Topic: The past, present and future of Snow Engineering

Professor Dr. Ing. Thomas K. Thiis from Norway is an expert on climatic load and climate adaptation of buildings. His core qualifications are in Engineering, Building Physics, Energy and Climate. He has been working on standardization both in ISO, as convener in the ISO snow load committee from 2009 until now and as a member of the team responsible for the EUROCODE on snow loads. In addition to his academic position at Norwegian University of Life Science (NMBU), he has been working part time in engineering consulting, on implementation of the latest research in his field to engineering solutions.His scientific research interests lie in sustainable buildings, microscale climate and climatic loads and how these affect the building physics and the energy use of buildings. His project portfolio ranges from determining degradation of wooden facades to work on developing the model for snow load on roofs, which is currently used in the international snow load standard. He has a long publication record together with colleagues from more than 15 countries.Professor Thiis has previously worked at Norwegian University of Science and Technology and University of Coimbra, Portugal.

Abstract: Snow engineering refers to an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the study, manipulation, and management of snow and its interactions with various environments and structures. The field encompasses a range of scientific and engineering disciplines, including meteorology, hydrology, civil engineering, structural engineering, environmental science, and materials science. The primary goal of snow engineering is to understand and address the challenges and opportunities posed by snow in different contexts. This paper address both the challenges and the opportunities in the present as well as the past and the near future. It contains an overview of research fields where snow engineering has made progress from the first snow engineering conference back in 1988 until now. Also, considerations of the future of snow engineering are discussed. Which fields within snow engineering are necessary to develop further and why?

An important field within snow engineering is the interaction between infrastructure and snow. This includes buildings, traffic, power generation and transport such as solar power, wind power and electrical transmission cables. This section looks specifically at the advances the past 30 years, including standardization of snow loads and a look into the field of snow avalanche.

In some instances, snow is also a resource, such as when we go skiing. Indoor snow parks with artificial snow in a cold room has been constructed in several countries and is now quite common. Both in countries where snow is looked upon as something exotic but also in typically cold countries such as Norway and Sweden.

In some cases, snow has been rediscovered as a resource. We have used snow for cooling a long time, but it was rediscovered as a large-scale cooling source for use in buildings in Japan in the 1990s. Since then, there are several examples of large-scale installations using stored snow for cooling. Some of these will be discussed.

Some of the snow engineering topics relies on knowledge from natural science. Snow science is an important basis for snow engineering and there is not always a clear distinction between snow science and snow engineering. Some recent advances within snow science, which is important for the field of snow engineering will be discussed. Particularly will the effect of climate change on snow be important for the field of snow engineering.