With the holidays right around the corner, it’s hard not to notice the severe weather situations occurring world wide. From all parts of the US and across Western Europe, heavy snow fall and freezing temperatures are fulfilling many wishes for a White Christmas this year…as well as creating havoc for Holiday travelers. As we watched the news coverage, my 6-year old turned to me and asked, "Mom, how is Santa going to find those kids’ houses under all that snow?"

That’s when I started thinking about GeoSAR’s ability to "see" through snow and ice

In early fall, GeoSAR took flight in Alaska to begin collecting data for the Alaska Statewide project. GeoSAR is a perfect candidate for mapping large remote areas with rugged terrain, cloud cover, and forest canopy. Accurate elevation data and cloud-free imagery are essential for a broad range of mapping applications in Alaska.

As the data came in, GeoSAR’s science and research team also noticed how GeoSAR’s P-band radar penetrated through the dry snow and ice to reveal the underlying rock and moraine. Although we still have to validate and quantify this capability through further analysis and ground truthing, preliminary results do seem to indicate that snow and ice penetration is in fact possible with GeoSAR. The image below provides a small glimpse of these exciting results! It is a view of a glacier in Alaska as seen through GeoSAR’s X- and P-bands.

To all of our readers, have wonderful holiday season and stay tuned for more GeoSAR news in 2011!

P-band data (left) penetrates through the snow and ice.