NASA SnowEx’s overarching objective is to measure and monitor snowpack properties from space, in particular snow water equivalent and albedo. To achieve this, a series of coincident field, airborne, and modeling campaigns have been initiated. These campaigns are testing a wide range of snow remote sensing technologies, with a focus on a pathway to eventual spaceborne deployment. The NASA snow remote-sensing community has agreed that no single sensor or approach solves the spaceborne snow monitoring problem; therefore, we are testing approaches that combine multiple remote sensing products with field observations within the framework of land surface models. SnowEx 2017 focused efforts on two western Colorado sites; Grand Mesa and nearby Senator Beck Basin, targeting impacts of forest cover on remote sensing approaches. SnowEx 2020 was spatially and temporally broader. It linked a second Intensive Observation Period (IOP) at Grand Mesa with an L-band InSAR time-series experiment for thirteen locations scattered across the Contiguous United States’ western half. SnowEx 2021 will continue the L-band time series, expand efforts into northern prairie and agricultural environments, collect temporally and spatially novel albedo measurements, and advance snow modeling and synthesis efforts.

The Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC hosts a weekly lecture series at the Prince George campus. Anyone from the university or wider community with interest in the topic area is welcome to attend. Go to http://www.unbc.ca/nres-institute/colloquium-webcasts to view the presentation remotely.

Past NRESi colloquium presentations and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.