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When we let loose our end of the tug o' war rope against <keyword id="6361617" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, there will be little we'll be able to do to protect our coastal cities from its watery rampage. And as the oceans claim the likes of <keyword id="6358070" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mumbai" source="Orion">Mumbai</keyword> and New York, at least we'll know where all the water is coming from.<br /><br />Even if you leave the various glacier-laced mountains out of the equation, the ice sheets in <keyword id="102244" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="greenland" source="Orion">Greenland</keyword> and <keyword id="6354781" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="antarctica" source="Orion">Antarctica</keyword> hold enough frozen water to raise sea levels by 210 feet. And sadly enough, these landmasses comprise the two regions most severely affected by global warming.<br /><br />The world is getting hotter, there are no two ways about it. Greenland itself has faced a massive 3.8°C rise in temperature since the 1990s. But rising air temperatures aren't the only factors leading to the <keyword id="1352757" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ice-sheet" source="Orion">ice sheet</keyword>'s accelerated downfall, either. Wind also forms a major contributor.<br /><br />However, a new study has found that the gusty phenomenon has clear favourites, even while attacking our two best ice reserves. <br /><br />Foehn and <keyword id="19211346" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="katabatic" source="Orion">Katabatic</keyword> winds — downslope gusts that blow hot air on the tops of glaciers, akin to a hair-drier — contribute a major amount to the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets annually. The research team found that the impact of these winds on Greenland's ice sheets has spiked by as much as 10% in the past two decades. On the contrary, its effect on the Antarctic ice sheet has reduced by 32%.<br /><br />Most of this major distinction can be attributed to the way global warming is playing out differently in <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword>'s northern and southern hemispheres. Greenland has become so hot that it no longer needs wind, with the effect of sunlight substantial enough to drive melting in the region. The 10% extra wind-driven melt has just exacerbated total surface <keyword id="1583699" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ice-melt" source="Orion">ice melt</keyword> by 34% over the last 20 years.<br /><br />Further, a shift of the North Atlantic Oscillation — an extremely important weather phenomenon controlling the strength and direction of western winds and storms in the region — to a positive phase is bringing in more warm air over Greenland and other Arctic areas. The hair drier has been left in an on-state, essentially.<br /><br />Meanwhile, total Antarctic surface melt has slashed by around 15% since 2000, mostly due to 32% less downslope winds on the peninsula. Further, an improvement in the region's ozone layer, which absorbs a great deal of raw heat from the Sun, has insulated Antarctica's surface from further melting, the study suggests.<br /><br />However, this doesn't mean that the southern ice sheet is free from trouble. Antarctica has faced the collapse of two vulnerable ice shelves already. Further, research has suggested that if this melting trend continues, it could slow down global ocean water circulation patterns, which could have devastating consequences on Earth's climate, including rainfall and warming. <br /><br />"Although Greenland has been the number one driver of <keyword id="55272" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sea-level" source="Orion">sea level</keyword> rise in recent decades, Antarctica is close behind and catching up and will eventually dominate sea level rise," explains Charlie Zender, an author. "So it's important to monitor and model melt as both ice sheets deteriorate, including the ways climate change alters the relationship between wind and ice." <br /><br />The findings of this research have been published in <em>Geophysical Research Letters</em> and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2023GL102828" data-type="tilCustomLink">here</a>.<br />

Wind is thawing Greenland, but also helping Antarctica retain its ice sheets somehow

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Climate scientists observed a peculiar cooling trend in Himalayan glaciers 10 years ago.</li><li>They now think the trend may be the result of intensifying winds that can reach over 100 mph.</li></ul><p>As climate change drives up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/world-hottest-year-ever-history-climate-crisis-2024-1"><u>global average temperatures</u></a>, glaciers around the world's tallest mountains are actually getting slightly colder during the warm season, according to new research published in the peer-reviewed journal <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=0dc6c70667802d4e1cc86e2680e319594ea03a739aff2e6ac33bfcabe6c49fbc&amp;postID=65c1565b2eedcd8f95e7e0a5&amp;postSlug=mount-everest-glaciers-scientists-find-peculiar-cooling-trend-2024-2&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41561-023-01331-y"><u>Nature Geoscience</u></a>.</p><p>Located on the southern face of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dead-bodies-on-mount-everest-are-hard-to-get-down-2019-5"><u>Mount Everest</u></a> along the Khumbu Valley about 3.1 miles above sea level, sits one of the world's few high-elevation science labs, called the Pyramid International Observatory.</p><p>It's been collecting hourly data on measurements like the mountain's air temperature, total precipitation, humidity, and wind speed since the early '90s. With nearly four decades of data in hand, scientists saw a strange pattern.</p><p>They found that the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/summer-2023-heat-wave-tracker-temperature-records-2023-5"><u>maximum daytime temperature</u></a> during the warmer months from May to October had decreased by around 0.040 °C per year over the last 15 years.</p><p>Was it a mistake? The researchers cross-checked the data with other weather stations around the southernmost stations of the Tibetan plateau. They realized that the cooling trend wasn't just limited to the glaciers around Mt. Everest; it was across the entire <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tibet-maybe-splitting-apart-himalayan-mountains-grow-tectonic-plates-study-2024-1"><u>Himalayas</u></a>.</p><p>But how could this be? After all, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/climate/himalayas-melting-water-source.html"><u>a report</u></a> published last year found that Himalayan <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/melting-glaciers-ice-sheets-sea-level-rise-climate-disaster-2022-12"><u>glaciers melted faster</u></a> between 2010 and 2019 than in the previous decade, suggesting the glaciers were getting warmer along with the rest of the world.</p><h2><strong>Blame the wind</strong></h2><div type="image" title="Snowy mountain peak." height="1411" width="2124" msid="107466546" hostid="261" sizebytes="252742"></div><p>Researchers think that this cooling trend is the result of a well-understood phenomenon called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/frozen-russian-hikers-died-dyatlov-pass-avalanche-study-2021-2"><u>katabatic winds</u></a>.</p><p>On warm days, as sunlight heats the glaciers, the air just above the glacier's surface warms and rises. This creates a vacuum causing the cold air around the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-a-fall-from-denali-north-americas-tallest-peak-2022-7"><u>snowy peaks</u></a> to rush down due to gravity.</p><p>As the phenomenon intensifies, it creates local katabatic winds which typically peak in the afternoon and can reach speeds of over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1657/AAAR00C-13-132"><u>100 mph</u></a>.</p><p>As average global temperatures rise worldwide, due to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-action-30-global-leaders-climate-solutions-2023-11"><u>climate change</u></a>, katabatic winds are growing more intense because the more heat that's warming and rising from the mountain's surface, the more it forces cold air down. That's what's causing the cooling trend over the last 15 years, the researchers reported.</p><p>Moreover, the researchers think the chilly winds may have partly helped in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/antarctica-lost-enough-ice-cover-us-three-feet-water-2023-10"><u>slowing the melting</u></a> of these glaciers which otherwise could have been even worse.</p><p>But there is a catch.</p><p>The study also found that the lowest nighttime temperature during cold months (November to April) is on the rise. As the coldest nights are becoming less cold and warm month days are getting mildly cooler, the average temperature tends to balance out, giving a deceiving impression of the temperature trend.</p><p>That said, glaciers will continue to melt in the face of climate change because glacial melting is not just linked to air temperature close to the ice.</p><h2>Glaciers will continue to melt as global temperatures rise</h2><div type="image" title="A floating iceberg in Antarctica." height="1414" width="2121" msid="107466548" hostid="261" sizebytes="261860"></div><p>Ice can act like a buffer, absorbing some heat before increasing in temperature.</p><p>During the warm daylight hours, the glacier ice absorbs heat from the surrounding air. Then at night, the ice releases some of that stored heat energy, preventing the air temperature from dropping too low.</p><p>So the ice damps down the daily heat peaks and cold dips in the area right around the glacier.</p><p>That's why temperatures farther away from the glacier better reflect the true daily peaks and nighttime cooling which ends up influencing the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/melting-glaciers-unveil-dead-bodies-ancient-disease-and-more-2019-3">melting processes</a>.</p><p>"Understanding this whole process was a great relief," said Franco Salerno, lead author of the paper and an environmental scientist at the National Research Council, Institute of Polar Sciences, Milan.</p><p>His team had noticed the decreasing temperature trend in warmer months nearly 10 years ago but couldn't pin down the exact phenomenon. Now, more studies can focus on this local weather phenomenon.</p><p>Most importantly, the finding shows the role of glaciers in shaping <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mountains-switzerland-collapsing-from-permafrost-melt-2023-8">local mountain climates</a>. And that has had a huge impact on climbers.</p><h2>Rising risks for businesses</h2><div type="image" title="climbing everest" height="1867" width="1400" msid="107466549" hostid="261" sizebytes="138268"></div><p>The frigid, dense, high-speed katabatic winds can easily intensify — even reaching <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-hurricanes-why-storms-are-wetter-stronger-slower-2019-7">hurricane speed</a>. As a result, these winds have a big impact on the local weather of the mountain.</p><p>As a result "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mount-everest-stories-from-climbers-2019-6">climbing has become much trickier</a> as our guides have to asses the route to the summit in each trip," said Gordon Janow, director of the mountain climbing guide service Alpine Ascents, who has been in the mountaineering industry for nearly four decades.</p><p>The terrain has also gotten more technical as melting glaciers open up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-skier-sudden-15-foot-drop-into-hidden-crevasse-alps-2023-4">huge crevasses</a>.</p><p>"We have to go 100 yards to the right then cut back to the left then cut to the right," he said.</p><p>What was once a 10-hour journey to the summit can extend to 12 or even 14 hours. "Then, all of a sudden we may come across a glacier that we can't cross," Janow added. As a result, many mountains are not even climbed anymore.</p><p>The melting of glaciers triggered by such local weather phenomena has brought trouble to not only the Himalayas but mountains all over the world.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mount-rainier-national-park-paradise-snowiest-place-us-2021-6">Mount Rainier</a>, for example, has traditionally served as a training ground for many mountaineers. "I have had people come in saying things like, 'My grandfather climbed Mount Rainier by himself in 1957. We're gonna do it.'," he said.</p><p>"But people fail to realize it's not your grandfather's mountain anymore," he said.</p>

Scientists discovered a surprising cooling trend on glaciers in Mount Everest 10 years ago. Now they think they know what's causing it.

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Fierce Santa Ana winds that blow into the Los Angeles area can make <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/california-wildfires" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California wildfires</a>&#xa0;tough to fight.</strong></li><li><strong>The winds' strength has to do with where they develop in the mountains and how they travel down to the coast.</strong></li><li><strong>The Santa Anas are typically fiercest in the fall, before the first rains of the season arrive. That's when they can stoke especially deadly fires like the November Woolsey Fire.</strong></li></ul><p>California endured another record-breaking fire season this year. Dry, hot winds stoked deadly flames that have killed more than <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-wildfires-map-evacuations-roads-closed-2018-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">85 people</a> to date.&#xa0;</p><p>The Santa Ana winds, which blow into Southern California during the fall and winter months, proved especially brutal this year. They brushed the Woolsey Fire across nearly 100,000 acres of Los Angeles and Ventura counties; those flames killed two motorists who were stranded in a car and another person whose remains were found in a burned home.</p><p>The Woolsey Fire and the devastating Camp Fire in Northern California have both been extinguished, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-evacuees-in-california-return-home-360-video-camp-fire-2018-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all affected residents are now allowed to return home</a> (though for many there's little left).&#xa0;</p><p>Part of the reason the flames spread so quickly and were so hard to contain this year has to do with the winds that fueled them. In the north, they're called Diablo winds, while in the south they are referred to as the Santa Anas.</p><p>Angelinos sometimes like to wax poetic about how the dusty, hot winds can change people. Legend has it the warm gusts make people moody, violent, and prone to migraines, fights, or even suicides.&#xa0;</p><p>"I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too," Joan Didion wrote in her <a href="https://zscalarts.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/los-angeles-notebook-joan-didion-pp-162-jpg.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Los Angeles Notebook</a>. "We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior."&#xa0;</p><p>Scientists who have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598548/%20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">studied these winds</a> have determined that there's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/06/science/ions-created-by-winds-may-prompt-changes-in-emotional-states.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">probably no special relationship between positive ions</a> born from hot winds and our mood (though some <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00484-004-0236-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">limited data</a> from Spain suggests that hot, windy days may spark more panic attacks than others.)&#xa0;</p><p>But here's what we know for sure.</p><h2>Where the strong winds come from</h2><p>High above the California coast in the Great Basin that extends across Nevada, Utah, and other Rocky Mountain states, the winds that will eventually become Santa Anas and Diablos start out as colder breezes.&#xa0;</p><p><span>In the fall, as the desert lands cool down, the high-altitude basin develops chilly, high-pressure winds. All that air</span><span>&#xa0;in the basin looks for a breezy, convenient escape route.&#xa0;</span></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p><span>Santa Anas then heat up on their way downhill. It's a similar process to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/foehn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fohen winds of the Alps</a>, the Chinook of the Pacific Northwest, and the Zonda winds in Argentina. These are all called katabatic winds because they move high-density air downslope.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>As the winds funnel through narrow mountain passes, they gather speed and heat, becoming stronger and warmer as they descend towards the coast. The phenomenon is similar to what happens when air is compressed inside a bike tire: it quickly heats up.</span></p><p><span><a href="http://people.atmos.ucla.edu/fovell/ASother/mm5/SantaAna/santa_ana_faq.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UCLA meteorology professor Robert Fovell</a> wrote in an online FAQ about the Santa Anas that winds warm </span>at rate of near 30 degrees Fahrenheit per mile.</p><p>"That means if you take a piece of air located a only mile above your head, and brought it down to your feet, it would wind up 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than when it started," he said.</p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><h2>Rain and the Santa Ana winds</h2><p>The Santa Ana winds are most strong and able to stoke wildfires in the fall<span>. California has distinct wet and dry seasons, so i</span>f the winds arrive before the first rain, that can lead to a high risk of<span> fire. </span></p><p>California's dry periods have been getting longer and more severe in recent years, Federal Meteorologist Tom Di Liberto pointed out<span>&#xa0;in a <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/hot-dry-summer-and-slow-start-wet-season-primed-california-november-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog posted on the Climate.gov website</a>. That </span>makes the Santa Anas even more dangerous than usual.</p><p><span>"A dry start to the current water year in October came on the heels of an even drier-than-average summer," Di Liberto wrote. "The resulting dried grasses and vegetation provided plenty of fuel for wildfires to grow exponentially should a fire be lit. And in November 2018, those wildfire powder kegs exploded in both northern and southern California."</span></p><p><span>Atmospheric scientist </span>John Abatzoglou <span>told Business Insider</span> that he agreed with that assessment.</p><p><span>"Realistically, a lot of the large Santa Ana fire years on record end up being years where we have a delay in the onset of fall rain," he said. &#xa0;</span></p><p><span>Though less scientific, perhaps the most memorable definition of a Santa Ana wind is the one that's personified in the television show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>"I'm a&#xa0;</span>hot, hot breeze that originates from high-pressure air masses" the male chorus version of Santa Ana wind sang in an episode in the show's second season. "Technically, I'm known as a <span>katabatic wind</span><span>, t</span>hat's <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> for: a pain in your asses."</p><p>&#xa0;</p><div></div>

The record-breaking year of deadly fires in California was stoked by distinctly devilish winds - here's how they work

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Nine Russian hikers died mysteriously in the Ural Mountains in 1959.</li><li>Some bodies were found shoeless, barely clothed, and far from their tent. Most died of hypothermia.</li><li>A new study suggests a slab <keyword id="108152" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="avalanche">avalanche</keyword> caused by accumulating snow crushed their tent in the night.</li></ul><p>One day into an expedition to the mountains of northern <keyword id="6358826" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Russia">Russia</keyword>, Yuri Yudin, an avid skier and student at the Ural Polytechnic Institute, felt a pain in his lower back. His sciatic nerve had flared up, and it forced him to leave his group and turn around.</p><p>The decision saved his life.</p><p>The nine remaining members of the expedition continued hiking and cross-country skiing toward a mountain called Gora Otorten. Then on February 1, 1959, five days after Yudin left, they all died mysteriously.</p><p>Rescuers found the group's large tent, which had been cut open from the inside, nearly four weeks later. The bodies were discovered up to a mile away, down the mountain, some clad in only socks and underwear. Something had caused the hikers to flee shoeless from their tent in temperatures of minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 25 degrees Celsius).</p><p>The "Dyatlov Pass Incident" - named after Igor Dyatlov, the group's leader - became one of Russia's most infamous cold cases. The hikers' immediate causes of death were eventually determined: Six died of hypothermia, and three from blunt force trauma to their chest and head. But the cause of the disaster remained a <keyword id="47340" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mystery">mystery</keyword>.</p><p>Now, more than 60 years later, a scientific analysis offers an explanation for what happened to Dyatlov's crew. A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00081-8">study</a> published last month suggests that a small but deadly slab avalanche occurred while the hikers were sleeping. Unlike the snow avalanches typically depicted in movies, a slab avalanche is when a large block of ice slides down a slope. Such a slab crushed part of the hikers' tent, injuring three of them and forcing the group to flee.</p><h2>Previous evidence didn't favor the avalanche theory</h2><div type="image" title="Igor Dyatlov Pass" height="789" width="1200" msid="81246598" hostid="261"></div><p>The hikers had set up camp on the slopes of Kholat Saykhl - which translates to "Dead Mountain" in the local Mansi language. They were 12 miles south of their intended destination in the northern Ural mountains.</p><p>A photograph recovered from a camera found around the neck of one of the hikers suggests the group pitched camp and ate dinner together on the evening of February 1, 1959. Forensic evidence supports that timeline. </p><p>After the bodies were found, a three-month government investigation determined that a "compelling natural force" had caused the hikers' deaths, but it didn't explain what that force was. Their families were left without answers.</p><p>Since then, conspiracy theories have run the gamut from a Yeti attack to a run-in with aliens. </p><div type="image" title="Last picture of the Dyatlov group.Courtesy of the Dyatlov Memorial Foundation" height="796" width="1082" msid="81246599" hostid="261"></div><p>While an avalanche seems like an obvious explanation, it was considered unlikely for years, according to Alexander Puzrin, who co-authored the new study.</p><p>"There were several issues with that theory," Puzrin, a geotechnical engineer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told Insider. </p><p>For one, the rescue team didn't find any evidence that an avalanche had occurred. It hadn't snowed that night, which can kickstart an avalanche. More importantly, the angle of the slope on which the hikers pitched their tent wasn't steep enough for a snow-slide. Avalanches typically happen on slopes of at least 30 degrees.</p><p>The hikers' injuries, too, were uncharacteristic of typical avalanche victims.</p><p>Still, Puzrin wasn't the first to determine that an avalanche must have been to blame. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reopened an investigation into the incident in 2015 and found that an avalanche killed the group. An independent investigation by the Russian Public Prosecutor's Office, opened <a href="https://m.tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201902011131-lnal.htm">in 2019</a>, came to the same conclusion.</p><div type="image" title="dyatlov investigation" height="3402" width="5040" msid="81246600" hostid="261"></div><p>But none of the investigators offered details.</p><p>"They didn't release the data," Johan Gaume, Puzrin's co-author, told Insider. Gaume leads the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. "If you say it was an avalanche to the relatives without that, how can they trust you?"</p><p>That's the gap the new study fills.</p><h2>Strong winds doomed the group</h2><p>By calculating the time between sunset on February 1 and the moment when several of the hikers' watches stopped, the study authors determined that the group didn't flee their tent until between 9.5 and 13.5 hours after they'd pitched it, long after they'd eaten and gone to sleep.</p><p>The researchers worked out a theory: The hikers had cut into the mountain to create a flat surface for their tent (as shown below). But the slope where they were camping concealed a bit of terrain that was steeper than it seemed, which would enable an overlying slab to slough off under the right conditions.</p><div type="image" title="dyatlov tent" height="718" width="958" msid="81246601" hostid="261"></div><p>Puzrin's mathematical models suggest that if enough snow had accumulated on the slope above the tent, a slab could indeed have broken off and slid down. Given that weather records showed it hadn't snowed that night, the extra snow must have come from strong katabatic winds, the researchers determined - gusts that push air down a slope. These winds likely blew snow down the mountain, where it accumulated on the slope above the tent.</p><p>"At a certain point, a crack could have formed and propagated, causing the snow slab to release," Puzrin said in a press release. Picture a chunk of snow sliding off a gable roof to the ground below.</p><p>This wasn't the hikers' fault, Puzrin noted: It was the product of compounding coincidences. Had the hikers chiseled away at the mountain slope in a different spot, or had the wind been weaker, there wouldn't have been an avalanche.</p><p>"If they didn't make the cut, nothing would have happened," Puzrin said. "But if not for the strong wind or special topography, it wouldn't have failed and they would've woken up and become grandmothers and grandfathers."</p><h2>Car-crash tests offered insight into the hikers' injuries</h2><div type="image" title="A dog searches for survivors during a life-saving exercise after avalanche at the Glacier 3000 in Les Diablerets, Switzerland, December 6, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse" height="3648" width="5472" msid="81246603" hostid="261"></div><p>The other counterargument to the avalanche hypothesis was the hikers' injuries. Broken ribs and fractured skulls aren't usual outcomes for people caught in avalanches. Typically, avalanche victims asphyxiate to death.</p><p>But it's a different story "if you're sleeping on the floor of the tent on top of your skis and a 300-kilogram [660-pound] block of snow lands on you," Gaume said. </p><p>To model what injuries from a slab avalanche would look like, Gaume and Puzrin borrowed data from the automotive industry. In the 1970s, GM took 100 cadavers and hit them with various blocks of different masses at different velocities to model car crashes. The results showed what a prone body would look like if it had been lying on a solid surface then hit with a 16-foot-long, heavy slab. Those injuries would be similar to the ones on the dead hikers, it turned out.</p><p>"The injuries would be serious, but not immediately fatal," Gaume said. That explains how all nine expedition members were able to leave the tent. </p><h2>A 'banal and normal' answer to a decades-long <keyword id="957768" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="cold-case">cold case</keyword></h2><div type="image" title="Russia_edcp_relief_location_map dyatlov" height="1274" width="2362" msid="81246605" hostid="261"></div><p>The Dyatlov Pass mystery became a part of Russian folklore, Puzrin said. Just last year, a series called <a href="https://www.betafilm.com/en/product/d/dead-mountain-the-dyatlov-pass-incident.html">Pereval Dyatlova</a> rekindled public interest. The show went through various conspiracy theories, including supernatural forces and a romantic spat between the hikers that turned violent. The last episode was about a slab avalanche akin to the one described in the new study.  </p><p>"People don't like something as banal or normal as an avalanche to explain something like this with so many conspiracy theories around it," Gaume said.</p><p>Puzrin added: "We were concerned the reaction in Russia would be 'thank you for nothing.'"</p><div type="image" title="dyatlov pass" height="781" width="1200" msid="81246606" hostid="261"></div><p>But their analysis still doesn't address every oddity of the incident. Some of the dead hikers' clothes had traces of radioactivity, and another group of hikers reported seeing orange spheres in the sky above Dead Mountain on the night Dyatlov's crew died. (This fueled speculation that UFOs were involved.)</p><p>What's more, two of the bodies were missing eyes and one had no tongue. According to Gaume, however, "one could easily imagine" that during the 26 days before rescuers found the bodies, wildlife gnawed on the remains.</p><p>The hikers' barely clad state, Gaume added, could be attributed to the fact that they panicked.</p><p>"Maybe they were afraid of a second avalanche, and didn't take time to grab their clothes."</p>

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Decades ago, 9 Russian hikers mysteriously fled their tent and froze to death. A new study sheds light on the cold case.

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