in the western US about 75% of the
freshwater supply comes from snowmelt
and yet until this project really we
have not completely known in mountain
basins how much water there is
the airborne snow Observatory is a
combined spectrometer and laser
altimeter spectrometer tells us how much
sunlight is absorbed by mountain
snowpack which is what controls snow
melt about ninety to ninety-five percent
of the energy to melt snow comes from
absorb sunlight and then with the laser
altimeter we can tell how deep snow is
the plane flies on a weekly basis which
is about the amount of time needed to
let the snowpack do its thing make some
change it’s timely information for the
water managers to be able to know what
the total volume is in the snowpack how
it’s changed from last week you tried so
now we turn the products around in about
20 hours the ASO product is going to I
think revolutionize what we know about
Mountain hydrology because we’ve never
had that complete picture before we’ve
only had little tiny specks of it we
will be able to make much more accurate
forecasts of the the runoff from the
snowpack as we integrate the ASO
products into our forecasting
capabilities
we are doing calibration measurements
with a what’s called a spectrometer
which measures reflected sunlight when
there’s no snow on the ground and that
allows us to better interpret into the
airborne snow Observatory data if some
of these one of the best places to do a
quick look how beautiful it is but from
a serious science and operation
standpoint it’s a snow melt driven basin
and so it’s it’s the right combination
for testing of the airborne snow
Observatory these little bumps and
Wiggles out here or just where there’s
noise because the the atmosphere water
vapor is absorbing the sunlight the way
that the water resources work in the
West that we have had the snow pack
which acts as a reservoir as temperature
increases though rain snow line
increases the precipitation Falls then
as rain and it rushes down hill right
away into this fixed reservoir capacity
so essentially it shrinks our water
supply we have to be doing what we can
right now to get the best possible
information best models the best
understanding of the physical processes
so that we can actually take meaningful
action there are a lot of inefficiencies
in the management of water being able to
fill that in will allow them to better
adapt to a changing climate
you
freshwater supply comes from snowmelt
and yet until this project really we
have not completely known in mountain
basins how much water there is
the airborne snow Observatory is a
combined spectrometer and laser
altimeter spectrometer tells us how much
sunlight is absorbed by mountain
snowpack which is what controls snow
melt about ninety to ninety-five percent
of the energy to melt snow comes from
absorb sunlight and then with the laser
altimeter we can tell how deep snow is
the plane flies on a weekly basis which
is about the amount of time needed to
let the snowpack do its thing make some
change it’s timely information for the
water managers to be able to know what
the total volume is in the snowpack how
it’s changed from last week you tried so
now we turn the products around in about
20 hours the ASO product is going to I
think revolutionize what we know about
Mountain hydrology because we’ve never
had that complete picture before we’ve
only had little tiny specks of it we
will be able to make much more accurate
forecasts of the the runoff from the
snowpack as we integrate the ASO
products into our forecasting
capabilities
we are doing calibration measurements
with a what’s called a spectrometer
which measures reflected sunlight when
there’s no snow on the ground and that
allows us to better interpret into the
airborne snow Observatory data if some
of these one of the best places to do a
quick look how beautiful it is but from
a serious science and operation
standpoint it’s a snow melt driven basin
and so it’s it’s the right combination
for testing of the airborne snow
Observatory these little bumps and
Wiggles out here or just where there’s
noise because the the atmosphere water
vapor is absorbing the sunlight the way
that the water resources work in the
West that we have had the snow pack
which acts as a reservoir as temperature
increases though rain snow line
increases the precipitation Falls then
as rain and it rushes down hill right
away into this fixed reservoir capacity
so essentially it shrinks our water
supply we have to be doing what we can
right now to get the best possible
information best models the best
understanding of the physical processes
so that we can actually take meaningful
action there are a lot of inefficiencies
in the management of water being able to
fill that in will allow them to better
adapt to a changing climate
you
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