HR: 0800h
AN: C21B-0458    [Abstracts]
TI: No More Snow Pits? Potential to Retrieve Bulk Snow Pack Structure from Transient Barometric Pressure Waves measured from a Prototype Embedded Wireless Sensor Network
AU: * Lampkin, D J
EM: djl22@psu.edu
AF: Pennsylvania State University Department of Geography Department of Geoscience, RM 313 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States
AB: Networked micro-sensors have the capacity to enable improvements in ground-based data collection at resolutions that are currently unresolved. Crossbow® Environmental Motes (MEP410 Models) were embedded in an accumulated snow pack in a meadow at Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) C1 site. Motes were mounted to a custom designed deployment structure that constitutes an adaptive sensor "tower" at a maximum height of 142 with sensors deployed at depths of 122cm, 71cm, and 17cm from the ground. Barometric pressures measured from this embedded wireless network indicate low frequency fluctuations over the study period with higher frequency components varying as a function of depth. Mean pressure measured over the analysis period were 707.82 mb (122cm), 702.48 mb (71cm), and 704.09mb (17cm). Results indicate filtering of high frequency components of pressure measured at depth with reduced amplitude and time-lag (phase shift) modulated by changes in snow pack permeability related to density changes.
DE: 0736 Snow (1827, 1863)
DE: 0770 Properties
DE: 0794 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting