The Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies serves the mountain science community and regional resource managers by hosting & conducting interdisciplinary research and conducting integrative 24/7/365 monitoring that captures weather, snowpack, radiation, soils, plant community and hydrologic signals of regional climate trends.
Become a Friend of CSAS:
2008/2009 News Summary
• Schmidt Building
• CSAS and Collaborators Perform CODOS Fieldwork throughout Colorado Mountains in Spring 2009
• Hans-Peter Marshall Conducts Radar Field Camp in March 2009
• CSAS Hosts AIARE Level III Avalanche Professionals Course in March 2009
• CSAS Hosts Minnesota State University - Mankato Field Camp
• CSAS Hosts Dr. Christine Pielmeier, of the Swiss’s WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche
Research SLF, in Davos, for Week-Long Field Campaign
• Stormy Early Winter Weather
• K-12 Kids Study Mountain Weather at Swamp Angel Study Plot
• CSAS Executive Director presented a poster titled “Applying Dust-on-Snow Research to Colorado Water
Management” at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting 2008, in San Francisco.
• CSAS Designs and Builds PV Array for Marshall Radar Research
• CSAS Conducts GPS Survey of SBBSA Infrastructure
• Steltzer & USFS Ouray Ranger District Staff Wrap Up Advanced Snowmelt Experiment
• Ed LaChapelle Library Arrives in Silverton
• CSAS Receives Proceeds from Infamous Management on-line Save Our Souls Auction
• CSAS Receiving 1% For the Planet Grants
More CSAS News: '09/'10 | '08/'09 | '07/'08 | '06/'07 | '05/'06 | '04/'05 | '03/'04 | '02/'03
2008/2009 SummaryDuring summer 2008 the CSAS hosted a very successful study by Dr. Heidi Steltzer (Colorado State University) near the Senator Beck Study Plot. Our Forest Service Ouray Ranger District staff visited the project site and helped dismantle Heidi’s project in August. Later that summer the CSAS did a precision GPS survey of our facilities in Senator Beck Basin and also installed a large photovoltaic power array for Dr. Hans-Peter Marshall (Boise State University) at our Swamp Angel Study Plot. Local schools groups visited the Swamp Angel Study Plot in late fall and then used data from the site in their classrooms over the winter. Marshall conducted two field campaigns during the winter, the first with his collaborator from Switzerland, Dr. Christine Pielmeier, and the second with his British collaborator Dr. Nick Rutter. Winter2008/2009 produced several major snow storms as well as the most intense and dramatic dust storms in the collective memory of several generations of ranchers, water managers, snow workers, weather observers, and others throughout western Colorado. Our Colorado Dust-on-Snow Program, in collaboration with Dr. Tom Painter (University of Utah – Snow Optics Laboratory) was instrumental in monitoring that dust and apprising regional state and federal water managers, in advance, of what did prove to be an exceptionally early and intense snowmelt runoff season in most of Colorado’s mountain watersheds. CSAS did feel the effects of the national economic crisis of 2008/2009, particularly with respect to our attempt to secure a Center facility in Silverton through a lease/purchase opportunity. Meanwhile, the CSAS and our work on dust-on-snow received considerable national and international press attention, and our proposal to fund an international workshop on snow impurities in 2010 was funded by the National Science Foundation.