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Education
Hello Citizen Scientists!
We added a new field site in Davos, Switzerland from a forest-snow research study performed by researchers in our Mountain Hydrology Research Group at UW and the Snow Hydrology Research Group at SLF. This field site is located in an old growth forest of the Swiss Alps, you can see the location and an example time-lapse image from the site below.
A number of time-lapse cameras were installed at this site during water year 2021 and 2022. Below is an example time-lapse video of the site during the entire water year.
Many of our Snow Spotter citizen scientists noticed that the time-lapse cameras captured researchers working outside in the field and had some questions about what type of observations they were taking. Here is an example of one of those researchers taking measurements in the field.
In this image, a researcher is measuring the snow depth of the snow pack. It is important for snow hydrologists to know how much snow is on the ground because they use the snow depth and snow density to calculate how much water is in the snow pack.
However, snow depth was not the only measurement taking place at this field site. Any ideas on what the researcher below is working on?
Canopy Temperature Measurements
In a lot of the photos at this site, such as the example image above, researchers can be seen with a ground-based camera. This camera is different from the time-lapse camera images we upload on Snow Spotter. This camera does not take time-lapse images, instead it takes a panoramic image of the field site and measures the surface temperature of the surrounding trees. This camera is called a Thermal Infrared (ThIR) Camera.
Above is an example image of Snow Spotter co-founder Ryan, taken with a Thermal Infrared (ThIR) Camera. The image on the left is what you can see with your eyes, just like a photo you would normally take with your phone. The image on the left is the same view, but instead thermal infrared image (what you cannot see with your eyes!).The red color indicates the warmest parts of the image and the blue color indicates the coldest parts of the image. Here, you can see Ryan's face is very warm! Below is an example when that same camera is used to take photos of trees.
The bottom image is the visible panoramic photo of the forest, and above the visible photo is the corresponding thermal infrared image (what you cannot see with your eyes!). The thermal infrared image shows the canopy surface temperature in degrees Celsius (C) where the red color indicates the warmest parts of the trees, and blue color indicates the coldest parts of the trees. Can spot a location where the warm sun is increasing the temperature of the trees?
In some images, you might spot a researcher holding an umbrella over the thermal infrared camera. The researchers do this to shield the sensitive camera from the sun. Direct exposure from the sun can increase the temperature of the camera, and therefore, impact the camera's ability to function properly. Thus, on sunny days, researchers can be spotted with an umbrella over the camera for the same reason you might take an umbrella to a sunny beach yourself!