S2noCliME

The U.S. Mountain West is becoming warmer and more arid and has seen declines in snowpack, low elevation snow cover, and increased occurrence of rain-on-snow events. Projections of precipitation in mountain regions do not exhibit cohesive trends. Significant variability in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, the phase of precipitation, varying degrees of orographic enhancement, as well as complex cloud microphysical and aerosol impacts on precipitation properties cause projections of future precipitation in mountain regions to be highly variable. The S²noCliME Field Campaign will make use of a ground-based, remote sensing and in-situ multi-instrument deployment for the 2024 – 2025 winter season to better understand cold season cloud and precipitation processes in a mountainous Environment. 

The overall mission objective of S²noCliME is to collect complementary in situ and remote sensing observations of thermodynamic, aerosol, cloud, and precipitation spatial and profile information with coincident mountain surface observations for evaluation of the macro- and microphysical cloud and snowfall properties over an entire accumulation season. S²noCliME will take place at Storm Peak Laboratory in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.