Ross Palomaki (INSTAAR Postdoc)

INSTAAR Seminar Series. Hybrid event, in person and via Zoom

Audience: All are welcome

Location: Online and in SEEL 303. 4001 Discovery Drive, Boulder, CO. Coffee, cookies, and PIZZA will be served.

Special note:  The SEEL building is usually locked. If you do not have access to the SEEL building, please enter through the SEEC-SEEL bridge located in the south side of SEEC (next to SEEC S249). Someone will hold the door there from 11:45 AM-noon.

After presentation: There will be time for informal discussion with the speaker after the presentation.

Abstract: Seasonal snow and river ice are important components of the winter hydrological regime throughout the Northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada. Prairie snowpacks, though much shallower than those in the mountains, provide critical moisture input for the largely non-irrigated agricultural systems across the region. Around the same time that the spring planting season gets underway, ice built up in river channels begins to thaw and release, potentially forming hazardous ice jam floods as it moves downstream. Satellite-based remote sensing, in particular synthetic aperture radar (SAR), offers a variety techniques that can help measure and monitor these cryospheric components to support research, resource management, and emergency response teams. In this presentation I will review the current state of SAR-based remote sensing techniques for measuring seasonal snow water equivalent and river ice, present results from recent field-based validation studies in central and western Montana, and discuss future satellite missions and additional challenges of scaling these techniques up to global scales.