Contributions of SWESARR to SnowEx

Snow Water Equivalent, or SWE, the measurement of how much water is stored in snow, is an important observable for water resource management and climate studies. One-sixth of the world's population (1.2 billion people) rely on seasonal snowpack and glaciers as a source of freshwater. SWESARR (SWE Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer) was developed to shed light on this important observable.

SWESARR is an airborne instrument developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for the retrieval of SWE, through funding from NASA Earth Science Technology Office and the centers Internal Research and Development program. SWESARR was designed to measure co-located active and passive microwave signals using a high resolution and triple frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a triple frequency radiometer. SWESARR's active SAR system operates in the X, Ku-Low, and Ku-High bands with bandwidths up to 200 MHz, and acquires data in two polarizations (VV, VH). SWESARR radiometer collects H-polarization data in X, K and Ka bands, with up to 1000 MHz bandwidth.

To better characterize the performance of various snow sensors, and to identify optimum multi-sensor synergies and model assimilation for mapping the critical snowpack properties in future satellite missions, the SnowEx campaign was undertaken by the NASA Terrestrial Hydrology Program (THP). SWESARR has flown over Grand Mesa, CO, as part of the SnowEx campaign in November 2019 and February 2020. It is expected to fly again in Alaska during the upcoming SnowEx campaign spanning the winter of 2022-2023. In this presentation, we will present radar and radiometer observations from the SWESARR flights as part of the data contributed to SnowEx campaigns.