Welcome to Our Research Group
The Computational Mountain Studies research group focuses on snow and ice in the climate system, and how they melt and become water supply for communities and ecosystems. We are currently working on the following topics:
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Snow-forest interactions, based on the ideas that forests affect snowpacks and snowpacks affect forests;
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New snow metrics in a warming world including snow cover frequency, snow disappearance, date, the frequency of warm winters, and at-risk snow;
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Interactions of climate with mountain snowpacks and glaciers, and innovative ways to map these changes;
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The mountain-to-dryland continuum as a social-ecological system.
CMS NEWS
Congratulations to our 2023 Graduates!
Congratulations to our three (!) graduates this spring. I'm so very proud of the outstanding work that each student has accomplished.
- Hannah Van Dusen, Hydrology M.S. Thesis "Wildfires Impacts on Spring Flows and Summer Low Flows Across the Western United States"
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Ehsan Mosadegh, Atmospheric Sciences Ph.D. Dissertation "A New Data Processing System for Generating Sea Ice Surface Roughness and Cloud Mask Data Products from the Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer"
Welcome
Ally Fitts!
Ally Fitts is the newest member of our research group. Ally is starting her PhD in the Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences and will be working on a new NASA project entitled: "Snow Albedo in the Alaskan Boreal Forest and Impacts on Snow Hydrology: Constraining the Uncertainties and Accuracy
Requirements Across Spatial Scales, Spectral Resolution, and Disturbance Regimes".
Nevada Water
"Nevada Water" is a new NSF-funded project that will develop a partnership of water suppliers, users, policy-makers, and academics whose primary goal is to create a dynamic research, societal, and education network focusing on critical urban-rural water issues across Nevada. The network will include key public, private, tribal, research, nonprofit, and educational water resource partners. Together, Nevada Water will foster new knowledge and collaboration strategies to significantly advance integration, coordination, innovation, and sustainable regional systems science.
Mountain Rain or Snow: a NASA-funded citizen science project
"Mountain Rain or Snow" is a new project funded by NASA. People install the app on their mobile device and use it to record their location and it the precipitation phase is snow, rain, or mixed. This is a follow-on of the Tahoe Rain or Snow seed project. Principal Investigator is Dr. Keith Jennings (Lynker Tech, Inc.). Check it out here.