Complete Transcript

Complete Transcript

Narration:

Transcript:

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I didn't think I was tired but I

think it just hit.

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Yeah, frozen granola bars.

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I'm Carrie Vuyovich.

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I am a research scientist at

NASA Goddard and a project

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scientist for NASA SnowEx 2023.

We're here in Alaska in

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Fairbanks measuring snow in the

boreal forest.

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Hold on your breakfast

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We're in Creamer's field

Farmer's Loop research site

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right now, we have three sites

here in Fairbanks. And then we

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have two sites on the north

slope in the tundra. The goal

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for SnowEx is to improve our

remote sensing capabilities of

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snow, different properties of

snow, in different environments,

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and at different times of the

season. Water is so important to

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the western US and they've had

some snow droughts over the past

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decade. And so understanding how

much water is stored in the snow

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is is super important. Right

now, that means either airborne

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measurements or sending people

out to make manual measurements,

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which doesn't cover the entire

Western US. So what we're hoping

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is that our measurements will

help us understand what

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technology could be used on

satellite mission, that could

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then collect measurements over

that entire area. So kind of

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core measurements take place at

these pit locations, we take

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very detailed profile

measurements of the snow in

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those pits, including

temperature and density, liquid

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water content. And then around

those plots, we're taking very

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detailed depth profiles. And

then further out from there,

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we're taking just a lot more

depth measurements. All of that

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is within the flight lines of

the radar and the LIDAR

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observations so that we can

connect what those observations

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see with what we measure on the

ground.

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We're headed to Bonanza Creek

experimental forest. And we're

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gonna do a bunch of pit

measurements out there and depth

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measurements where we

characterize snowpack in

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different locations. And that

will be used for ground truth

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for the air— airborne flights

and instruments that we have

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flying over the same area. It's

about minus 20 Fahrenheit here

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right now. And I'm continuing to

put on clothes because I just

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got out of the truck. And that

was pretty warm and I am

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changing body temperature very

quickly.

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I'm with the USDA Natural

Resources Conservation Service,

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we actually are tasked with

making water supply forecasts

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for the entire western United

States, we have about 600

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different watersheds that we

model and deliver seasonal

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runoff forecasts for. The reason

why

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we look at snow density is so

that if you have a given

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snowpack of five feet tall. The

amount of water when you melt it

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all down could be close to one

glass full of water or it could

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be more like three gallons, we

got to do these measurements in

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the field because even though

there's a lot of technology that

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allows us to look at it from a

satellite or a global

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perspective, they have various

ranges of accuracy. And so doing

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it in the field is one of the

most accurate ways to do it.

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At this site, we measure that

snow water equivalence snow

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water equivalence, so see amount

of snow you have in one spot if

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you melt it into water. So it's

the snow water equivalent. And

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that's the fundamental holy

grail parameter that we're after

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if we knew how much water was

spatially distributed over the

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entire planet that would allow

us to forecast spring run off

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much better.

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Water Resources are just so

critical, especially out west.

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And I think it's really cool to

try to do the science to figure

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out how much water we have I'm

looking at the snow depth so the

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height of the snow from the

ground and I'm putting my ruler

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in the same spot we took the

other measurements so that we

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can have two datasets and I also

then look up and note if we have

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a canopy kind of covering the

surface, or intercepting the

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surface, because that's an

important note for our pilots

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who are looking over and trying

to measure the snow as well with

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the airborne LIDAR.

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So as part of SnowEx, we are

conducting these airborne

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experiments collecting accurate

passive microwave radar data.

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And we are only one part of the

whole effort. You see the lines

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down below? Lots of lines. I

think that's essentially the

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handiwork of the ground crew

trying to validate measurements—

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crisscrossing.

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My name is Batu. I'm from NASA

Goddard Space Flight Center and

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I am the PI for the SWISARR our

instrument it's called Snow

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Water Equivalent Synthetic

Aperture Radar Radiometer. It's

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very similar to have a bats

transmit sounds waves as it's

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flying around, and then listens

to the echoes trying to make

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sense of the world, the three

dimensional world around it. We

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do the same thing with just a

microwave. So our waves travel

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at the speed of light. They come

back to the antenna, we collect

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them and we process those echoes

to make sense of the 3d world.

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It is in conjunction with the

ground measurements that the

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field teams are doing. They're

digging snow pits, and

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collecting other snow

observations for this to

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validate what this radar and

radiometer see.

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We are walking to our snow pits

and the tower radar instrument,

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it's super cool. The surface

temperature was minus 34/35

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Celsius this morning. So coldest

day of the campaign so far.

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Yeah, this is the radar sensor.

And so we'll compare this with

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the ongoing flights of this

campaign. This sensor is

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particularly suitable for deep

snow whereas some of the other

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techniques are likely much more

suitable for shallow snow. So

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this is very complimentary. So

this will take half an hour to

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finish. So we do four of these

transects. And this takes two

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hours.

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So they want to test instruments

and all these different snow

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environments to make sure that

they work globally. Alaska

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offers a perfect snow to do this

type of test. We have a boreal

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forest and Arctic tundra is very

different. It's generally

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shallow, but it's much harder. A

lot of windblown features. And

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the variability is amazing. So

this a very different types of

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snow. And it's important to see

that the instruments for remote

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sensing measurement of snow they

do work well in, in this

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different snow environments.

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It is a massive effort in terms

of like community participation,

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we would never have all these

measurements on the ground if

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our crews were smaller. So the

fact that we can get so many

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people in one place to take

measurements is really

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meaningful.

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The team has become really

close. It takes a lot of

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camaraderie and a lot of people

pitching in you cannot stand on

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your heels and watch what's

going on out here. Everybody has

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to pitch in and it makes for a

really tight group

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Working out in these conditions

is is it's just physically

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demanding. It's super cold. Here

in the boreal forest, the snow

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was very light and fluffy. And

we were tromping around in the

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woods on snow shoes. I mean

really in the woods off trail

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and was just very physically

demanding.

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I am amazed at how how much data

was collected. You are an

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incredible group of people. This

was this was super just a super

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opportunity and a really great

experience to be part of so I

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appreciate all of the hard work

and it was not easy. I heard

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somebody say like wow, you guys

work really hard for this data.

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And I thought... yeah this is a

lot of work. So thank you very

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much.