Scientists at Syracuse University recently created an artificial ice storm in a forest in New Hampshire to study the effect of extreme weather conditions.

The team of researchers sprayed water 100 feet into the air to create freezing rain, said Lindsey Rustad, one of the lead researchers for the project. Four different thicknesses of ice were applied to sections of the forest to gauge the effect of both mild and severe ice storms on the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.

Charles Driscoll, a University Professor of environmental systems engineering who is one of the ice storm researchers, said the research was also conducted to better understand the impending effects of climate change. As severe weather may happen more frequently with climate change, he said he hopes this data will help researchers learn more about ice storms.

“This is the most dramatic experiment I have ever done,” Rustad said.

Ice storms are difficult to research because they are hard to predict, Driscoll said. For this reason, Rustad and Driscoll said they thought it would be easiest to set out and create their own ice storm for the research.

“This has never been done before,” Driscoll said.

Preliminary trials for the artificial storm began in 2009. The full scale experiment, however, began in spring 2015, after the team received funding from the National Science Foundation.

Researchers sprayed a different thicknesses of ice onto separated plots of land that are each about the size of a basketball court, Rustad said. The amount of icing varied and included quarter-inch, half-inch and three-quarter-inch layers of ice. This range of icing simulated both average and severe ice storms.

Rustad said the forest struggled to recover after a second year of half-inch icing was applied.

Branches broke and trees toppled over, physically reshaping the forest, Driscoll said. The destruction created a new opportunity for pathogens and other organisms to come in and further change the habitat, he noted.

There are also researchers working who have been tasked with understanding the frequency and extent of icing events globally as climate change takes effect, Driscoll added. By using a computer simulation, researchers will use the data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest ice storm experiment to improve the global-scale model and discover what people can expect in the future.

The team also reached out to different communities. Driscoll and Rustad said they wanted to connect with people and get outside perspectives. Forest managers and emergency organizations came to see the damaged forest firsthand and collect information for themselves about ice storms.

Driscoll hopes to study such ice storms for years to come, depending on the team’s ability to retain funding for their experiments.

Rustad said it’s important to have an understanding of ice storms and the impact they have on the environment and local communities.

“The bottom line is, they’re a big deal.” Rustad said.

Published on January 25, 2017 at 8:45 pm