SnowEx is a multi-year, NASA-led campaign that aims to enhance remote sensing capabilities of snow in forested regions. SnowEx has completed four deployments during the boreal winter from 2016 to 2023 across mainly Colorado and Alaska for 2023. Several aircraft equipped with radars, radiometers, and other remote sensing instruments, along with ground instruments, were used to record changes in snow/ice accumulation, as well as meteorological observations such as snowfall rates. SnowEx is funded by NASA’s Terrestrial Hydrology Program.
The Airborne Glacier and Land Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN-A) is an airborne, interferometric synthetic aperture radar. GLISTIN-A operates in the Ka-band (35.6 GHz), allowing the instrument to penetrate the top layers of snow and limit atmospheric attenuation. GLISTIN-A provides measurements of glacial and land ice surface topography and elevation at a spatial resolution of around 3 m. GLISTIN-A is ideal for measuring ice sheet elevation and studying glacial topographic changes due to its high spatial resolution and accuracy.
The Wideband Instrument for Snow Measurements (WISM) instrument was developed to address a remote sensing need to measure surface snowfall and its associated snow water equivalent. WISM consists of two airborne instruments: a dual-frequency (X and Ku) Synthetic Aperture Radar and a dual-frequency (X and Ka) radiometer with a shared common antenna aperture between the two.
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Precipitation > Snow Water Equivalent
If instrument model or detailed specification information is not available, can use this instrument entry for radiometers of various types (typically microwave-band) that are flown on aircraft.
Earth Science > >
This description will be added in a future version
The Riegl VZ-1000 V-Line 3D Terrestrial Scanner is a type of surveying instrument that allows it to be operated in unique conditions due to its lightweight and compact size in situations such as forestry, mining, and archeological research. This instrument has a near-infrared laser capable of detecting a target over 1,400 meters away and can evaluate up to 122,000 measurements a second. Accuracy and precision of the Riegl VZ-1000 are 8 and 5 millimeters; respectively due to its small beam divergence of 0.3 milliradians.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography > Terrain Elevation
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography
This data will be added in future versions
Earth Science > >
If instrument model information is not available, can use this instrument entry for temperature, pressues, wind speed, wind direction, humidity
The SnowSAR is a dual-frequency band and dual polarization mode SAR. It was developed and is operated by MetaSensing. It provides X- and Ku- SAR image data of land cover and snow fields.
The Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR) is an airborne multi-wavelength scanning radiometer developed by Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). CAR provides measurements of scattered radiance and bidirectional reflectance of the surface across 14 spectral bands in the visible and near-infrared wavelengths (0.34-2.30 µm). It also acquires imagery of cloud and Earth surface features. CAR has a scan rate of 1.67 Hz (100 rpm) and has a spatial resolution of 4m at nadir for an altitude of 200m above ground level.
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Clouds > Cloud Radiative Transfer
A pyrometer is an instrument that measures temperature remotely, i.e. by measuring radiation from the object, without having to be in contact. The KT11 Infrared Radiation Pyrometer provides temperature measurements in the range of -30 to 500 Celsius by intercepting incoming infrared radiation emitted by surfaces. The high stability and noise suppression of the instrument allows for high response times of readings as well as the capability of temperature measurements of small objects. The KT-19II infrared pyrometer was manufactured by Heitronics, and sees a spectrum of 8-12um. The KT-19 is a radiometer that measures the brightness temperature of the surface beneath the aircraft. The KT-19 instrument can estimate the surface temperature by knowing the emissivity of the target. The response time is adjustable from 5 msec, to monitor and control extremely short production cycles, up to 10 minutes, to integrate measurements in long-term thermal processes with an extremely high resolution.
Earth Science > Oceans > Ocean Temperature > Sea Surface Temperature
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Atmospheric Temperature > Surface Temperature > Skin Temperature
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Clouds > Cloud Properties > Cloud Top Temperature
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Atmospheric Temperature > Surface Temperature
Earth Science > Spectral/engineering > Infrared Wavelengths > Brightness Temperature
The QWIP camera system is essentially an infrared version of a video camcorder that is capable of detecting temperature variations of ∼0.02°C.NASA's QWIP detector is a Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor chip with over 100 layers of detector material on top. Each layer is extremely thin, ranging from 10 to 700 atoms thick, and the layers are designed to act as quantum wells.
The Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) is a suite of instruments that fly aboard an aircraft. In this suite is a Riegl Q1560 scanning lidar and a CASI 1500 imaging spectrometer. ASO measures snow water equivalent, albedo, and reflected radiance.
Earth Science > Cryosphere > Snow/ice > Albedo
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Precipitation > Snow Water Equivalent
The Airborne Glacier and Land Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN-A) is an airborne, interferometric synthetic aperture radar. GLISTIN-A operates in the Ka-band (35.6 GHz), allowing the instrument to penetrate the top layers of snow and limit atmospheric attenuation. GLISTIN-A provides measurements of glacial and land ice surface topography and elevation at a spatial resolution of around 3 m. GLISTIN-A is ideal for measuring ice sheet elevation and studying glacial topographic changes due to its high spatial resolution and accuracy.
The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is an airborne polarimetric L-band radar developed and operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It provides differential interferometric measurements which can be used to understand deformation from phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and glaciers. UAVSAR operates at a frequency of 1.26 GHz and has a range bandwidth of 80 MHz. It has a horizontal resolution of 6 m and a swath width of 20 km at an altitude of 12 km.
The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is an airborne polarimetric L-band radar developed and operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It provides differential interferometric measurements which can be used to understand deformation from phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and glaciers. UAVSAR operates at a frequency of 1.26 GHz and has a range bandwidth of 80 MHz. It has a horizontal resolution of 6 m and a swath width of 20 km at an altitude of 12 km.
If instrument model or detailed specification information is not available, can use this instrument entry for radiometers of various types (typically microwave-band) that are flown on aircraft.
Earth Science > >
This data will be added in future versions.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Soils > Soil Temperature
This data will be added in future versions
Earth Science > >
This data will be added in future versions
Earth Science > >
This description will be added in future versions.
The Riegl VZ-1000 V-Line 3D Terrestrial Scanner is a type of surveying instrument that allows it to be operated in unique conditions due to its lightweight and compact size in situations such as forestry, mining, and archeological research. This instrument has a near-infrared laser capable of detecting a target over 1,400 meters away and can evaluate up to 122,000 measurements a second. Accuracy and precision of the Riegl VZ-1000 are 8 and 5 millimeters; respectively due to its small beam divergence of 0.3 milliradians.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography > Terrain Elevation
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography
If instrument model information is not available, can use this instrument entry for temperature, pressues, wind speed, wind direction, humidity
The Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) is a suite of instruments that fly aboard an aircraft. In this suite is a Riegl Q1560 scanning lidar and a CASI 1500 imaging spectrometer. ASO measures snow water equivalent, albedo, and reflected radiance.
Earth Science > Cryosphere > Snow/ice > Albedo
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Precipitation > Snow Water Equivalent
The Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) is a relatively small, lightweight hyper-spectral sensor that has been used on a variety of light aircraft. CASI was developed by Itres Research Ltd (Alberta, Canada) in 1988 and was designed for a variety of remote sensing applications in forestry, agriculture, land-use planning, and aquatic monitoring. By allowing user-defined configurations, the 12-bit, push-broom-type sensor (333 scan lines per second) using a charge-coupled detector (CCD) can be adapted to maximize either spatial (37.8° across track field of view, 0.077° along-track, 512 pixels – pixel size varies with altitude) or spectral resolution (288 bands at 1.9 nm intervals between 400 and 1000 nm).
If instrument model or detailed specification information is not available, can use this instrument entry for radiometers of various types (typically microwave-band) that are flown on aircraft.
Earth Science > >
This data will be added in future versions.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Soils > Soil Temperature
This description will be added in future versions.
The Riegl VZ-1000 V-Line 3D Terrestrial Scanner is a type of surveying instrument that allows it to be operated in unique conditions due to its lightweight and compact size in situations such as forestry, mining, and archeological research. This instrument has a near-infrared laser capable of detecting a target over 1,400 meters away and can evaluate up to 122,000 measurements a second. Accuracy and precision of the Riegl VZ-1000 are 8 and 5 millimeters; respectively due to its small beam divergence of 0.3 milliradians.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography > Terrain Elevation
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography
If instrument model information is not available, can use this instrument entry for temperature, pressues, wind speed, wind direction, humidity
The Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer - Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) is an airborne imaging spectrometer developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to operate alongside and eventually replace the AVIRIS Classic. AVIRIS-NG has been designed to operate aboard NASA’s ER-2, a Twin Otter, and a B-200. AVIRIS-NG operates between 380 nm - 2510 nm with 5nm spectral resolution. AVIRIS-NG has a spatial resolution of 18 m at 20 km altitude and is often used for terrestrial ecology research investigations.
Lidar is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflected light with a sensor. Differences in laser return times and wavelengths can then be used to make digital 3-D representations of the target.
Lidar is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflected light with a sensor. Differences in laser return times and wavelengths can then be used to make digital 3-D representations of the target.
If instrument model or detailed specification information is not available, can use this instrument entry for radiometers of various types (typically microwave-band) that are flown on aircraft.
Earth Science > >
The Riegl VZ-1000 V-Line 3D Terrestrial Scanner is a type of surveying instrument that allows it to be operated in unique conditions due to its lightweight and compact size in situations such as forestry, mining, and archeological research. This instrument has a near-infrared laser capable of detecting a target over 1,400 meters away and can evaluate up to 122,000 measurements a second. Accuracy and precision of the Riegl VZ-1000 are 8 and 5 millimeters; respectively due to its small beam divergence of 0.3 milliradians.
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography > Terrain Elevation
Earth Science > Land Surface > Topography
If instrument model information is not available, can use this instrument entry for temperature, pressues, wind speed, wind direction, humidity
