Whenever you’re out frolicking in a winter wonderland, why not take a frolicking break every now and then to measure snow depth for your friends at the Community Snow Observations project? Your observations will help them verify data obtained from satellites and other remote sensing tools, and also fill in both spatial and temporal gaps in their datasets. Having a good handle on snow depth over space and time helps climate researchers, hydrologists, foresters and also specialists who track avalanche and flood threats. Then you can resume frolicking, now with the satisfaction that comes from having done your part to contribute to important science research.
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https://citscipod.podbean.com/e/science-in-the-snow/
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Podcast Transcript
SciStarter S4E1: Science in the Snow!
[THEME MUSIC]
Bob Hirshon (host)
Welcome to Citizen Science: Stories of Science We Can Do Together. Brought to you by SciStarter. In this episode, discover how you can contribute to meaningful scientific research while you’re out playing in the snow.
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Bob
Hey, Bob Hirshon here, reporting from my science nook in Takoma Park, MD, just outside Washington, DC. It’s mid-January and it still has not snowed here, or up in Philadelphia or even New York. Very unusual.
Also unusual is the enormous snowfall they’re getting out in California, just another indication of the extremes in weather events we’re seeing in recent years.
While this all may not seem too important to those of us who aren’t avid skiers or snowboarders or snowperson builders, where and when and how heavily snow falls is really important to the environment– critical to forests, rivers and streams and everything that lives there– and also to water resource managers for agriculture, recreation, industry and, of course, everyone who eats, drinks, and/or bathes. That’s because in many areas, a scant snow pack leads to limited water and even drought over the summer.
So you’re probably saying, maybe even right out loud, “so, Bob, what do you want ME to do about it?” Well, I knew you were going to ask that, which is why I have as my guest today Katreen Wikström Jones. She’s a cryosphere hazard researcher for the state of Alaska and heads up outreach for a project called Community Snow Observations that needs your help. Katreen is joining us all the way from Girdwood, Alaska.
Hi, Katreen! Thanks for joining us!
Katreen Wikström Jones
Hello. Thanks for having me and us.
Bob
Yeah, yeah. So could you tell us– I know why snow is important for skiers, and people who do winter sports. But could you tell us more generally, why do we care about snow? Why? Why is it important?
Katreen
Well, snow is important all around the globe, really, mainly for the important role that it plays for the water cycle. We can go back to, you know, our K 12 education, and remind ourselves about what we learned there, you know, looking at the water cycle, and the input that snow plays as a form of precipitation. Obviously, you know, certain parts of the world were very warm, might not have much snow, but in the US, snow plays a very critical role for the water, for the water cycle. What we are experiencing now in the US is dropped in a lot of places. And so it’s extremely challenging for water resource managers to estimate the amount of water that is available. And so it’s, it’s critical, you know, to, to many different industries for irrigation in many parts of the United States and other parts of the world for drinking water supplies. It has a lot of both direct and indirect impact on our aquatic life ecology in general, you know, the health of our forests. It can cause wildfires, when we have both drought, in terms of lack of snow, but also too much snow can be bad as well for the health of our forests. So it’s, it’s a really tricky, tricky component. But yet extremely important, and of course, plays a critical role for hazards as well. Not just snow avalanches, but also flooding due to snow melt in the spring.
Bob
Okay, and now how does your project– tell us a little about your project and how it figures in with this?
Katreen
Yeah, sure. So Community Snow Observations project is a community-based, or citizen science based project. It was launched in 2017, by the support of NASA Citizen Science for Earth Science program. That funding has currently expired. So we’re now in search for new funding opportunities. But yet the project lives on, it’s a project that we’re very passionate about. And so what CSO does is filling in the data gaps. So currently, we monitor snow by using remote sensing data, both from satellites from aerial like drones and airplanes. We can study snow with water stations, sorry, weather weather stations. So those are of course, in situ measurements. They’re fixated at a particular location, but they can really provide us good data from that location over time. Then additionally, of course, a lot of science teams go out and measure snow in intensive field campaigns. But there’s only so much area that you can cover as a team. So we recognize you know, there are a lot of backcountry skiers out there and snowboarder, snowboarders and snow machiners and snow shoers, just hikers and, and also, of course professionals that work in the snow like avalanche forecasters or hydrologists. So initially, we were really focused on these groups. And we realize that they are, that all of them have a great capacity to contribute to snow science, in all these areas where we currently lack data: so remote locations, mountainous locations. So that’s where it started, where we focused on these groups, by targeting them, recruiting them to to measure snowpack depth, and submit their observations to us through various platforms that we partner with. So using a cell phone, they could quickly submit the measurement from the field by, you know, allowing the GPS on their phone to geotag your location. And then we got all that data to our database, and could use that data to further improve our modeling of both snow depth, but also snow water equivalent.
Bob
Okay. All right. And now how do, how do people do it? Is it as simple as just taking a meter stick and sticking it in the ground? Or the snow rather?
Katreen
No, really, it is that easy. And simple. It’s extremely quick. So I think that’s that’s the reason behind the success of this product is that we’re not asking for much. So let’s say you’re out skiing with friends, you’re skinning up a mountain, you have a quick water break, and you can quickly pull out your avalanche probe, which is part of the your avalanche safety kit in your in your backpack, and measure the full snowpack depth and submit that. And it literally takes about 30 seconds total, to submit an observation. So it’s very easy. But if you’re not into those kinds of sports, we have a lot of participants who you know, use a traditional yardstick, or a ruler for that matter if you live somewhere where the snowpack is very minimal. And then you can just go out and measure that. Of course, we’re asking for undisturbed snow because we really want that full snowpack depth with as little, you know, interference from from human impact.
Bob
Oh, that’s right, cause if you’re skiing, they have snowmaking machines at a lot of the slopes. So that would mess up your readings, wouldn’t it?
Katreen
Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. So typically, we don’t really request data from ski resorts because because of that artificial impact on the snow. So it’s, it’s more for outer boundary areas, or more straight up back country, so remote areas outside of urban settings. But we’re interested in measurements from anywhere and any time. So, you know, we have a lot of participants who submit measurements from their backyard. And that becomes very informative. When that becomes a place you measure year after year after year, then you can really start studying change. And that’s a really interesting for the participant as well.
Bob
Hmm. And for the people who are out hiking in the back country, I would think a meter stick or a yard stick would be kind of unwieldy. Do you have like special ones that fold up or something like that?
Katreen
Yeah, that’s right. So snow, snow avalanche probes are about, you know, this long in your pack and quite skinny, and it folds out. So it’s a very slick tool to bring with you in your backpack. But, but otherwise, you know, one of those, like, measure tapes that are pretty, you know, easy to bring with you as well, but hard to keep straight when you’re measuring snow. And obviously, then you have to dig a little bit more to really be able to stretch it out and see how much snow there is on the ground. But there are a lot of different options. So whatever works for you.
Bob
And do you have to be careful about, you know how level it is or whether you’re in the shade versus in the sun and things like that?
Katreen
It definitely needs to be straight vertical. So we want that straight vertical measurement of snow that gives us the best idea of that depth. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a sunny spot or in a in a shady spot where we’re interested to see how the snow is distributed in the terrain. So covering all of it, and even covering areas in the forest is interesting as well because that’s typically also areas where we have kind of rough estimates due to the uncertainty in how snow interacts with vegetation. So–
Bob
Yeah, that really, it’s got to be lumpy, sometimes, you know from the trees. You know, there’s areas where there’s not much and then there’s a lot. And then–
Katreen
Yeah, I should say that we typically recommend users to find a spot that is somewhat level as well. So you want to avoid areas where you have a lot of variability within let’s say, a meter radius. And then when you do a measurement, maybe take an average of three within that one meter radius, that way you can, you can tell that it’s sort of a good representative of that specific spot.
Bob
Okay, and, and so then it’s just a matter of using your, your cell phone to submit it.
Katreen
That’s right. So in the past, we have used an app called Mountain Hub. And that, that app has now retired. So we are now working with Propagation Labs is the name of the company. And they have an app called Snow Scope. And it’s a really nice, easy app to use. It also allows the user to submit manual snow pit profiles. So that’s a lot of interest from the avalanche professionals that we work with. That’s really great. But we also participate, or partner with other apps as well, such as CitSci.org, RegObs, which is a popular app in Europe, particularly in Norway, and then also Snow Pilot, which, which is a desktop software and very commonly used among snow analysis professionals. But we get data from there as well. So it’s, you know, the user can really pick whichever app that works best for them.
Bob
Great. Okay. And are you I assume you’re looking for more volunteers, more contributors? And are there places where you are in particular need of people like, “Oh, we don’t have anybody in this area? But we have way, plenty of people already here. So we don’t need any more.” How about that?
Katreen
Well, honestly, at this point, our product has really gotten a really amazing reach all across the US. And it’s quite impressive. It started off with focus on Alaska, and then it’s spread into, you know, the Pacific Northwest Area. But, but now, it’s really all across the United States. We have a really great support on the East Coast, as well, which is very exciting. But I’d say there’s still not a ton of participants in southern US, maybe, I guess, because there’s not a lot of snow. But you know, the snow that falls down there, that would be really interested, interesting to capture. And then, you know, southern states and also southeast, southwest, as well as a little bit less participation there. So, but yeah, you can go online on our website to see, you know, how many submissions we’ve gotten so far, where the concentrations are. And if you find yourself being in a spot that lacks data, then we would say for sure, go out there and measure. But, yeah, no, it’s we’re looking for both temporal and spatial coverage. So, so getting a lot of data throughout the winter season is very helpful, because all those data points help inform our modeling. So, you know, get out there when the snow starts falling, and get out there when it’s starting to melt away and log those areas where the snow is gone, because that helps us tell, okay, here are very sparse areas, where it melts out quickly. That’s, that’s very informative. Even zero snow is an important number.
Bob
Okay, and how about, it looks like, you know, I was just at your website, and it looks like you have a contest or something coming up, right?
Katreen
Yeah, that’s right. We have a contest starting this weekend on January 15. It’s a month long contest runs through February 15. And it’s a classic data collection contest. So we’re just encouraging our users to go out, measure snow depth. Measurements need to be 100 meters apart. That’s just to kind of set some rules that you can’t just go out and poke around in the same spot 100 times. You need to cover some ground. But then submit your measurements, and the winners will be the ones that submit the most measurements. So it’s a very, very simple contest rules. Submissions, though, for this contest, need to be submitted in Snow Scope. So we’re only looking at submissions in Snow Scope. But we have some really, really great prizes from Backcountry Access. So there’s, there’s good opportunity, and we’re looking forward to see all the submissions.
Bob
Okay, but now you said there’s a limit as far as how close they are; how about how close they are in time? Can you do it in the same place, then the same place the next day, the same place the next day, on and on through the month? I mean you wanted it over time.
Katreen
Right. Yeah, yeah, you could, but if there’s no change, you know, from yesterday, if there’s nothing to report at all, you know, the question remains, if that’s really informative. But I guess it is, you know, at the same time it is, because, you know, our modeling is informed by, by, by weather models. And so, you know, it’s a stepwise process where all these measurements that we received from our participants are really validation whether our modeling is doing a good job, and then it helps to correct the modeling. So, you know, if there’s a weather model that’s telling our model that there should be more snow there than it actually is, then that’s really good information. So yeah, having some certain spots that you tend to go back to is, it’s interesting for us, but it’s also really interesting for the user, because then they start to learn, you know, how the snowpack stacks up. And when there’s no additional snow, how the snowpack compacts throughout the winter, so that’s interesting as well.
Bob
Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Katreen
Well, I really look forward to the SciStarter event. Look forward to see new faces, folks that are interested in snow. We love to share and spread the awareness of snow. All of us on the team are, of course– well, not “off course,” but we do love winter sports. But it’s really fun for us to see that you can love snow, even if you don’t necessarily recreate in snow and all the joy that it brings. And yeah, we love sharing that sort of awareness that the snowpack matters to us. And you know, you, being a non scientist can really contribute to science. So we’re excited to to make people feel empowered in that way.
Bob
Great. All right. Well, thanks so much.
Katreen
Thank you.
Bob
Katreen mentioned that she’s looking forward to the SciStarter LIVE event which is on January 24th, 2023. You can find the link to that at SciStarter.org by selecting the calendar option. And if you’re getting this after January 24th, you can still check out the video of that live event at the SciStarter YouTube channel. Finally, remember that even if you’re in a place that doesn’t have snow right now, you can still contribute your data to the project. And remember to update your location when it does snow there.
Well, that’s all for now. I’m Bob Hirshon. See you next time.
[THEME MUSIC]
Bob
This podcast is brought to you each month by SciStarter, where you will find thousands of citizen science projects, events and tools. It’s all at SciStarter.org. That’s SC I S T A R T E R dot ORG. SciStarter’s founder is Darlene Cavalier. And thanks so much to you, the listener and citizen scientist for getting involved and making a difference. If you have any ideas you want to share with us, and any things you want to hear on this podcast, get in touch with us at info at SciStarter.org. Once again, our email address is info at SciStarter.org Thanks again and I’ll see you next time
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