Earth & Space Research

National science foundation snow science field campaign design and snow melt modeling:through a subaward from washington state university (wsu), as part of the icecaps (icecapsmelt.org) experiment, esr scientists designed a snow properties experiment and analyzed the resulting data for a field campaign in support of a novel autonomous, medium-power cloud and snow observatory deployed at camp raven, greenland. Esr scientists are also using the in-situ data from camp raven and summit station, greenland as boundary conditions in simulations of the surface energy and mass budget of the greenland interior. This work will refine our understanding of the coupled atmosphere/snow processes that are leading to increasing frequency and intensity of melt in the greenland interior.

Reflective earthdeveloping techniques to efficiently monitor solar radiation management interventions: esr scientists are contracted to develop techniques to efficiently monitor solar radiation management interventions using a combination of geospatial data sets (e.g., sentinel-2 reflectance data and era5 insolation) and surface energy budget models). This work is intended to positively influence government and private entities to engage in safe, reliable, and long-lasting solar radiation management interventions like reflective pavement paint and reflective reservoir covers that mitigate the impacts rising mean global temperatures and regional temperature extremes.lakeside school:the lakeside summer research institute: a mentored, summer geoscience/data science experience for high school students esr scientists and educators partnered with a local, independent school (lakeside school) to offer a 4-week, mentored, in-person geoscience/data science experience. Esr personnel curated professional-level data sets and guided students through quantitative exploration of the data. Students asked and answered questions of the data sets, presented their work at a local university, and published their code in established open science forums. This work is intended to inclusively and authentically expose students to the intersection of the fields of geoscience and data science, providing a much-needed pathway into geoscience.