Survival in the Snow

Source: TheStar.com

What should you do if you’re stranded outside in -15C weather? According to survivalist lore, burrow into the snow.

Weather researchers agree, and they provided the supporting scientific evidence in a recent issue of the Bulletin of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS).

During most winters, York University buries electronic thermometers at ground level beneath snow at a campus weather station. This past Feb. 29, when the air registered -15C, the temperature at the ground surface was a comparatively balmy 0. Three days later, when the air temperature rose to 12C, the ground surface remained at 0.

This is nature’s thermostat at work. The 10-centimetre-deep snow insulated the ground from the cold air. Also, any heat conducted up from the earth goes mostly into melting snow rather than raising temperatures.

Finally, when melted water freezes, it releases what’s known as “latent heat,” again maintaining the temperature near 0 at the spot where ground and snow meet.

But the survivalist thermostat fails when air temperatures are really frigid, says atmospheric science professor Peter Taylor in the CMOS Bulletin.

York also operated a weather station last winter at Iqaluit, Nunavut. The late February temperatures there were -25 to -30, both in the air and just beneath the snow surface.

“If you are stranded, burrowing under snow is still a good plan to conserve body heat,” writes Taylor, “but do not expect to find a -5C layer after several months of -30C temperatures.”

survivalism

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