Speakers Club - Jeff Dozier

Event Date: 

Thursday, January 10, 2019 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Snow albedo: how it varies, how to measure, and why you should care

Like most processes at Earth’s surface, absorbed solar radiation drives the energy balance of a snowpack. The absorption depends on the incident solar radiation, but also on the snow albedo, whose temporal and spatial variation are driven by grain growth and dark contaminants like dust or soot. The rate of snowmelt affects the duration of processes on the underlying material; for example, glaciers melt faster when the overlying snow disappears earlier in the summer. Remote sensing of the albedo of snow in the mountains, where the pixels are often only partially covered, is one of the two most important problems in mountain snow hydrology, along with the measurement of snow water equivalent.

 

Jeff Dozier
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
University of California, Santa Barbara

Speakers Club Poster