Waiting for the snow to melt…
Radar measurements of accumulated snow using a Ku and X-band scatterometer instrument system were conducted at Grand Mesa, Colorado during the SnowEx 2017 field experiment in February 2017. Coincident snowpack measurements to the radar observations were made to characterize snow stratigraphy, snow density, snow grain structure, and snow thermodynamic properties. Eight sites were observed with the UWScat systems including two sites from a platform positioned 9 m above the ground and adjacent to a woodlot. The 6 non-wooded sites show consistent behavior of Ku and X-band power response (backscatter) compared with previous field studies. The first of these 6 sites was characterized by a wet snowpack response, while the other 5 had strong volume scattering response from the dry snowpack. The forest response is complex and requires further analysis to better understand the radar response from the woody biomass. The paper demonstrates and explores several response types from the radar observations of snow, including the backscatter power response, the polarimetric responses, all of which shed light on the Ku and X-band response from the ~2m snowpack.
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