14 DAY TRIAL // Less than a week from now, experts at the American space agency are scheduled to begin a series of research flights above Canada, whose main purpose is to analyze the snowstorms forming at different locations. This will provide an interesting proxy for analyzing snowfall from space.
This endeavor is a part of the preparatory effort for the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission, which NASA and international partners, including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plan to launch on July 13, 2013.
GPM will be responsible for measuring the amount of moisture in Earth's atmosphere once every 3 hours or so, providing increased observations capabilities to climate scientists, weather forecasters and meteorologists. Its path will allow it to cover almost the entire surface of the planet.
However, global rain maps also need to include snowfall, and analyzing and quantifying the latter from Earth's orbit is a bit tricky. This is why NASA and mission managers at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, are now conducting this study.
The GPM Cold-season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx) will be conducted from aboard a DC-8 airborne science laboratory belonging to the American space agency. NASA is cooperating closely with Environment Canada for this research, which will take the aircraft above portions of Ontario.
GCPEx is scheduled to take place between January 17 and February 29. Experts believe that this amount of time is sufficient to collect all necessary proxy data. This information will be used to allow scientists to calibrate the instruments on the GPM spacecraft.
“Snow is notoriously hard to measure as it falls. Snowflakes contain varying amounts of air and water, and they flutter, wobble and drift as they leave the clouds,” explains GPM ground validation scientist Walter Petersen, who is based at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, in Virginia.
“We will be looking at the precipitation and the physics of precipitation, such as snowflake types, sizes, shapes, numbers and water content. These properties affect both how we interpret and improve our measurements,” the investigator explains.
The DC-8 will investigate snowfall over Canada from an altitude of about 33,000 feet (10 kilometers), which should give it a sufficiently-ample perspective so that its data are applicable to studies conducted from space as well.
“These multiple measurements of snowfall provide a complete picture, a complete model, of the snowfall process from top to bottom,” Petersen concludes.