Jean-Benoit Madore

Université de Sherbrooke | UdeS · Department of Applied Geomatics

Water percolation in snow plays a crucial role in the avalanche risk assessment. Liquid water content and wetting front are hard to measure in the field; hence, accurate simulation of the phenomena can be of great help to forecasters. This study was the first to evaluate water percolation simulations with the SNOWPACK model using Richards’ scheme o...

There is significant spatial variability in snow cover characteristics across the Arctic. Current physical or empirical approaches to simulate or measure snow state variables suffer from poor spatial and/or temporal resolutions. Our current understanding of the spatio-temporal variability in Arctic snow cover leads to uncertainties in existing snow...

Considering the increased popularity for backcountry mountain recreation activities, potentially problematic snowpack interfaces are currently of great interest given their impact on snow stability. The identification of interface vertical locations and spatial variability in the snowpack is essential for avalanche danger forecasting. The Gaspé Pen...

Monitoring the evolution of snow on the ground and lake ice—two of the most important components of the changing northern environment—is essential. In this paper, we describe a lightweight, compact and autonomous 24 GHz frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar system for freshwater ice thickness and snow mass (snow water equivalent, SWE) me...

Accurately simulating the physical properties of Arctic snowpacks is essential for modeling the surface energy budget and the permafrost thermal regime. We show that the detailed snow physics models Crocus and SNOWPACK cannot simulate critical snow physical variables. Both models simulate basal layers with high density and high thermal conductivity...

The snow thermodynamic multi-layer model SNOWPACK was developed to address the risk of avalanches by simulating the vertical properties of snow. Risk and stability assessments are based on the simulation of the vertical variability of snow microstructure, as well as on snow cohesion parameters. Previous research has shown systematic error in grain...

As interest in outdoor activities in remote areas is increasing, there is a strong need for improved avalanche forecasting at the regional scale. Due to important logistical and safety matters, avalanche terrain measurements (avalanche observations, snowpack profiles, and stability tests) are not always possible for practitioners/forecasters. An in...

Risk and stability assessments from the Swiss SNOWPACK model are based on snow microstructure simulations. Previous research has shown a systematic bias in the grain size simulations (equivalent optical grain size) over several areas in northern Canada. Optical grain size was retrieved from snow specific surface area (SSA) measurements for comparis...

This paper presents a summary of analyses that has been conducted to assess the potential of the snowpack model driven by both in-situ and forecasted meteorological data in an avalanche context. Results showed good overall performance of the GEMLAM weather model, but also showed a bias when the precipitation intensity is high. The evaluation of in-...

The snow thermodynamic multi-layers model SNOWPACK was developed by the Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL/SLF) in Switzerland in order to address the risk of avalanches by simulating the vertical geophysical and thermophysical properties of snow. SNOWPACK risk assessments are based on the simulation of snow microstructure (i.e. grain size, sphe...

Each year, approximately 1.5 million avalanches potentially dangerous to humans occur in Canada; of which about 5% in areas accessible by mountain users (Stethem, 2003). As the interest for outdoor activities in remote areas such as hiking, sledding and ski touring is in-creasing, there is a strong need for improved avalanche forecasting at the reg...

Introduction • Canadian mountains climates presents differents characteristics based upon their location; • Three types of climate are often used to describe these climates (McClung & Schaerer, 1993): • Coastal climate; • Transitionnal climate; • Continental climate. • Instability in each of these snowpack have different causes, principally: • High...