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Full catalog/SNEX20_SWESARR_TB
SNEX20_SWESARR_TB·v1·dataset

Microwave brightness over snow, airborne study (SnowEx20)

SnowEx20 Airborne SWESARR Brightness Temperature V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 1B CSV
In plain English

What it measures. Records how much natural microwave energy snow-covered ground gives off, captured at three different microwave frequencies (X, K, and Ka bands). These readings reflect how the snowpack looks to a microwave sensor and relate to the amount of water held in the snow.

How it's made. Collected by the SWESARR instrument flown aboard a DHC-6 aircraft over Grand Mesa, Colorado, during a three-day NASA SnowEx field campaign in February 2020.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers work out how much water is stored in snow from the air, which feeds into water-supply forecasting and snow science.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › MICROWAVE › BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-02-10 → 2020-02-12
  • Measured byDHC-6 (SWESARR)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-108.242, 38.987, -108.097, 39.085
  • FormatsCSV
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This data set contains airborne microwave brightness temperature observations from the Goddard Space Flight Center SWESARR (Snow Water Equivalent Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer) instrument during the winter (10-12 February 2020) NASA SnowEx 2020 campaign at Grand Mesa, CO. Observations were made at three frequencies (10.65, 18.7, and 36.5 GHz; referred to as X, K, and Ka bands, respectively), at horizontal polarization with a nominal 45-degree look angle.

Get the data

snex20_swesarr_tb_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SNEX20_SWESARR_TB",
    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_CPRD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.