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Remote sensing to measure water from snowpack and glaciers
Researchers at the Hakai Cryosphere Node are revolutionizing the way we measure snow and are gaining a better understanding of how wildfires influence the melting of the province’s glaciers.
The Hakai Cryosphere Node is a collaboration between the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Vancouver Island University (VIU) and the Hakai Institute. The Hakai Cryosphere Node is located at UNBC and led by Geography Professor Dr. Brian Menounos, and Dr. Bill Floyd, a Research Hydrologist with the BC Ministry of Forests and a VIU Geography Adjunct Professor.
The researchers have been working on this project since 2018 when the Tula Foundation funded the Hakai Cryosphere Charter. It funded a five-year project to understand the role seasonal snow cover and glaciers play in the hydrology of key watersheds along BC’s Central and Southern Coast.
Researchers are using a plane equipped with LiDAR (a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges, or variable distances, to the Earth). The plane flies over watershed areas to get two sets of measurements. The plane is used when there is no snow, a bare Earth measurement, and again for a second measurement when there is snow on the ground. Researchers can subtract them from each other and get an estimate of snow depth.
The LiDAR information is combined with traditional snow-measuring methods that have been used for the past 100 years. These measuring techniques involve people going out into the snowpacks and using a snow tube to measure snow depth and density.
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