Super Scientists Study Snow!
News story originally written on February 21, 2003

Gus Goodbody and John Fitzgerald are standing in a snow pit checking snow density high within Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The snow depth is about 2.2 meters. Click on image for full size (31K JPG) Courtesy of CLPX NASA Land Surface Hydrology Program

Snow is fun! It can be made into snowballs or snow angels, and, in large amounts, it can even cancel schools. Some scientists think that snow is pretty interesting too. This week many scientists and college students began a project to take a look at snow in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains from many different points of view - from the ground, from the air, and even from space!

The scientists hope that their project, called the 2003 Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX), will help us better understand areas on Earth where water is frozen, either seasonally or permanently. This frozen water is known as the cryosphere.

They hope to improve forecasts of the spring water supply for communities that depend on river water near the mountains, most of which comes from melting snow. They also hope to better predict dangerous snowmelt floods that happen in the spring as the snow melts. They also will study how snow cover affects other aspects of the Earth’s weather and climate.

During this project, scientists will try to figure out the best way to study the cryosphere from above. Four aircraft and NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites will gather snow data by sensing what’s below. Scientists will compare data collected from the ground with data collected from the sky to determine whether the satellite data is accurate. Hopefully, their research will help design better sensors to measure the water content of snow from space. Researchers hope to be able to someday measure, from space, the amount of snow and frozen ground on Earth.

This project is jointly sponsored by NASA and NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and also involves scientists and students from several other federal agencies and many universities. They will collect data in the Colorado Rockies from February 19-25 and from March 25-31, 2003.

Gus Goodbody and John Fitzgerald are standing in a snow pit checking snow density high within Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The snow depth is about 2.2 meters. Click on image for full size (31K JPG) Courtesy of CLPX NASA Land Surface Hydrology Program

Snow is fun! It can be made into snowballs or snow angels and can even cause school to be cancelled. Many scientists think that snow is pretty interesting too. This week, scientists and college students began a project to take a look at the snow in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains from many different points of view - from the ground, from the air, and even from space!

This project includes many scientists and students from federal agencies, like NASA and NOAA, and many universities. They hope that their project will help us better understand areas on Earth where water is frozen during the cold winter months, or all year long. This may help to improve water supply forecasts for communities, which depend on river water, most of which comes from melting mountain snow. It may also allow scientists to better predict dangerous snowmelt floods that happen in the spring as the snow melts. The research project will also study how snow cover affects other parts of the Earth’s weather and climate.

During this project, scientists will try to figure out the best way to study snow from above. Four aircraft and NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites will gather snow data from Colorado’s Rocky Mountains by sensing what’s below. Scientists will compare data collected from the ground with data collected from the sky to understand whether the satellite data is accurate. Hopefully, their research will help design better sensors so that someday we can, from space, measure the amount of snow and frozen ground around the world!

Gus Goodbody and John Fitzgerald are standing in a snow pit checking snow density high within Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The snow depth is about 2.2 meters. Click on image for full size (31K JPG) Courtesy of CLPX NASA Land Surface Hydrology Program

Snow is fun! It can be made into snowballs or snow angels. It can even cause school to be cancelled. Many scientists think that snow is pretty interesting too.

This week, scientists and college students began a project to look at the snow that is in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. They are looking at it from many different places - from the ground, from in the air, and even from space!

In some places on Earth, water is frozen during the cold winter months. In other places, water is frozen all year long! The scientists hope to better understand the areas on Earth where there is frozen water. Keeping track of the amount of snow can help scientists figure out how much water cities and towns will have in the spring as the snow melts. They could also predict if melting snow will cause spring floods.

The scientists will look for the best way to study snow from space. NASA satellites will look at the snow from above with sensors. Hopefully, their research will help make the sensors better so that someday we can look from space to measure the amount of snow around the world!