NASA Ames Research Center
September 28-30, 2022
About the conference
This Snow Albedo Workshop will bring together experts in snow albedo in a hands-on, collaborative workspace to identify where scientific gains have been made and where scientific opportunities exist to advance the science of snow albedo.
Why should I care about snow albedo? This sounds pretty niche.
Snow has long been recognized as a key climate variable, and is critically important to human welfare, security, and economics. Snow albedo, or the capacity of snow to absorb or reflect solar radiation, exerts a significant control on the Earth’s energy and water balance and is highly variable throughout space and time, especially in areas that experience seasonal snowpack. In its simplest form, albedo plays a dominant control in how slow or fast snow melts. To date the scientific community has not provided a comprehensive examination of measurements and models of snow albedo.
What is specifically innovative about snow albedo as a science question is that never before have we had the capacity for a detailed meta analysis. Now exists the extensive availability of ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne measurements. The scientific community has developed, and now we have early-to-senior career experts in measurement and modeling who are poised to make major scientific gains in responding to the full range of snow albedo questions.
In 2020, NASA selected two Hydrological Test Bed Scoping Studies to explore on how to construct new or augment existing long-term data observatories that would allow for:
- Multi-year observations of the land portion of the water cycle
- Sufficient ancillary data collection to allow for rigorous use of Land Surface Models
- Support (future) spatial re-scaling studies
- Occasional combination with airborne data collection to evaluate new remote sensing approaches and use existing ones to address a broad range of hydrological science challenges
- Sufficient ancillary data collection to allow for rigorous use of Land Surface Models
- Support (future) spatial re-scaling studies
- Occasional combination with airborne data collection to evaluate new remote sensing approaches and use existing ones to address a broad range of hydrological science challenges
This workshop will bring together experts to identify scientific gains and where scientific opportunities exist to advance the science of snow albedo.
Themes & goals
The goal of this 3-day workshop is to synthesize past snow albedo literature, identify and characterize key research/knowledge gaps and recommend an implementation plan for a snow albedo test bed. The review focused on five research topics: (i) snow albedo parameterizations for Earth system models, (ii) snow physical parameters (e.g. grain size & light absorbing particles), (iii) atmospheric correction over snow and snow/cloud discrimination, (iv) calibration & validation of snow physical properties, and (v) inventory of snow reflectance/ BRDF/ albedo data products.
Who should attend
This workshop is intended for individuals who are professionally supporting a Hydrological Test Bed Scoping Study for snow albedo and sponsored by the NASA Terrestrial Hydrology program (THP). The event is free, but participants are required to register. The workshop is expected to assess the current state of snow albedo literature, synthesize the findings and research gaps and recommend methods of implementing a snow albedo test bed.