Snow grain structure from laser (SnowEx 2020)
What it measures. Vertical profiles describing snow's tiny structure, including how reflective it is, its specific surface area, and effective grain size, measured at snow pits.
How it's made. Collected on the ground at Grand Mesa, Colorado during the SnowEx 2020 field campaign using laser integrating-sphere instruments, with grain properties derived from reflectance.
How & where you'd use it. Studying how snow's microscopic structure affects its reflectance and behavior, useful for calibrating and interpreting satellite snow measurements.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2020-01-27 → 2020-02-12
- Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (IRIS, IceCube)
- Processing levelLevel NA
- Spatial extent-108.22143, 39.0087, -108.00312, 39.06417
- FormatsPNG, CSV
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
- Watch ice-sheet elevation change
- Track freeze/thaw and permafrost
Official description
This data set contains vertical profiles of snow reflectance, specific surface area (SSA), and spherical equivalent snow grain diameter. Data were collected during the SnowEx 2020 Grand Mesa, Colorado Intensive Observation Period between 27 January and 12 February 2020. Reflectance was measured at snow pits using one of two integrating sphere laser devices, IRIS (InfraRed IntegraXng Sphere) or IceCube. SSA and spherical equivalent diameter were then derived from reflectance.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="SNEX20_SSA",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- SnowEx20 Laser Snow Microstructure Specific Surface Area Data, Version 1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION