Item: THE STORIES BEHIND THE DATA: 30 YEARS OF SNOWPACK SURVEYS ON NIWOT RIDGE
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Title: THE STORIES BEHIND THE DATA: 30 YEARS OF SNOWPACK SURVEYS ON NIWOT RIDGE
Proceedings: Proceedings, International Snow Science Workshop, Whistler, BC, Canada, 2026
Authors:
- Jennifer Frances Morse [ Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA ]
Date: 2026-09-28
Abstract: My work is a case study about the co-development of an academic field safety program with a high alpine fine-scale snow depth and snow profile record spanning 30 years in the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains. The Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Project maintains a long-term snow data set through a mid-May snow survey designed to capture peak snowpack. Up to 20 volunteers overnight at a high alpine laboratory (3,505 m) to access the otherwise restricted City of Boulder Watershed. Over three days they record ~ 500 snow depth points and six 2 m snow pit profiles across the upper Green Lakes Valley (3,567 m to 4,042 m). This record has been used to understand how snow redistributes across mountain terrain, develop an index of wind drifting and scouring, inform a model of wind slab release, validate satellite products, and track one of the leading abiotic drivers of a changing mountain watershed. I first joined the survey as a volunteer in 2007. By then, it had run for over a decade in remote, high-elevation avalanche terrain, with no formal safety or avalanche protocols or training requirements. Coming from ski patrol, I found this alarming. After several years in academia, I learned it was unremarkable. Field safety provision was, and in places remains, uneven. Programs operating through polar or international logistics organizations had real requirements, while local fieldwork had whatever an individual investigator thought to provide. Field leaders in academia were trained as scientists, not practitioners, with few bridges between the two. Field safety was not taught, if it was addressed at all. Proposal budgets did not include funding for it. When I joined the program in 2010, I brought some knowledge of standard operational practices: protocols, training, and the habit of using close calls as data. Beyond bridging research and practice, this presentation describes the circular evolution between them. Field practice enabled the continuation and consistency of annual data collection in a remote, high-risk environment. The ongoing data collection improved the field practice through building years of experience from which to learn and improve. The results are an increasingly robust field safety program, enabling one of the longest fine-scale records of high alpine snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
Object ID: ISSW2026_P4.53.pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15788/1790099397
Language of Article: English
Presenter(s): Jennifer Morse
Keywords: academic field safety, long-term snowpack monitoring, near-miss reporting, alpine snow distribution, risk management, field research
Page Number(s): 2359 - 2365
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