Journal Article

What's Next for Snow: Insights From the NASA Terrestrial Hydrology Program Community Snow Meeting

Vuyovich, Carrie, Meyer, Joachim, Mason, Megan, Marshall, Hans‐Peter, Musselman, Keith N., Molotch, Noah P., Shah, Rashmi, Hale, Kate, Tarricone, Jack, Oveisgharan, Shadi

2025

Overview

Earth's snow cover strongly influences the climate system and represents an important resource for agricultural, industrial, and domestic water use. The last decade of snow‐focused research has improved our understanding of snow across scales. These efforts have culminated in new snow measurement instruments and methods, operational models for tracking snowpack evolution and forecasting snowmelt, multi‐year and international snow and remote sensing field campaigns, and satellite mission proposals to measure snowpack water resources from space, with two submitted to NASA's Earth Explorer AO and the Environment and Climate Change Canada Terrestrial Snow Mass Mission moving closer to a launch opportunity. Yet, shortcomings in each snowpack observation system still exist, including uncertainty in product performance, mission proposal advancement, and synergies across methods. The snow community aims to navigate next actionable steps toward improved and global‐scale snow monitoring for climate and human purposes. Building from recent advances in snow research and operations and carrying momentum from the conclusion of the NASA SnowEx field campaigns, NASA's Terrestrial Hydrology Program (THP) sponsored a Community Snow Meeting in August 2024 in Boulder, Colorado, USA, with 200 total in‐person and virtual attendees. Meeting objectives were to outline existing and ongoing snowpack monitoring techniques and identify knowledge gaps and recommended next steps for the snow community. We broadly summarize the state of numerous snow science sub‐disciplines and share the insights and takeaways from the Community Snow Meeting, focused largely but not exclusively on NASA opportunities, and intended to support ongoing and future pathways toward the next decade of snow research and development. Plain Language Summary Snow plays a significant role in shaping the climate and provides a vital water resource. Recently, scientists have made major progress in how we measure and track snow, from small study sites to the entire globe. This has led to new tools, improved models, large field studies, and plans for satellites that would measure snow from space. However, challenges remain, such as gaps in data, limitations in current measurement methods, and a need for better coordination across the snow community. To continue advancements and improvements in snow monitoring, researchers from across the snow science community gathered at the NASA Community Snow Meeting in August 2024 in Boulder, Colorado. Sponsored by NASA's Terrestrial Hydrology Program, the meeting brought together 200 people in person and online to review current efforts and identify what still needs to be accomplished. This summary highlights recent achievements, primarily through the lens of NASA opportunities, and outlines next steps to support progress in snow research for the coming decade. Key Points Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in measuring snow properties across various scales and methodologies Challenges persist in snowpack observation systems, including uncertainties in product performance and data gaps The importance of continued and coordinated collaboration within the snow science community is clear to enhance global‐scale snow monitoring

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc,Wiley
• Subject: Climate change / Climate system / Community / Domestic water / Earth / Earth science / future planning / Hydrologic cycle / Hydrology / Measurement techniques / Measuring instruments / Monitoring / Precipitation monitoring / R&D / Regions / Remote sensing / Research & development / Snow / Snow cover / Snow forecasting / Snowmelt / Snowpack / snowpack modeling / terrestrial hydrology / Water resources / Water use / Working groups