Here is how we “commute'” to the lab each morning. Dr. Noah Molotch (U. Colorado), Dr. Dan Berisford (JPL) Jen Petrzelka (U. Colorado), and Ty Atkins spent all day today (and the previous 2 days) making snowpit measurements using both traditional and new high-tech methods. In this photo, you can see how deep the snowpit […]
A big milestone today: after the DC snowstorm, the cross-country shipping, the snowcat trip up the mountain, and the days of wiring, we finally got radiometer data today. Dr. Mike Durand and Ty Atkins (U. Colorado) worked really hard to set up a stand built by Goddard engineers to hold the radiometer at just the […]
Sunrise on top of the mountain was beautiful—even the LN2 tank was glowing.
We finished the radiometer wiring today. The data logger we installed to record measurements isn’t working 100%, so we switched to a backup method. We worked so late, we had to stay the night on top of the mountain. The lab has bunks. It got quite cold outside at night, about -14C (7F), but not […]
I departed DC for Steamboat, still not knowing when things will arrive. While switching flights in Denver, I receive the shipping info: it’s supposed to arrive today!
We’re scheduled to start the field campaign next week, but Goddard has been closed since the previous Friday because of back-to-back snowstorms in Washington, DC. The last week before shipping out on a campaign is always hectic, but we were supposed to have shipped the equipment out days ago. We have lost a week to […]
Knowing how widespread and how deep mountain snow packs are is important for more than just making ski forecasts. One-sixth of the world’s population relies on melted snow for their freshwater, which means good estimates of snow are critical for making realistic predictions of a region’s water supply. But measuring snow, especially the amount of […]
Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year NASA field campaign, is the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. The team in Antarctica will be blogging about their experiences on this campaign over the next few weeks […]
Merril Brook Cabins, Howland, Maine From Dr. Jon Ranson: I’ve shared a lot of my own experiences over the past two weeks. For the moment, I’m going to step aside and ask Sassan Saatchi to share with you his impressions of his work at Howland. From Dr. Sassan Saatchi This has been a very good […]
Penobscot Experimental Forest, Bradley, Maine Temperature 71°F Humidity 65% Wind 0 mph Sunny From Dr. Jon Ranson: This gorgeous morning we hopped in our cars and drove back to the last site, close to Lake Chemo (you can pronounce that chee-moe). Yesterday I was impressed by the high biomass and the giant Quaking Aspen trees. Today […]
