SnowEx23 Laser Snow Microstructure Specific Surface Area Data, Version 1

This data set contains vertical profiles of snow reflectance and specific surface area (SSA) from the Fairbanks region of central Alaska (the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, the Caribou Poker Creek watershed and Farmers Loop/Creamer’s Field), and a coastal tundra environment in the North Slope region of northern Alaska (the Arctic coastal plain and Upper Kuparuk Toolik), collected as part of the NASA SnowEx 2023 field campaign in March 2023. Reflectance was measured in snow pits using three different integrating sphere laser devices: an A2 Photonic Sensor IceCube (1310 nm), an IRIS (InfraRed Integrating Sphere) system (1310 nm), and an InfraSnow SSA sensor (945 nm). Measured reflectance values were converted to SSA during data processing. It is recommended that data users work with either the IceCube or IRIS data, as the InfraSnow data was collected primarily for testing of the instrument’s capabilities. Snow-off SSA data from these same study sites are available as SnowEx23 Laser Snow Microstructure Specific Surface Area Snow-off Data, Version 1.