Field snow-pit measurements at fall freeze-up (2023)
What it measures. Hands-on field measurements from 186 snow pits dug across five sites in Alaska, capturing snow conditions and the ground beneath as winter freeze-up began.
How it's made. Collected by researchers on the ground during NASA's SnowEx field campaign in October 2022, spanning boreal forest and Arctic tundra sites.
How & where you'd use it. Provides real-world ground truth to check and improve satellite snow measurements and snow models, especially for northern environments.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2022-10-22 → 2022-10-27
- Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (GPS, MICROSCOPES, SWE Sampler, THERMOMETERS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-149.59716, 64.69925, -147.48583, 70.08434
- FormatsCSV, Excel, JPEG
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Map vegetation, forests and biomass
- Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
- Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description
The data set presents snow pit measurements collected during the NASA SnowEx October 2022 Intensive Observation Period (IOP) in Alaska, USA. In total, 186 snow pits were excavated between the five sites at locations representing a range of snow depth, vegetation, and topographic conditions. Three study areas represented boreal forest snow near Fairbanks, AK: Farmers Loop Creamers Field (FLCF), Caribou Poker Creek Research Watershed (CPCRW), and Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest (BCEF). Two study areas represented Arctic tundra snow: Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) and Upper Kuparuk Toolik (UKT).
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="SNEX23_Oct22_SP",
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
- SnowEx23 Oct22 IOP Snow Pit Measurements, Version 1 Technical Reference VIEW RELATED INFORMATION