Thesis Committee

Ian Baker, Ph.D. (Chair)

Erland Schulson, Ph.D.

Harold Frost, Ph.D.

Dave Cole, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

Understanding the role of snow and ice in the natural world is of critical importance to being able to better predict a wide variety of physical processes and phenomena that can have broad impacts on society.  Such phenomena may include being able to better predict winter snowfall rates and accumulation, the mechanical stability of a mountain snowpack, or the rate at which an ice sheet or glacier flows towards its terminus.  Although field-collected data is always of value, laboratory experiments are often the key to explaining the underlying physical mechanisms responsible for various phenomena, as laboratory experiments can both restrain random variables and provide a platform for sub-micron and atomic scale analysis via Scanning Electron Microscopy or Micro-Computed Tomography (micro-CT).  In the work presented here, the fundamentals of Materials Science and Engineering are used as the lens through which snow and ice is viewed, interpreted, and explained.  Based primarily on laboratory experiments, this presentation will cover a broad spectrum of research on snow and ice, as it would relate to:

i.Investigating the thermophysical properties of the ice-snow interface under a controlled temperature gradient; laboratory experiments on the possible causes for weak layer development in natural snowpacks.

ii.The effects of soluble impurities on the flow and fabric of polycrystalline ice; a laboratory study on how naturally occurring impurities, such as sulfuric acid and calcium sulfate, may be affecting the mechanical properties of ice sheets and glaciers.