SnowEx Sets Sights on Alaska

Narration:

Transcript:

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SnowEx is a field and airborne campaign sponsored by the Terrestrial Hydrology

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Program to test different remote sensing instruments in different snow conditions.

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For NASA's SnowEx, we're going to Alaska this year.

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We've done some work in the western U.S.

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looking at mountain snowpack.

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This is an opportunity to test different instruments

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in the boreal forest and tundra environments.

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The sites that we've selected are really representative

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of these larger biomes that are throughout the northern latitudes.

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And Alaska really offers a great testbed area to do that.

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There are, you know,

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some of the world's greatest researchers already working up there studying snow.

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So to be able to go up there, partner with them, use research sites

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that have long heritage of snow research is a real opportunity for SnowEx.

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We'll have people on the ground, about 40 people on the ground visiting

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each of these five sites every day, collecting measurements on snowpack

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profiles, snow depth, SWE, or snow water equivalent.

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At the same time, we'll have in March, we'll have two aircraft flying.

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One will be flying SWESARR, which is an active-passive

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microwave instrument that was developed at Goddard.

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And the other plane will be flying a lidar and a stereo imager.

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And in April, we have

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another campaign to look at snow albedo.

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This is the final year of the SnowEx campaign.

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It’s a little bittersweet because, you know, it's just been great

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working with the community, collecting all this data.

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Open science has been a huge aspect of SnowEx

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and hack weeks that we've had, and that will continue to live on.

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But I think this is just the starting point.

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You know,

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hopefully this will be a stepping stone that will lead us to a satellite mission.

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Currently, there isn't a spaceborne mission that's dedicated to global

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snowmass.

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The goal of SnowEx has been to prepare the community for

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a spaceborne opportunity.