Simplification

With friends surrounded, the dawn mist glowing, the water flowing, the endless river, forever and ever—Pink Floyd

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The last post was complicated and rambling, so I'm going to present a careful simplification. I also feel the need to explain something else: for a long time I've written about uncertainty and some people have asked about alternatives. So, if you think uncertainty is too general, you get to deal with complexity instead.

1. Natural phenomena are fundamentally complex.
2. Scientific models of the phenomena are not particularly complex.
3. Mixing in the scientific models, as with mixing in the real world, introduces complexity.
4. Complexity in the models is simply a reflection of the original, irreducible complexities.

We're told again and again to use multiple observations before making decisions. Surely this means that a systems understanding is the best approach to mountain safety. One way to approach it from a systems level is to simply acknowledge the incredible uncertainty, but there are other approaches.

You can approach the problem from the perspective of thermodynamics. Is this a requirement? No, but some people prefer this approach. You can approach the problem from the perspective of psychology. Is this a requirement? No, but some people prefer this approach. What about a risk management approach? Rule-based approaches?

Clearly there are numerous approaches, and if we follow the rule of multiple observations, then it's obvious that we need to use techniques from each area.

Of course new complexities arise as soon as we start mixing the models of thermodynamics, psychology, and uncertainty.

And you've already heard that story, right?


NOTE: There are great new features from http://www.hillmap.com/. Please read this post on Turns-All-Year for instructions on using this exciting product.

Integration

At a higher altitude the flag unfurled, we reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world—Pink Floyd

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A few weeks ago, I wondered what was behind my recent spate of posts. After some reflection, it's clear I've been searching for a theme for the 2011-2012 ski season. Past themes have included uncertainty and psychology, but this year I'm going to write about complexity. Very often complexity is managed by breaking things down into constituent elements. As we shall see, this has benefits and drawbacks.


This post compares simplicity with complexity; specifically whether or not it is desirable, possible, or necessary to simplify complex information. This post will require significant patience, so if you're not feeling patient ... please come back when you are.

Experiment #1

Maybe you don't often think about linguistics, but it's pervasive, and you rely on linquistic techniques every time you read, write, and communicate. In this experiment, we're going to borrow a few tricks from linguistics and engage in a thought experiment or two. Consider the following sentence:

• The snow is between the sky and the ground.

Figure 1.1. The sentence is a system composed of individual elements ( called words ) and we could say that meaning emerges from the system. Spend a moment thinking about alternate word arrangements. While you're at it, take a long, hard look at the sentence and see if you can extract additional meaning from the arrangement of the words. Does rearrangement affect your perception?

• The ground and snow are below the sky.
• The sky is above the snow and the ground.

Figure 1.2. What about removing individual letters? Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't, but having not seen the original, how many people can reconstruct the original phrase from the phrase below?

• The now is betwen he ky an te grond.

Figure 1.3. If removing letters doesn't work very well, what about reducing the system to its constitutent elements? You can still extract meaning from the individual words, and it may be possible to extract a general concept from the words themselves. But ask yourself, do the individual words have the same meaning as the original or has something has been lost in the simplification? How would you describe the change in meaning for this diagram?

• And
• Between
• Ground
• Is
• Sky
• Snow
• The

Figure 1.4. What about the individual letters? Do you feel like this representation is much simpler than the original sentence? If so, you can test the hypothesis by comparing the time required to memorise the string of letters with the time required to memorise the original phrase. One thing we can say for sure is that the original meaning has been lost entirely. Still, the individual letters are very easy to understand in the sense that you know what the letters themselves represent. How would you describe the change in meaning for this diagram?

• A, B, D, E, G, H, I, K, L, N, O, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y

Figure 1.5. I hate to take you back to grammar school, but this is a diagram of the sentence. It's another model of the system and it gives you an idea of how to simplify the system in a way that preserves its essential meaning: snow between sky and ground. If we want an even simpler representation, we can use the following: sky snow ground. In this case, we've kept the three essential nouns and we're encoding the position of the snow ( between ) in the structure of the phrase itself. Neither simplification constitutes a proper sentence, but we aren't interested in grammar at the moment. As it turns out, the really essential elements are three nouns, but counter-intuitively, adding an adjective and a conjunction significantly increases understanding. All this might sound nutty, but you probably do it almost every day. How many times have you revised an email and wondered if you're still getting your point across? Do you add or remove information to simplify and increase clarity? My guess is that you do both.

Off The Philosphical Deep End

Well not really, but here's a question that seems very philosophical: why does writing work? How is it possible to take 26 characters and produce the works of Shakespeare, The Avalanche Handbook, and this blog? The science of physics provides a very reasonable answer.

Writing works because of a concept called mixing. The origin of mixing depends on who you ask, but classically, mixing is used to describe irreversible processes such as mixing ink in water or mixing vodka, water, and vermouth. Literature, which is an execellent example of complexity in its own right, emerges from the alphabet because we can mix the letters into words, we can mix words into phrases, and we can mix phrases into sentences. You can even mix letters and make up your own words, which might sound a little ridiculous, but it happens every day.

But anyway, this is where scale comes in.

In addition to the concept of meaning, we are also working with the concept of scale. Where is meaning encoded? At the scale of a sentence, clause, word, or letter? Actually, meaning is encoded at all scales. A is not the same as B just as apple is not the same as bat and I like apples is not the same as I like bats. Yes, you can file this under useless philosophical controversies, but it's quite true nonetheless.

This blog post also exploits mixing. Not only am I mixing letters, phrases, and words into a novel work, I am also mixing concepts from linquistics, physics, mathematics, and meteorology. But let's go back to the word exercise for a moment: you can see that simplifying a system doesn't always make it easier to understand.

So, why is that?

When you simplify something, you create something novel, and there is a very significant chance that new complexity will emerge from your novel creation. In many cases, the complexity that arises from simplifications actively prevents clear understanding. Sound like a stretch? Go back to the sentence experiments and do them again.

Or just ask yourself how many times you've requested clarification from the author of a five word email.

Experiment #2

This experiment is designed to test your patience ( and powers of observation ).

Figure 1.6. Watch this video of the environment, but pretend that it's snowing and you have magical binoculars that allow you to see through the storm. Rather than thinking about terrain, snowpack, and weather, just think about the environment containing the terrain, snowpack, and weather. The interaction between the systems produces remarkable variations.



Write three words that describe what you've observed. Mixing makes things quite complicated, doesn't it? Three words aren't quite enough? Alright then, start by explaining the phenomena you've observed with a single sentence of up to 10 words. If that's not enough, then feel free to use a paragraph. If you still feel constrained, use three paragraphs: introduction, body, and conclusion.

Samples

Here are several sample models of the phenomena at play. Mixing is represented by the arrows, and the on-going nature of the phenomena are represented by the continuous cycle diagram.

Figure 1.7. Here's my three word version of my observations from the video. You'll notice that it's wrapped up in a conceptual model that integrates the elements. I spent a week thinking about this and actually consulted several outside experts. By itself, this model is very easy to understand. But as in the real world, the factors in this diagram are mixed with the factors in the following diagram.

Figure 1.8. Here's a model of what's going on in the snowpack. Again, by itself snow metamorphism isn't particularly difficult to understand. And again, complexity arises because the factors in this diagram are mixed with the factors in the preceding diagram and the following diagram.

Figure 1.9. Here's a model of what's going on with the weather. When viewed alone, these weather trends are very easy to understand. But again, complexity arises because weather factors are mixed with factors from the preceding diagrams. This means that, ultimately, the direction of instability corresponds to the magnitude, rate, and duration of each factor, which is determined by a complex mix of other factors ( and so on ).

This post probably seems a bit strange, but I want to make a point.

Simplicity and complexity are not mortal enemies. They're not at opposite ends of a spectrum. In fact, comparing simplicity with complexity is like comparing apples and oranges. As a backcountry skier, it's important to ask yourself if you really understand the sources of complexity.

HINT: It's not the science.

Spindrift

I was in a similar situation once in British Columbia. Nothing as dramatic as the video below, but it was scary. No wonder I hate ice climbing.

Video:



Full story:

http://willgadd.com/?p=600

Fast Thinking

Daniel Kahneman is an incredible thinker. If you have interest in "human factors", this video is a must see.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/nov/21/daniel-kahneman-psychology-video

Northwest Snow & Avalanche Summit Download

On Sunday, I gave a presentation at the Northwest Snow & Avalanche Summit.

Here's a link to the presentation.

In Honour of Monika Johnson

Glowing Sun, Bright Sun—Sigur Ros

From turns-all-year.com:

Our community suffered a huge loss last year when Monika Johnson broke through a cornice on Red Mountain, February 1st, 2011. In her honor, a group of her good friends and family have started The Monika Johnson Avalanche Education Scholarship, a.k.a. The Yuki Awards.

Learn More at Turns-All-Year

REI Avalanche Safety

If you could read my mind, what a tale my thoughts would tell—Gordon Lightfoot

REI has an interesting feature on avalanche safety. My criticism in a single sentence: it's a disconnected collection of "rules of thumb" punctuated by errors, some of which are significant. It's clear the authors know something about snow safety... but... not quite enough.

From the first page in the series:

During winter, a south–facing slope is more stable than a north–facing one since it has sun exposure to melt and condense the snow. The tempting north–facing slopes that hold all the best powder are also more likely to have unstable layers of ’depth hoar,’ the dry, icy snow that does not stick to the adjacent layers. Since these slopes don't have the benefit of sun to warm and compact the snow over the winter, they tend to be less stable than south–facing slopes.

This is not true. Instability can develop on any slope, at any time during the winter. In fact, The Avalanche Handbook, citing research by Grimsdottir, plainly states that, after accounting for slope use patterns, aspect is a poor predictor of avalanches. You should never use aspect by itself to judge instability, and the beginners at whom this article is clearly targeted need to know this more than the experts.

Also from page 1 of the series:

A common crystal type that is particularly dangerous due to its inability to bond with other snow crystals is know as ’hoar.’ Hoar snow, also called ’sugar snow’ because of its similarity to granulated sugar, can be found at any depth or at multiple depths in a deep snowpack.

"Hoar" isn't really the correct term. The author should refer to facets, surface hoar, and depth hoar, or refrain from using any terminology except for "sugar snow" or perhaps "coarse snow". The other problem is that very fine layers of facets ( such as facets above or below a crust ) can be very easy to miss. The difficulty in identifying thin weak layers should be noted in the article.

Also from page 1 of the series:

Snowstorms pile up one after the other all winter long. Wind blows snow off of some slopes and on to others. Temperature changes cause snow crystals to metamorphose. If the snow’s consistency remains constant, the snowpack is homogenous and stable. It’s when the snowpack develops different layers of different snow types that it becomes unstable and hazardous.

This paragraph started out so well... Unfortunately, the statement about constant consistency being an absolute measure of "stability" is entirely wrong and dangerously misleading. First, snowpack evaluation is framed around the search for instability, and second, a beginner should not judge the stability of the snowpack by consistency alone because it is very easy to miss important signs of inconsistency. Better to err on the side of caution if you just don't know.

From the second page in the series:

1. Dig a pit 5 feet deep or to the ground (whichever comes first) on an open slope after probing to see if there is any old avalanche debris, rocks or brush in the way. Make the face of the pit smooth with your shovel.
2. Use a glove to brush the surface of this wall to see if there are visible layers.
3. Use a credit card or driver’s license and, holding it lightly, slide it down the wall. Notice where the card catches on hard layers.
4. Do the same starting at the bottom and sliding up.
5. Next, do a finger test for soft layers, running your gloved hand first down and then up the wall. Note where the hard layers (possibly sun or wind crust) and the soft layers (depth hoar) are located.
6. If you don’t detect any significant layers in the snow, you can continue on your trip. But if there are crusty or soft layers, you should then perform at least one of the following tests.

This isn't really the correct procedure for performing a snow profile, although it clearly tries to communicate the right information. Use a driver's license or credit card? It would be better to provide an explanation of how to excavate the profile and use simple tests to evaluate layering and determine if hardness increases with depth. There is a very strong relationship between data sampling and perception of instability, and the rudimentary tests discussed here could miss important details. It's better for most recreational backcountry skiers to avoid formal profiles and focus on snowpack tests instead ( which are outlined on the page ).

Also from page 2 in the series:

The Rutschblock test is fairly reliable in predicting fracture initiation (how much force is required to start an avalanche). The Extended Column Test has become more popular because it not only predicts fracture initiation, it includes fracture propagation (how big the avalanche might be). The ECT is also easier to perform since the size of the isolated block is smaller.

Shear quality analysis derived from rustchblock tests can also provide valuable information about fracture propogation. It is worth mentioning that the ECT most certainly DOES NOT predict avalanche size, and even if it did, most people are killed by small avalanches that don't travel very far.

Also from the page 2 in the series:

If you have to jump in the middle of the block, there’s likely a low chance of avalanches on slopes with similar angle and aspect.

This is only true if you ignore spatial variability.

Also from the page 2 in the series:

A Q1 shear is of more concern to the backcountry traveler than a Q3 shear.

First, this is non-information, and second, after spending most of the page discussing how to perform snowpack tests, the author neglects to discuss the importance of shear quality. Not only that, but Q1 and Q2 shears have roughly the same importance with respect to skier-triggered avalanches. Here's the skinny on shear quality for beginners: if you observe shears that are rapid, sudden, or smooth, then you have uncovered a clear sign of snowpack instability.

Anyway, I want to be clear that this is not an attempt to criticise REI, but at the same time, it would be very easy for REI to check this information with a local guide service.