I Can’t Sleep - Snow | Calm Bedtime Reading for Restful Sleep

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

Unwind with calm bedtime reading about snow to ease insomnia and restless nights. This peaceful episode explores the beauty and science of snow, from delicate ice crystals and snowflakes to its role in weather, climate, and culture. Benjamin’s soothing cadence makes it easy to relax as you gently learn about nature’s winter blanket. There’s no whispering or hypnosis—just calm, fact-filled storytelling to quiet the mind, reduce stress, and help you drift off. Press play, let your thoughts settle, and fall asleep with ease. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Snow, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia – Snow. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast. What if I told you that most of the modern day self-help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel-good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger Podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science-backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and international best-selling author. In each episode, we cover research-back strategies, like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change. And the five mental strength-building exercises you can do from your couch. I also speak to world-class experts like Dr. Nicole Kane, who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause.

With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast, where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled Snow. Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere, usually within clouds, and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.

It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surface. then metamorphose in place and ultimately melt, slide, or sublimate away. Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, which freeze in hexagonal-shaped crystals. Snowflakes take on a variety of shapes, basic among these are. platelets, needles, columns, and rhyme.

As snow accumulates into a snowpack, it may blow into drifts. Over time, accumulated snow metamorphoses by centering, sublimation, and freeze-thaw, where the climate is cold enough for year-to-year accumulation, a glacier may form. Otherwise, snow typically melts seasonally, causing runoff. into streams and rivers and recharging groundwater. Major snow-prone areas include the polar regions, the northernmost half of the northern hemisphere, and mountainous regions worldwide,

with sufficient moisture and cold temperatures. In the southern hemisphere, snow is confined primarily to mountainous areas, apart from Antarctica. Snow affects such human activities as transportation, creating the need for keeping roadways, wings and windows clear agriculture

providing water to crops and safeguarding livestock sports such as skiing snowboarding and snow machine travel and warfare snow affects ecosystems as well by providing an insulating layer during winter under which plants and animals

are able to survive the cold snow develops in clouds that themselves are part of a larger weather system The physics of snow crystal development in clouds results from a complex set of variables that include moisture content and temperatures. The resulting shapes of the falling and fallen crystals can be classified into a number of basic shapes and combinations thereof. Occasionally some plate-like dendritic and stellar-shaped snowflakes can form under clear sky with a very cold temperature inversion present. cloud formation Snow clouds usually occur in the context of larger weather systems.

The most important of which is the low-pressure area, which typically incorporate warm and cold fronts as part of their circulation. To additional and locally productive sources of snow are like effect, also sea effect, storms, and elevation effects, especially in mountains. Low-pressure areas Mid-latitude cyclones are low-pressure areas, which are capable of producing anything from cloudiness and mild snowstorms to heavy blizzards. During a hemisphere's fall, winter, and spring.

During a hemisphere's fall, winter, and spring, the atmosphere over continents can be cold enough through the depth of the troposphere to cause snowfall. In the northern hemisphere, the northern side of the low-pressure area produces the most snow-storms. For the southern mid latitudes, the side of a cyclone that produces the most snow is the southern side. Fronts. A cold front, the leading edge of a cooler mass of air, can produce frontal snow squalls, an intense frontal convective line, similar to a rain band, when temperature is near freezing at the surface. The strong convection that develops has enough moisture to produce wide out-conductor to produce wide-out-conduble.

reduce whiteout conditions at places which line passes over as the wind causes intense blowing snow. This type of snow squall generally lasts less than 30 minutes at any point along its path. The motion of the line can cover large distances. Frontal squalls may form a short distance ahead of the surface cold front or behind the cold front where there may be a deepening low pressure system, or a series of trough lines which act similar to a traditional cold frontal passage. In situations where squalls develop post-frontally, it is not usual to have two or three linear squall bands pass in rapid succession,

only separated by 25 miles, 40 kilometers, with each passing the same point and roughly 30 minutes apart. In cases where there is a large amount of vertical growth and mixing, the squall may develop embedded cumulinimbus clouds, resulting on lightning and thunder, which is dubbed thunder snow. A warm front can produce snow for a period as warm, moist air overrides below freezing air, and creates precipitation at the boundary. Often snow transitions to rain in the warm sector behind the front. Lake and ocean effects. Lake affects snow is produced during cooler atmospheric conditions when a cold air mass moves.

moves across long expanses of warmer lake water. Warming the lower layer of air, which picks up water vapor from the lake, rises up through the colder air above, freezes and is deposited on the leeward downward shores. The same effect also occurs over bodies of saltwater when it is termed ocean effect or bay effect snow. The effect is enhanced when the moving air mass is uplifted by the orographic influence of higher elevations on the downwind shore. This uplifting can produce narrow but very intense bands of precipitation, which deposit at a rate of many inches of snow each hour, often resulting in a large amount of total snowfall.

The areas affected by lake effect snow are called snow belts. These include areas east of the Great Lakes, the west coasts of northern Japan, the Comchatac Peninsula and Russia, and areas near the Great Salt Lake, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Baltic Sea, and parts of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Mountain effects Oroographic or relief snowfall is caused when masses of air pushed by wind are forced up the side of elevated land formations, such as large mountains.

The lifting of air up the side of a mountain or range results in adiabatic cooling, and ultimately condensation and precipitation. moisture is removed by orographic lift, leaving drier, warmer air on the descending leeward side. The resulting enhanced productivity of snowfall and the decrease in temperature with elevation means that snow depth and seasonal persistence of snowpack increases with elevation in snow-prone areas. Cloud Physics A snowflake consists of roughly 10 to the 19th power water molecules. which are added to its core at different rates and in different patterns, depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere that the snowflake falls through on its way to the ground.

As a result, snowflakes vary among themselves while following similar patterns. Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than negative 18 degrees Celsius, because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice. Then the droplet freezes around this nucleus. In warmer clouds, an aerosol particle or ice nucleus must be present in or in contact with the droplet to act as a nucleus. Ice nuclei are very rare compared to that cloud condensation nuclei in which liquid droplets are, what's form. Clays, desert dust, and biological particles can be nuclei. Artificial nuclei include

particles of silver iodide and dry ice, and these are used to stimulate precipitation in cloud seeding. Once a droplet is frozen, it grows in the super saturated environment, one where air is saturated with respect to ice when the temperature is below the freezing point. The droplet then grows by diffusion of water molecules in the air vapor onto the ice crystal surface where they are collected. Because water droplets are so much more numerous than the ice crystals due to their sheer abundance, the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers or millimeters in size at the expense of the water droplets by the Wergener-Berkeran-Findycin process. The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the ice crystals to grow at the droplets.

its expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass and may collide and stick together in clusters or aggregates. These aggregates are snowflakes and are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the ground. Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows and perfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles. Classification of snowflakes

Micrography of thousands of snowflakes from 1885 onward, starting with Wilson-Awain-Bentley, revealed the wide diversity of snowflakes within a classifiable set of patterns. Okiciro Nakaya developed a crystal morphology diagram, relating crystal shapes to the temperature and moisture conditions under which they formed. Nakayat discovered that the shape is also a function of whether the prevalent moisture is above or below saturation. Forms below the saturation line trend more towards solid and compact. Crystals formed in super-saturated air trend more toward lacy, delicate, and ornate.

Many more complex growth patterns also form such as side planes, bullet resets, and also planar types depending on the conditions of the ice nuclei. If a crystal is started forming in a column growth regimen at around negative 5 degrees Celsius, and then falls into the warmer plate-like regime, then plate or dendritic crystals sprout at the end of the column, producing so-called capped columns. Magono and Lee devised a classification of freshly-formed, formed snow crystals that include 80 distinct shapes. They documented each with micrographs. Accumulation.

Snow accumulates from a series of snow events, punctuated by freezing and thawing, over areas that are cold enough to retain snow seasonally or perennially. Many snow-prone areas include the Arctic and Antarctic, the northern hemisphere, and alpine regions. The liquid equivalent of snowfall may be evaluated using a snow gauge or with a standard rain gauge adjusted for winter by removal of a funnel and inner cylinder. Both types of gauges melt the accumulated snow and report the amount of water collected.

At some automatic weather stations and ultrasonic snow depth sensor may be used to augment the precipitation gauge. Snow events Snow flurry, snowstorm, and blizzard describe snow events of progressively greater duration and intensity. A blizzard is a weather condition involving snow and has varying definitions in different parts of the world. In the United States, a blizzard occurs when two conditions are met for a period of three hours or more. A sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 miles per hour, and sufficient snow in the air to reduce visibility to less than 0.4 kilometers. In Canada and the United Kingdom, the criteria are similar. While heavy snowfall often occurs during blizzard conditions, falling snow is not a requirement,

as blowing snow can create a ground blizzard. Snowstorm intensity may be categorized by visibility and depth of accumulation. Snowfall's intensity is determined by visibility as follows. Light. Visibility greater than one kilometer. Moderate. Visibility restrictions between 0.5 and 1 kilometer. Heavy. Visibility is less than 0.5 kilometers. The international classification for seasonal snow on the ground defines height of new snow as the depth of freshly fallen snow in centimeters as measured with a ruler that accumulated on a snowboard during an observation period of 24 hours.

Or other observation interval. After the measurement, the snow is cleared from the board and the board is placed flush with the snow service to provide an accurate measurement at the end of the next interval. Melting, compacting, blowing, and drifting contribute to the difficulty of measuring snowfall. Distribution Glaciers with their permanent snow packs cover about 10% of the Earth's surface, while seasonal snow covers about 9%, mostly in the northern hemisphere, where seasonal snow covers about 40 million square kilometers,

according to a 1987 estimate. A 2007 estimate of snow cover over the northern hemisphere suggested that, on average, snow cover ranges from a minimum extent of 2 million square kilometers each August to a maximum extent of 45 million square kilometers each January, or nearly half of the land surface in that hemisphere. A study of northern hemisphere snow cover extend for the period

1972 to 2006 suggests a reduction of 0.5 million square kilometers over the 35-year period. Records The following our world records regarding snowfall and snowflakes highest seasonal

total snowfall. The world record for the highest seasonal total snowfall was measured in the United States at Mount Baker's ski area outside of the city of Bellingham, Washington. During the 1998 to 1999 season. Mount Baker received 2,896 centimeters of snow, thus surpassing the previous record holder Mount Rainier, Washington, which during the 1971 to 72 season received 2,850 centimeters

of snow. Highest seasonal average annual snowfall. The world record for the highest average annual snowfall is 1,764 centimeters, measured in Sukayu-Onsen, Japan, for the the period of 1981 to 2010. Largest snowflake. According to the Guinness World Records, the world's largest snowflake fell in January 1887, outside present-day Miles City, Montana. It measured 38 centimeters in diameter. Metamorphosis.

After deposition, snow progresses on one of two paths that determine its fate, either ablation, mostly by melting, or transitioning from fern, multi-year snow into glacier ice. During the transition, snow is a highly porous, centered material made up of continuous ice structure and a continuously connected pore space, forming together the snow microstructure. Almost always near its melting temperature, a snowpack is continually transforming these properties in a process, known as metamorphism. where in all three phases of water may coexist, including liquid water, partially filling the pore space.

Starting as a powdery deposition, snow becomes more granular when it begins to compact under its own weight, be blown by the wind, scinter particles together, and commence the cycle of melting and freezing. Water vapor plays a role as it deposits ice crystals known as hoarfrost during cold, still condition. Seasonal Snowpack Over the course of time a snowpack may settle under its own weight until its density is approximately 30% of water.

Increases in density above this initial compression occur primarily by melting and refreezing, caused by temperatures above freezing or by direct solar radiation. In colder climates, snow lies on the ground all winter. By late spring,

snow densities typically reach a maximum of 50% of water. Snow that persists into summer evolves into Neve, granular snow, which has been partially melted, refrozen, and compacted. Neve has a minimum density of 500 kilograms per cubic meter, which is roughly half of the density of liquid water. Fern Fern is snow that has persisted for multiple years

and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than Neve, yet less dense and hard than glacial ice. Fern resembles caked sugar and is very resistant to shoveling. Its density generally ranges from 550 kilograms per cubic meter to 830 kilograms per cubic meter, and it can often be found underneath the snow that accumulates at the head of a glacier. The minimum altitude that fern accumulates on a glacier is called the Fern Limit. fern line or snowline. Movement.

There are four main mechanisms for movement of deposited snow. Drifting of uncensored snow. Avalanches of accumulated snow on steep slopes. Snow melt during thought conditions. And the movement of glaciers after snow has persisted for multiple years and metamorphosed into glacier ice. Drifting. When powdery snow drifts with the wind,

from the location where it originally fell, forming deposits with a depth of several meters in isolated locations. After attaching to hillsides, blown snow can evolve into a snow slab, which is an avalanche hazard on steep slopes. Avalanche. An avalanche also called a snow slide or snow slip is a rapid flow of snow down a sloping surface.

Avalanches are typically triggered in a starting zone from a mechanical failure in the snowpack, slab avalanche, when the forces on the snow exceed its strength, but sometimes only with gradually widening loose snow avalanche. After initiation, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass and volume as they entrain more snow. If the avalanche moves fast enough, some of the snow may mix with the air,

forming a powder snow avalanche, which is a type of gravity current. They occur in three major mechanisms. Slab avalanches occur in snow that has been deposited or redeposited by wind. They have the characteristic appearance of a block slab of snow, cut out from its surroundings by fractures. These account for most backcountry fatalities. Powder snow avalanches result from a deposition of fresh dry powder and generate a powder cloud cloud. which overlies a dense avalanche.

They can exceed speeds of 300 kilometers per hour and masses of 10 million tons. Their flows can travel long distances along flat valley bottoms and even uphill for short distances. Wet snow avalanches are a low velocity suspension of snow and water, with a flow confined to the surface of the pathway. The low speed of travel is due to the friction between the sloth. lighting surface of the pathway and the water-saturated flow. Despite the low speed of travel, about 10 to 40 kilometers per hour, wet snow avalanches are capable of generating powerful destructive forces due to the large mass and density. Snow melt. Many rivers originating in

mountains or high-latitude regions receive a significant portion of their flow from snowmelt. This often makes the rivers flow highly seasonal, resulting in periodic. flooding during the spring months, and at least in dry mountainous regions like the mountain west of the U.S. or most of Iran and Afghanistan, very low flow for the rest of the year. In contrast, if much of the melt is from glaciated or nearly glaciated areas, the melt continues through the warm season with peak flows occurring in mid to late summer. Glaciers glaciers form when the accumulation of snow and ice succeeds ablation. The area in which an alpine glacier forms is called a cirque, cori, or cum,

a typically armchair-shaped geological feature, which collects snow and where the snow compacts under the weight of successive layers of accumulating snow forming neve. Further crushing of the individual snow crystals and reduction of entrapped air and the snow turns it into glacial ice. This glacial ice will fill the cirque until it overflows through a geological weakness or an escape route, such as a gap between two mountains. When the mass of snow and ice is sufficiently thick, it begins to move due to a combination of surface slope, gravity, and pressure.

On steeper slopes, this can occur with as little as 15 meters of snow ice. Snow Science Scientists study snow at a wide variety of scales that include the physics of chemical bonds and clouds, the distribution, accumulation, metamorphosis, and ablation of snow packs, and the contribution of snow melt to river hydraulics and ground hydrology. In doing so, they employ a variety of instruments

to observe and measure the phenomena studied. Their findings contribute to knowledge applied by engineers who adapt vehicles and structures to snow by agronomists who address the availability of snowmelt to agriculture and those who design equipment for sporting activities on snow. Scientists develop and others employ snow classification systems that describe its physical properties at scales, ranging from the individual crystal to the aggregated snowpack. A sub-specialty is avalanches, which are of concerned to engineers and outdoor sports people alike. Snow science addresses how snow forms, its distribution, and processes affecting how snow packs change over time. Scientists improve storm forecasting, study global snow cover, and its effects on climate, glaciers, and water supplies around the world. The study includes physical properties of material as it changes, bulk properties of in-place snow packs, and the aggregate properties of regions with snow cover.

In doing so, they employ on-the-ground physical measurement techniques to establish ground truth and remote sensing techniques to develop understanding of snow-related processes over large areas. Measurement and classification In the field, snow scientists often excavate a snow pit within which to make basic measurements and observations. Observations can describe features caused by wind, water percolation, or snow unloading from trees. Water percolation into a snowpack can create flow fingers and ponding or flow along capillary barriers, which can refreeze into horizontal and vertical solid ice formations within the snowpack.

Among the measurements of the properties of snow packs that the international classification for seasonal snow on the ground includes are snow height, snow water equivalent, snow strength, and extent of snow cover. Each has a designation with code and detailed description. The classification extends the prior classifications of Dukaya and its successors to related types of precipitation. It also has a more extensive classification of deposited snow than those that pertain to airborne snow. The categories include both natural and man-made snow types, descriptions of snow crystals as they metamorphose and melt, the development of hoarfrost in the snowpack,

and the formation of ice they're in. Each such layer of a snowpack differs from the adjacent layers by one or more characteristics that describes its microstructure or density, which together define the snow type and other physical properties. Thus, at any time, the type and state of the snow forming a layer have to be defined because its physical and mechanical properties depend on them. Physical properties include microstructure, grain size and shape, snow density, liquid water content, and temperature. Satellite data.

Remote sensing of snow packs with satellites and other platforms typically includes multispectral collection of imagery. Multifaceted interpretation of the data obtained allows inferences about what is observed. The science behind these remote observations has been verified with ground truth studies of the actual conditions. Satellite observations record a decrease in snow-covered areas since the 1960s, when satellite observations began. In some regions such as China, a trend of increasing snow cover was observed from 1978 to 2006. These changes are attributed to global climate change, which may lead to, to earlier melting and less coverage area. However, in some areas, there may be an increase in snow depth

because of higher temperatures for latitudes north of 40 degrees. For the northern hemisphere as a whole, the main monthly snow cover extent has been decreasing by 1.3% per decade. The most frequently used methods to map and measure snow extend, snow depth and snow water equivalent employ multiple inputs on the visible infrared spectrum to deduce the presence and properties of snow. The National Snow and Ice Data Center, NSIDC, uses the reflectance of visible and infrared radiation to calculate a normalized difference snow index,

which is a ratio of radiation parameters that can distinguish between clouds and snow. Other researchers have developed decision trees, employing the available data to make more accurate assessments. One challenge to this assessment is where snow cover is patchy, for example during periods of accumulation or ablation and also in forested areas. Cloud cover inhibits optical sensing of surface reflectance, which has led to other methods for estimating ground conditions underneath clouds. For hydrological models, it is important to have continuous information about the snow cover. Passive microwave sensors are especially valuable for temporal and spatial continuity

because they can map the surface beneath clouds in a darkness. Combined with reflective measurements, passive microwave sensing greatly extends the inferences possible about the snowpack. Models Snow science often leads to predictive models that include snow deposition, snow melt, and snow hydrology, elements of the Earth's water cycle, which help describe global climate change. Global climate change models, GCMs, incorporate snow as a factor in their calculations. Some important aspects of snow cover

include its albedo, reflectivity of incident radiation including light, and insulating qualities, which slow the rate of seasonal melting of sea ice. As of 2011, the melt phase of GCM snow models were sought to perform poorly in regions with complex factors that regulate snow melt, such as vegetation cover and terrain. These models typically derive snow water equivalent SWE in some manner from satellite observations and snow cover.

The international classification for seasonal snow on the ground defines SWE as the depth of water that would result if the mass of snow melted completely. Given the importance of snow melt agriculture, hydrological runoff models that include snow and their predictions address the phases of accumulating snowpack, melting processes, and distribution of the melt water through stream networks and into the groundwater. key to describing the melting processes are solar heat flux, ambient temperature, wind, and precipitation. Initial snow melt models used a degree-day approach that emphasized the temperature difference between the air and the snowpack to compute snow water equivalent SWE. More recent models use an energy balance approach that take into account the following factors to compute QM, the energy available for M.

This requires measurement of an array of snowpack and environmental factors to compute six heat flow mechanisms that contribute to QM.