Your evening longread: Can science protect us against the avalanche?

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This evening's longread is all about the people who try to keep us safe from avalanches

Image: Shutterstock/Kirill Skorobogatko Image: Shutterstock/Kirill Skorobogatko EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you an evening longread to enjoy. With the news cycle dominated by the coronavirus situation, we know it can be hard to take your mind off what’s happening. So we want to bring you an interesting read every weekday evening to help transport you somewhere else.Snow science against the avalanche

Avalanche control began in the Alps as far back as 1937, but now a lot of the research in the US into the subject happens at a place called Alta. Here’s how they do their work there, but this piece is also a fascinating look at snow and how nature creates avalanches. We think of the snow on a mountain as a solid mass. In reality, it is a layer cake created by serial snowfalls, each layer distinctive and changeable. “The snow cover is never in a state of repose,” Atwater wrote. “It is continually being pushed, pulled, pressed, bent, warmed, chilled, ventilated, churned.” The topmost layer might be evaporating into the night air; at the same time, radiant heat from the ground, or from nearby trees, could be melting the lowest layer.

 

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Not exactly a pressing issue at the moment

Sorry - not interested. I live in Tipperary.

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