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.
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MONITORING SNOW DRIVEN MOUNTAIN SYSTEMSClimate change researchers around the world have recognized mountains as a sensitive bellwether of global change, where 'system responses' are more transparent and perhaps quicker to present than in lower elevation urbanized or rural settings.
The CSAS has created the Senator Beck Basin Study Area infrastructure, in an alpine headwater catchment near Red Mountain Pass in the San Juan Mountains, to complement other North American mountain system monitoring sites such as the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Site in the Front Range near Boulder, Colorado.
Additionally, in 2004 the Colorado Natural Heritage Program performed a $5,000 'baseline inventory' of the Senator Beck Basin plant communities for the CSAS. That project was designed to facilitate repeat inventories at regular 5-year intervals in order to detect changes in the Basin's plant species and their distribution. See 2009 baseline study report.
As seen in this photograph, our extensive sensor arrays must endure the rigors of winter (and summer) at high elevations to yield reliable, high quality data. Those extensive datasets, and their associated metadata, can be viewed in near-real time or from our archived datasets page.
Long-term monitoring requires sustained effort and funding and, in the face of scant governmental support, the CSAS is turning to "Citizen Funders" to underwrite this important science mission.