Weird things you ought to know about snow

January 20, 2015

Matthew Sturm, a geophysicist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, works with snow samples during a research trip. Photo courtesy of M. Sturm.

Diana Campbell
907-474-5229
1/20/15

Matthew Sturm can’t choose one thing he likes best about snow, because it would be like choosing which of his children he likes best.

“I love the intellect of the science,” said Sturm, a geophysicist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. “It’s pure and simple.”

There are many things to know about snow, some of which are unexpected, Sturm said. His presentation, “Weird Stuff you Ought to Know About Snow,” will kick off the GI’s Science for Alaska Lecture Series 2015, starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, in the Gold Room at the Westmark Fairbanks Hotel and Convention Center.

Snow covers about 47 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s landmass each winter, lasting anywhere from two to 10 months. Sturm is one of the world’s snow experts, having driven thousands of miles on a snowmachine for winter research missions that last for months.

“Why does snow curl off a roof?” he said. “How can an avalanche move across a flat surface so far? Why does spring snow pour like sugar?” He plans to answer those questions and more at his public lecture. He will also oversee a hands-on snow demonstration after his presentation.

Sturm grew up in New Mexico, where he would escape to the mountains as a boy. “That’s where I first saw snow,” he said.

At 17, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard and served on an icebreaker that took him to both Antarctica and the Arctic.

This is a snowflake that fell through rain. Photo courtesy of M. Sturm.

Sturm came to UAF in 1981 to work on his Ph.D., studying under Carl Benson, now a GI professor emeritus known for his snow and ice research. “I was drawn to the North,” Sturm said. “I like the snow. I don’t like the heat.” He first started studying glaciers, but then switched to snow cover and individual snow grains, he said.

Sturm is one of the world’s few experts on Arctic snow, having viewed and photographed many snow crystals. Fairbanks gets some unusual snowflakes as well. Instead of the well-known pronged flakes, snow sometimes arrives in Fairbanks in a hexagonal barrel shape, he said.

Much of Sturm’s snow research took off while he was at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory on Fort Wainwright. He has been at the Geophysical Institute for two years now, although he has worked with GI scientists frequently during the past 35 years.

He holds patents for two types of snow-measuring gadgets he’s developed, and he is a book author. He most recent book, “Apun: The Arctic Snow,” is for children and has an accompanying teacher guide. He provided his own pen and ink drawings for the book.

“I had written so many scientific papers that got read by just a handful of experts,” Sturm told GI writer Ned Rozell. “A kid’s book is going to have as much of an impact as any scholarly paper I’ll write.”

This snowflake was found in Fairbanks. Photo courtesy of M. Sturm

While doing research on the children’s book, Sturm worked with Inuit elders to understand their snow vocabulary. There are about 71 words for snow in the Inupiat Eskimo language, not hundreds, but those words capture many nuances concerning snow, Sturm said.

Matthew Sturm, a snow expert and geophysicist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, stands by his snowmachine during one of his many winter field trips. Photo courtesy of M. Sturm.

Just as Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to the Arctic, so have northern plants, animals and other living things. “Arctic ecosystems are primed for snow,” Sturm said. “Most plants and living things here have a good relationship with snow.”

But as the northern climate sees changes in weather, snow packs are undergoing significant changes, too. For instance, if thaws and winter rain increase, where will the ice layers be in the snow pack? These warm events don’t always make a crust on top but can actually make an icicle-like formation vertically in a snow pack. The ice can form deep in the pack and block the snow tunnels that voles and other critters use to survive winter, making them vulnerable to predators.

“When you see voles running across the top of snow, it may be their home is destroyed by ice dams,” Sturm said. “This phenomena may become more apparent with climate changes.” Among other things, Sturm will talk about rain and snow during his Jan. 20 presentation.

The Science for Alaska lecture series began in the 1990s. It is free to the public. The Alaska Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research is co-hosting with the GI again this year. This year, lectures will be held every Tuesday, Jan. 20 through Feb. 24.

ON THE WEB: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/PublicInformation/SFALS2015