Analyzing the Properties of Snow for Forecasting and Applications

The Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX) is a 2 year research mission concerned with frozen landscapes - cold areas of the Earth's land surface where water is frozen either seasonally or permanently.

These areas are the land component of the cryosphere (i.e. the terrestrial cryosphere), where snow, ice, and frozen soils and vegetation are common.

Cold land areas form a major component of the Earth's hydrologic system, and interact significantly with the global weather and climate system, the geosphere, and the biosphere. The influence of seasonally and permanently frozen land surfaces extends to engineering in cold regions, trafficability for humans and other animals, and a variety of hazards and costs associated with living in cold lands.

The Cold Land Processes Mission will use microwave remote sensing to measure critical components of the terrestrial cryosphere, including snow pack characteristics, and the freeze/thaw state of the land surface.

The Mission is recommended by the NASA Land Surface Hydrology Program to address broad NASA Earth Science Enterprise objectives in hydrology, water resources, ecology, and atmospheric sciences.

Update:
The NASA DC-8 departs from NASA Dryden for Madison, Wisconsin at 7:00am on Friday, March 8th. The plan is to fly on the 9th, 10th and 11th plus several days later in the week. The aircraft will return to NASA Dryden on March 25th.

Full Map - 380 TIFF

Contacts:
Don Cline, Ph.D. (Snow Hydrologist)
National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center
National Weather Service, NOAA
1735 Lake Drive West
Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317-8582
Ph: (952) 361-6610 ext. 252
Fax: (952) 361-6634
Email: cline@nohrsc.nws.gov

Mike Jasinski at NASA/GSFC (Program Manager)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Building 33 Room A316
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Ph. (301) 614-5808
Email: mike@hydromet.gsfc.nasa.gov

Science Goals:

• To better understand snow processes including: snow pack changes over time, how snow melts, and how long it takes to melt.
• To understand the extent and evolution of snow and frozen landscapes and their affect on fluxes, storage, and transformations of water, energy, and carbon
• To improve measurement of snow properties over large regions from space
• To improve snowmelt prediction, flood forecasting, avalanche forecasting, and water resource management.
• To determine how the various uncertainties associated with remote sensing observations and models of cold land processes constrain/affect data assimilation and the ability to improve prediction

Infrastructure:
There will be 60 or more scientists and graduate students conducting experiments and data collection in North Central Colorado during the campaign. These researchers will be on the ground and in the air conducting snow surveys. Ground activities include collecting thousands of snow depth measurements, and digging snow pits in the wilderness (several feet down) to obtain information about snow crystal formation and texture. These ground collections will also serve as a validation for NASA satellite measurements. Airborne activities include several flights of the NASA DC-8 Flying Laboratory and the NOAA/National Weather Service Snow Survey aircraft. The data will be compared to those gathered from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra Satellite. The comparison of the ground and satellite data will help scientists calibrate measurements of snow-water equivalent and frozen ground from space.

Schedule:
Four Cold-season intensive field campaigns are scheduled for mid-February and late-March of 2002 and 2003. The first campaign runs from February16th through the 25th, 2002. The second campaign begins on March 24th and runs through March 30th. This schedule will be repeated in 2003. This is a 2 year mission.

NASA's DC-8 in the Cold Land Processes Experiment:
The DC-8, from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., is fitted with three instruments for the hydrology study. From the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) will give the DC-8 team an all-weather, side-looking imaging radar able to penetrate clouds and collect data at night. AIRSAR will measure snow depth and extent, as well as snow wetness and water equivalent, along with freeze and thaw conditions.

The DC-8 will also carry the JPL PoleScat, or polarmetric scatterometer, an instrument that will collect Ku-band scatterometer measurements. This will record ice crystal structure and snow layering. PoleScat is a year-old instrument and is flying on the DC-8 for the first time according to Steve Dinardo, PoleScat instrument manager.

Flights for the second phase over the Great Lakes will be based in Madison, Wis., from Feb. 26 - March 1 and March 8 - March 25. The Great Lakes Winter Experiment (GLAWEX), measuring the extent and thickness of ice, will be coordinated with United States Coast Guard icebreakers, in radio contact with the DC-8.

For more information about the DC-8 Mission: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/PAO/PressReleases/2002/02-08.html

Images:
73 figures on the web site for downloading. http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/~cline/clpx.html

Partners:
Federal Government:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Land Surface Hydrology Program
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
National Weather Service (NOAA-NWS) National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Cold Region Research and Engineering Lab)
NOAA Office of Global Programs (OGP)
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station

Universities (that are providing scientists and graduate students for field campaigns)
Colorado State University
Desert Research Institute
Oregon State University
University of Arizona
University of California at Santa Barbara
University of Colorado/ National Snow and Ice Data Center
University of Michigan
University of Montana
University of Wales
NOTE: There are many other universities involved in the experiment that are not providing field personnel. Those institutions can be found on the web site listed on this page.

Web site:
http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/~cline/clp.html