NASA Snowex'17 in situ measurements and ground-based remote sensing

Seasonal snow cover plays a key role in freshwater resources, water security, natural hazards, and weather and climate. However, accurate estimation of snow-water equivalent (SWE) with remote sensing observations remains a significant challenge. NASA Terrestrial Hydrology Program launched its multi-year SnowEx mission whose primary goal is to develop and test techniques for estimating how much water is stored in some complex Earth's terrestrial snow-covered regions (e.g. forested areas). The first year of the 5-year campaign took place in Colorado during the winter 2016-2017, during which in situ measurements and ground-based remote sensing observations were collected by the scientific community. Throughout February 2017, about 100 people were deployed and over 30 remote sensing instruments were used. This required an exceptional coordination effort, which resulted in collocated in situ measurements from snowpits (e.g. profiles of stratigraphy, density, grain size and type, specific surface area, temperature) and along transects (mainly for snow depth measurements) with ground-based remote sensing observations (microwave radiometers, radar, scatterometers, lidars, etc.). The public release of all these datasets has started (nsidc.org/data/snowex).