Learning about Snow-derived Water Resources through Remote Sensing and Data Assimilation
A Warren Distinguished Lecture with
Steve Margulis
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UCLA
Abstract
Global mountain snowpacks serve as a vital seasonal water reservoir. Snowmelt-driven runoff sustains many downstream ecosystems, including human civilization and its agriculture in many areas of the globe. Despite its importance, characterizing the amount of water stored in snowpacks, that is, the snow water equivalent (SWE), and how it varies over space and time in global mountains has largely eluded hydrologists. Margulis covers a survey of work in our group over the last 15-20 years aimed at contributing to the characterization of global mountain snow. A unifying theme of the work is the use of data assimilation to tie together remote sensing observations and hydrologic models in an effort to estimate SWE. The journey starts with knowing almost nothing about snow to most recently leading the development of a proposed NASA snow mission. The talk will span across the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to visible wavelengths and highlight some ideas that worked well and others that did not. The talk will end on where we currently stand in characterizing mountain SWE and the pathways and opportunities for moving forward.
Global mountain snowpacks serve as a vital seasonal water reservoir. Snowmelt-driven runoff sustains many downstream ecosystems, including human civilization and its agriculture in many areas of the globe. Despite its importance, characterizing the amount of water stored in snowpacks, that is, the snow water equivalent (SWE), and how it varies over space and time in global mountains has largely eluded hydrologists. Margulis covers a survey of work in our group over the last 15-20 years aimed at contributing to the characterization of global mountain snow. A unifying theme of the work is the use of data assimilation to tie together remote sensing observations and hydrologic models in an effort to estimate SWE. The journey starts with knowing almost nothing about snow to most recently leading the development of a proposed NASA snow mission. The talk will span across the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to visible wavelengths and highlight some ideas that worked well and others that did not. The talk will end on where we currently stand in characterizing mountain SWE and the pathways and opportunities for moving forward.
Speaker
Steve Margulis graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1996. He pursued graduate studies at MIT where he received an MS (1998) and Ph.D. (2002) in Civil and Environmental Engineering with an emphasis on hydrology. His Ph.D. research focused on warm-season land-atmosphere interactions and hydrologic data assimilation. Margulis joined the UCLA Civil and Environmental Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor in 2002 where he has been since and currently serves as the Department Chair. Early in his career at UCLA, his research switched gears from warm-season processes to cold-season processes. He has been trying to learn about snow processes ever since.
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