, E. 2008. Wet slab avalanches: theory and recent research…or what do we really know about wet slabs?, The Avalanche Review, 26:4, 20-21.
Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Biography
Education
Ph.D. Earth Sciences, Snow Science. 2020. Montana State University, Bozeman
MS. Earth Sciences (Snow Science). 2009. Montana State University, Bozeman
BA. Environmental Studies. 2000. Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR
Research Interests
My main interests lie in the realm of snow and ice. Previous projects include investigating wet snow avalanche processes, such as water movement in the snowpack and its implications for wet slab avalanches. Working as an avalanche forecaster for the spring opening of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park allows me to continue work on wet snow avalanche projects such as glide slab avalanches. I am also interested in investigating ecological change associated with avalanches, avalanche runout probability, and the relationship between climate and avalanches. Other research interests include monitoring mass balance of small mountain catchment glaciers.
Science and Products
Date published: August 17, 2021
Status: Active Wet Snow Avalanche Research
Wet snow avalanches, including both wet slab and glide avalanches, are dangerous and can be particularly difficult to predict because they are relatively poorly understood compared to dry snow avalanches. They pose significant risk to human life and infrastructure in mountainous areas throughout the world. Wet snow avalanches are caused by weakening in the strength of the snowpack, often...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Attribution: Land Resources, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Date published: August 17, 2021
Status: Active Remote Sensing Tools Advance Avalanche Research
The USGS Snow and Avalanche Project (SNAP) uses remotely sensed technologies to understand snowpack changes that influence water storage, recreation, avalanche hazard and acts as a driver of landscape change. Satellites, uninhabited aerial systems (UAS), and structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry are some of the tools scientists use to collect high resolution imagery that supports...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D, Zachary Miller
Date published: May 6, 2021
Status: Active Examining Snow Avalanche Frequency and Magnitude
Snow avalanches pose substantial risks to human safety, commerce, and infrastructure in mountainous regions across the globe. Avalanches also act as drivers of important ecological change by creating and modifying habitat for flora and fauna. To better understand the dynamic processes of avalanches at multiple scales, the USGS Snow and Avalanche project uses a variety of methods to study...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Attribution: Ecosystems, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Date published: March 15, 2021
Status: Active Glaciers—Understanding Climate Drivers
Across the globe, glaciers are decreasing in volume and number in response to climate change. Glaciers are important for agriculture, hydropower, recreation, tourism, and biological communities. Loss of glaciers contributes to sea-level rise, creates environmental...
Contacts: Caitlyn Florentine, Ph.D., Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Date published: October 29, 2020
Status: Active USGS Snow and Avalanche Project
Snow avalanches are a widespread natural hazard to humans and infrastructure as well as an important landscape disturbance affecting mountain ecosystems. Forecasting avalanche frequency is challenging on various spatial and temporal scales, and this project aims to fill a gap in snow science by focusing on reconstructing avalanche history on the continental mountain range scale - throughout...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Attribution: Climate Research and Development Program
Date published: September 13, 2017
Status: Active Science in Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park (GNP) is considered a stronghold for a large diversity of plant and animal species and harbors some of the last remaining populations of threatened and endangered species such as grizzly bear and bull trout, as well as non threatened keystone species such as bighorn sheep and black bear. The mountain ecosystems of GNP that support these species are dynamic and influenced...
Date published: May 9, 2017
Status: Active Time Series of Glacier Retreat
The retreat of glaciers (see PDF at end of page) in Glacier National Park, Montana, has received widespread attention by the media, the public, and scientists because it is a clear and poignant indicator of change in the northern Rocky Mountains of the USA. In 2017, the USGS and Portland State University released a dataset which describes the...
Date published: May 5, 2016
Status: Active Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems (CCME)
Climate change is widely acknowledged to have a profound effect on the biosphere and cryosphere with many and diverse impacts on global resources. Mountain ecosystems in the western U.S., and the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains in particular, are highly sensitive to climate change. Warming in western Montana is nearly 2 times greater than the rise in global temperatures over the last 100+ years...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D, Caitlyn Florentine, Ph.D.
Date published: April 6, 2016
Status: Active Repeat Photography Project
Repeat photography provides objective visual evidence of landscape change. USGS scientists created approximately sixty repeat photography pairs that document glacier change in Glacier National Park. These photograph pairs are available as a collection hosted by the USGS Photographic Library and are publicly available for download. Modern (1997 to 2019) photographs were taken from precisely...
Date published: April 6, 2016
Status: Active Going-to-the-Sun Road Avalanche Forecasting Program
As the most popular attraction in Glacier National Park (GNP), the Going-to-the-Sun Road traverses scenic alpine zones and crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (2026m or 6,647' elevation). The Park closes a 56km (34.8 mile) section of the road each winter due to inclement weather, heavy snowfall, and avalanche hazards. Annual spring opening of the road is a highly anticipated event...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Date published: April 6, 2016
Status: Active Brief History of Glaciers in Glacier National Park
The history of glaciation in Glacier National Park spans thousands of years of glacial growth and recession, carving the steep and striking mountain features we see today. Glaciers have been present within the boundaries of present-day Glacier National Park since as early as 6,500 years ago (Munroe and others, 2012). These modest glaciers varied in size, tracking climatic trends, but did not...
Contacts: Caitlyn Florentine, Ph.D., Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D
Date published: April 6, 2016
Status: Active Status of Glaciers in Glacier National Park
Glaciers on the Glacier National Park (GNP) landscape have ecological value as a source of cold meltwater in the otherwise dry late summer months, and aesthetic value as the park’s namesake features. USGS scientists have studied these glaciers since the late 1800s, building a body of research that documents widespread glacier change over the past century. Ongoing USGS research pairs long-term...
Year Published: 2021
Climate drivers of large magnitude snow avalanche years in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains
Large magnitude snow avalanches pose a hazard to humans and infrastructure worldwide. Analyzing the spatiotemporal behavior of avalanches and the contributory climate factors is important for understanding historical variability in climate-avalanche relationships as well as improving avalanche forecasting. We used established dendrochronological...
Peitzsch, Erich; Pederson, Gregory T.; Birkeland, Karl W.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Fagre, Daniel B.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2021
A regional spatio-temporal analysis of large magnitude snow avalanches using tree rings
Snow avalanches affect transportation corridors and settlements worldwide. In many mountainous regions, robust records of avalanche frequency and magnitude are sparse or non-existent. However, dendrochronological methods can be used to fill this gap and infer historical avalanche patterns. In this study, we developed a tree-ring-based avalanche...
Peitzsch, Erich; Hendrikx, Jordy; Stahle, Daniel Kent; Pederson, Gregory T.; Birkeland, Karl W.; Fagre, Daniel B.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Specialized meltwater biodiversity persists despite widespread deglaciation
Glaciers are important drivers of environmental heterogeneity and biological diversity across mountain landscapes. Worldwide, glaciers are receding rapidly due to climate change, with important consequences for biodiversity in mountain ecosystems. However, the effects of glacier loss on biodiversity have never been quantified across a mountainous...
Muhlfeld, Clint C.; Cline, Timothy Joseph; Giersch, J. Joseph; Peitzsch, Erich; Florentine, Caitlyn; Jacobsen, Dean; Hotaling, Scott
Year Published: 2019
Reanalysis of the U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers: Long-term insight into climate forcing of glacier mass balance
Mountain glaciers integrate climate processes to provide an unmatched signal of regional climate forcing. However, extracting the climate signal via intercomparison of regional glacier mass balance records can be problematic when methods for extrapolating and calibrating direct glaciological measurements are mixed or inconsistent. To address this...
O'Neel, Shad; McNeil, Christopher J.; Sass, Louis C.; Florentine, Caitlyn; Baker, Emily; Peitzsch, Erich; McGrath, Daniel J; Fountain, Andrew G.; Fagre, Daniel B.
Year Published: 2019
Forecasting for dry and wet avalanches during mixed rain and snow storm events
Professionals in coastal and some inland mountain ranges regularly face mixed rain-snow events. Professionals in inland ranges frequently deal with persistent slab avalanches failing on old faceted layers buried deep within the snowpack. What happens when you combine these snowpack and weather events? Widespread avalanching involving faceted...
Savage, Scott; Peitzsch, Erich; Trautman, Simon; VandenBos, BenjaminAttribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2018
Detecting snow depth change in avalanche path starting zones using uninhabited aerial systems and structure from motion photogrammetry
Understanding snow depth distribution and change is useful for avalanche forecasting and mitigation, runoff forecasting, and infrastructure planning. Advances in remote sensing are improving the ability to collect snow depth measurements. The development of structure from motion (SfM), a photogrammetry technique, combined with the use of...
Peitzsch, Erich H.; Fagre, Daniel B.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Birkeland, Karl W.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program
View Citation
Peitzsch, E.H., Fagre, D.B., Hendrikx, J., Birkeland, K.W. Detecting snow depth change in avalanche path starting zones using uninhabited aerial systems and structure from motion photogrammetry. In: Proceedings of the 2018 International Snow Science Workshop, Innsbruck, Austria. 8-12 October 2018.
Year Published: 2018
Identifying major avalanche years from a regional tree-ring based avalanche chronology for the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains
Avalanches not only pose a major hazard to people and infrastructure, but also act as an important ecological disturbance. In many mountainous regions in North America, including areas with existing transportation corridors, reliable and consistent avalanche records are sparse or non-existent. Thus, inferring long-term avalanche...
Peitzsch, Erich H.; Fagre, Daniel B.; Pederson, Gregory T.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Birkeland, Karl W.; Stahle, DanielAttribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program
View Citation
Peitzsch, E.H., Fagre, D.B., Pederson, G.T, Hendrikx, J., Birkeland, K.W., Stahle, D. Identifying major avalanche years from a regional tree-ring based avalanche chronology for the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains. In: Proceedings of the 2018 International Snow Science Workshop, Innsbruck, Austria. 8-12 October 2018.
Year Published: 2018
Local topography increasingly influences the mass balance of a retreating cirque glacier
Local topographically driven processes – such as wind drifting, avalanching, and shading – are known to alter the relationship between the mass balance of small cirque glaciers and regional climate. Yet partitioning such local effects from regional climate influence has proven difficult, creating uncertainty in the climate representativeness of...
Florentine, Caitlyn; Harper, Joel T.; Fagre, Daniel B.; Moore, Johnnie; Peitzsch, Erich H.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2018
On the exchange of sensible and latent heat between the atmosphere and melting snow
The snow energy balance is difficult to measure during the snowmelt period, yet critical for predictions of water yield in regions characterized by snow cover. Robust simplifications of the snowmelt energy balance can aid our understanding of water resources in a changing climate. Research to date has demonstrated that the net turbulent flux (FT)...
Stoy, Paul C.; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Wood, David J. A.; Rottinghaus, Daniel; Wohlfahrtd, Georg; Goulden, Michael; Ward, HelenAttribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program
View Citation
Paul C. Stoy, Erich Peitzsch, David Wood, Daniel Rottinghaus, Georg Wohlfahrt, Michael Goulden, Helen Ward, On the exchange of sensible and latent heat between the atmosphere and melting snow, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Volume 252, 15 April 2018, Pages 167-174, ISSN 0168-1923, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.01.028.
Year Published: 2017
Glaciological measurements and mass balances from Sperry Glacier, Montana, USA, years 2005–2015
Glacier mass balance measurements help to provide an understanding of the behavior of glaciers and their response to local and regional climate. In 2005 the United States Geological Survey established a surface mass balance monitoring program on Sperry Glacier, Montana, USA. This project is the first quantitative study of mass changes of a glacier...
Clark, Adam; Fagre, Daniel B.; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Reardon, Blase A.; Harper, Joel T.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems
View Citation
Clark, A. M., Fagre, D. B., Peitzsch, E. H., Reardon, B. A., and Harper, J. T.: Glaciological measurements and mass balances from Sperry Glacier, Montana, USA, years 2005–2015, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 47-61, doi:10.5194/essd-9-47-2017, 2017.
Year Published: 2016
Case study: 2016 Natural glide and wet slab avalanche cycle, Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
The Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) is the premier tourist attraction in Glacier National Park, Montana. The GTSR also traverses through and under 40 avalanche paths which pose a hazard to National Park Service (NPS) road crews during the annual spring snow plowing operation. Through a joint collaboration between the NPS and the U.S. Geological...
Hutchinson, Jacob; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Clark, AdamAttribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program
View Citation
Hutchinson, J., Peitzsch, E.H., , Clark, A. 2016. Cascading types of wet snow avalanches: a case study from Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana. In: E. Greene (Editor), Proceedings ISSW 2016. International Snow Science Workshop, Breckenridge CO, U.S.A., 3-7 October 2016. pp. 66-73
Year Published: 2016
Using structure from motion photogrammetry to examine glide snow avalanches
Structure from Motion (SfM), a photogrammetric technique, has been used extensively and successfully in many fields including geosciences over the past few years to create 3D models and high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) from aerial or oblique photographs. SfM has recently been used in a limited capacity in snow avalanche research and...
Peitzsch, Erich H.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Fagre, Daniel B.Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program
View Citation
Peitzsch, E.H., Hendrikx, J., and Fagre, D. 2016. Using Structure from Motion Photogrammetry to investigate glide avalanches. In: E. Greene (Editor), Proceedings ISSW 2016. International Snow Science Workshop, Breckenridge CO, U.S.A., 3-7 October 2016, pp. 12-16.
Pre-USGS Publications
Date published: May 31, 2021
Using tree-rings to unravel avalanche frequency and associated climate drivers in the northern Rocky Mountains
This article is part of the Spring 2021 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Attribution: Climate Research and Development Program
Date published: May 30, 2017
Improving avalanche hazard forecasting in a variable climate in mountain ecosystems
This article is part of the Spring 2017 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Attribution: Climate Research and Development Program