The Central Oregon Community College Foundation and the Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program are presenting Entering a New Era of Water Science and Management with the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory by Dr. Thomas Painter at 7pm on Tuesday, April 12, in Wille Hall in the Coats Campus Center on the COCC Bend Campus.
While snowpack is arguably the most critical resource in the western United States and for more than a billion people worldwide, its distribution and total volume has been poorly understood. The conventional technology at the core of estimating mountain snowpack was developed more than 100 years ago.
Painter and his team have developed the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO), which allows a full distribution and quantification of mountain snowpack. ASO is a coupled 3D scanning and imaging spectrometer that maps snow water equivalent and reflected sunlight across entire mountain basins. Painter will describe ASO, its implementation, the results in its use and the new world it has opened for snow hydrology and water management.
Painter has made fundamental contributions to the fields of snow remote sensing, snow optics, and the understanding of impacts of dust and black carbon on snow and ice melt around the globe. He is the Principal Investigator of the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory at JPL, adjunct professor of geography at University of California/Los Angeles, and Visiting Associate Researcher in the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering at UCLA.
This event is sponsored by Brooks Resources, Deschutes Brewery, Deschutes River Conservancy, Bend Broadband and the Associated Students of COCC and OSU-Cascades Student Fee Committee.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at www.cocc.edu/foundation/vsp
For information, contact Charlotte Gilbride 541.383.7257 or cgilbride@cocc.edu or visit
In advance of college events, persons needing accommodation or transportation because of a physical or mobility disability, contact Joe Viola: 541-383-7775. For accommodation because of other disability such as hearing impairment, contact Anne Jenkins: 541-383-7743.
