Tower based C-band measurements of an alpine snowpack
- 1Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
- 2Department of Geosciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA
- 3Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Measuring snow from space is still a significant challenge in hydrology. Work by Lievens et al. (2019) for the first time showed the potential of the Sentinel-1 C-band radar mission to measure snow depth from space. However, the physical interactions between snow grains and the comparatively long C-band waves are not sufficiently understood. To improve this understanding, a tower based C-band radar experiment was set up in Idaho’s Rocky mountains starting from January 2020. The ultra-wideband radar system recorded the reflections in the time-domain, allowing to study the return throughout the different layers of the snowpack at a fine resolution. Reference data of the stratigraphy and snow properties were collected during ~weekly site visits. Our results indicate that some volume scattering is present at C-band for dry snow, and that the backscatter return increases substantially after melt-freeze cycles and with the appearance of ice features within the snowpack.
How to cite: Brangers, I., Marshall, H.-P., De Lannoy, G. J. M., and Lievens, H.: Tower based C-band measurements of an alpine snowpack, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-17234, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-17234, 2023.
