The Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies enhances the interdisciplinary investigation of the snow system's behavior and role in human/environment relationships by offering resources -- people, information, and facilities -- for field-based research and education.
 University of Utah Snow Optics Laboratory graduate students, Annie Bryant and McKenzie Skiles, collect dust-in-snow samples at Swamp Angel Study Plot. |
The formation of the Colorado Dust-on-Snow (CODOS) program at CSAS is a direct outcome of our explanation of 2006 snow melt patterns. Regional water conservation districts throughout Colorado, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, as well the Western Water Assessment program at the University of Colorado are now providing direct funding to CSAS and the CODOS program. CODOS conducts timely dust-on-snow monitoring throughout the Colorado mountains enabling water managers to include the very significant effects of dust-on-snow into their forecasts of snowmelt timing and intensity. This rapid application of research to water resource management was highlighted in our poster presentation to AGU.
Applying dust-on-snow research to Colorado snowmelt management:
Research performed by our team and funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2007 has shown that winter and spring depositions of desert dust from the Colorado Plateau onto Colorado’s mountain snowpacks can dramatically reduce snowcover albedo, advance snowmelt timing, and enhance snowmelt runoff intensity when those dust layers are at or near the snowpack surface. Pristine, new snow reflects as much as 98% of sunlight, but dust-contaminated snow directly absorbs as much as 40-50% of the incoming solar energy striking the snowpack, thereby becoming the dominant source of heat energy causing snowmelt, eclipsing even the energy contributed by very warm air temperatures.
Colorado’s water management community found these results compelling, perhaps explaining the unusually early and intense spring runoff of 2006. Now, with their support, a wide variety of those stakeholders in snowmelt runoff are receiving “Dust Updates” from CODOS. We routinely monitor, in snowpits, the presence/absence of dust layers in major mountain watersheds throughout the State and then, given the weather forecasts for those watersheds, provide analyses of how any dust layers present are likely to influence snowmelt timing and rates in the coming 7-10 days. That information assists reservoir operators, irrigators, flood risk managers, and others managing the spring runoff water that is so vital to Colorado and to those other states downstream of our major river headwaters – on the Colorado, Rio Grande, North and South Platte, and Arkansas rivers.
CODOS Funding Water Years 2007-2009, Proposed Funding WY 2010
(confirmed WY 2010 funding as of 1/28/10)
|
WY 2007 |
WY 2008 |
WY 2009 |
WY 2010 |
Colorado River Water Conservation District |
8,000 |
8,000 |
8,000 |
10,000 |
Southwestern Water Conservation District |
5,000 |
5,000 |
4,000 |
5,000 |
Rio Grande Water Conservation District |
0 |
3,000 |
4,000 |
5,000 |
Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District |
0 |
5,000 |
7,500 |
7,500 |
Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District |
0 |
0 |
1,500 |
2,500 |
Tri-County Water Conservancy District |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,500 |
2,500 |
Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District |
0 |
0 |
500 |
600 |
Dolores Water Conservancy District |
0 |
0 |
0 |
600 |
Denver Water |
2,500 |
2,500 |
2,500 |
5,000 |
Bureau of Reclamation |
0 |
0 |
5,000 |
15,000 |
Western Water Assessment – University of Colorado |
0 |
0 |
20,072 |
Staff In-Kind |
Colorado Water Conservation Board |
0 |
0 |
0 |
28,034 |