GPS Receiver Noise Can Be Used To Detect Snow Depth

cremeglace writes "Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found a use for GPS besides finding restaurants or the occasional road-that-doesn't-exist: it can be used to measure snow depth. The new technique, which takes advantage of distortions of the GPS signal after it reflects off the snowpack, may potentially improve weather forecasts by allowing meteorologists to track snowfall patterns. ScienceNOW has the story, which one geophysicist describes as 'a classical case of one person's noise becoming another person's signal.'"

Comments

Re:Simpler tool

[Thornburg]

TFA is talking about using an existing network of 1100 GPS receivers currently tracking plate tectonics to also track snowfall, without any additional equipment and without interfering with their current operation.

This not about using your Garmin to find out how much snow is in your front yard.

Re:Simpler tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro-tip: You don't get to decide who gets to do what based on their uid if you are posting anonymously.
* Note irony in this response.

Re:So, we've discovered

[PeterBrett]

satellite radar altimetry.

Of course, it's accidental radar altimetry, rather than a dedicated instrument. Neat hack.

Um, no. It's not like SRA, apart from the use of a satellite, RF radiation, and the measurement of a distance.

Main differences:

• This system is bistatic; SRA is monostatic.
• This system uses an (almost) isotropic antenna to collect radiation from pretty much everywhere; SRA uses a high gain antenna to survey only a very narrow target swathe.
• This system measures the effective speed of light in a multipath environment, assuming the multipath reflectors are at fixed distances; SRA measures the distance of multipath reflectors, assuming the effective speed of light is fixed.

Disclaimer: I work on satellite synthetic aperture radar, which is different again, and my knowledge of SRA isn't comprehensive.