The recent SnowEx campaign and the new NISAR satellite mission are lighting the way to high-resolution snowpack monitoring and improved decisionmaking in critical river basins around the world.
snow
Posted inNews
Changing Winters Leave Indigenous Alaskans on Thin Ice
Researchers are blending Indigenous Knowledges with climate models to describe shifts in snow and ice.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Episodic Tales of Salt
When episodic pulses of road salt hit after a winter storm, the impact can be like a lightning strike for the environment.
Posted inNews
Safety Device Supplies Life-Saving Air in an Avalanche
An Alpine medical team buried 24 volunteers in a mountain pass. Their study confirmed the efficacy of the Safeback SBX, which uses snow’s natural porosity to supply air to buried avalanche victims.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Rising Temperature and Decreasing Snow Cover Increase Soil Breakdown
With climate change and rising temperatures, soil freeze-thaw – which is in turn causing soil breakdown – may counterintuitively increase in the hillslopes where snow cover is decreasing.
Posted inNews
Is Your Shampoo Washing Up in Antarctica?
Researchers have found chemicals from personal care products like shampoo, deodorant, and laundry soap in Antarctic snow.
Posted inResearch & Developments
NOAA Halts Maintenance of Key Arctic Data at National Snow and Ice Data Center
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) may no longer actively maintain or update some of its snow and ice data products after losing support from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, according to a 6 May announcement.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Nonlinear Dynamics May Lead to Faster Retreat of Antarctic Ice
The Antarctic ice sheet behaves like a non-Newtonian fluid and may be more nonlinear than previously thought. This impacts its future stability and requires revisions to predictions of sea level rise.
Posted inNews
Snowmelt Sends Caribou Packing
Researchers compared caribou tracking data with satellite observations to learn whether snowpack conditions trigger the animals’ arduous annual migration.
Posted inNews
Tourism and Distant Fires Affect Antarctica’s Black Carbon Levels
Tourism and biomass burning in the Southern Hemisphere are boosting black carbon levels and accelerating ice melt in Antarctica.