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Ice-Cover Breakup and Ice Jamming

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Abstract

During the ice-cover period, initial ice-cover breakup precedes ice-jam flood events. Hence, it is important that breakup processes are well understood in order to be better prepared for ice-jam flood forecasting. Being able to predict ice-cover breakup provides an indication when ice-jam flood forecasting should commence. This chapter explains ice-cover breakup processes that can lead to ice jamming and ice-jam flooding. Spreadsheet exercises are provided to help reinforce the concepts of these processes and to help the reader build up a repertoire of tools that can be used to estimate backwater levels from ice jams. These tools will be extended in later chapters to help develop a simple ice-jam flood forecasting system.

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Lindenschmidt, KE. (2020). Ice-Cover Breakup and Ice Jamming. In: River Ice Processes and Ice Flood Forecasting. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28679-8_4

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