This study measures the spectral reflectance from snow with known liquid water content (LWC) in a climate chamber using two optical sensors, a near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer and a Road eye sensor. The spectrometer measures the backscattered radiation in the wavelength range of 920–1,650 nm. The Road eye sensor was developed to monitor and classify winter roads based on reflected intensity measurements at wavelengths of 980, 1,310, and 1,550 nm. Results of the study suggest that the spectral reflectance from snow is inversely proportional to the LWC in snow. Based on the effect of LWC on the spectral reflectance, three optimum wavelength bands are selected in which snow with different LWCs is clearly distinguishable. A widely used remote sensing index known as the normalized difference water index (NDWI) is used to develop a method to estimate the surface LWC for a given snow pack. The derived NDWI values with respect to the known LWC in snow show that the NDWI is sensitive to the LWC in snow and that the NDWI and LWC are directly proportional. Based on this information, the NDWI is used to estimate the surface LWC in snow from measurements on a ski track using the Road eye sensor. The findings suggest that the presented method can be applied to estimate the surface LWC in order to classify snow conditions potentially for ski track and piste applications.

The present study focuses on three-dimensional (3D) microstructure analysis of dry natural snow during compaction. An X-ray computed microtomography (micro-CT) system was used to record a total of 1601 projections of a snow volume. Experiments were performed in-situ at four load states as 0 MPa, 0.3 MPa, 0.6 MPa and 0.8 MPa, to investigate the effect of compaction on structural features of snow grains. The micro-CT system produces high resolution images (4.3 μm voxel) in 6 h of scanning time. The micro-CT images of the investigated snow volume illustrate that grain shapes are mostly dominated by needles, capped columns and dendrites. It was found that a significant number of grains appeared to have a deep hollow core irrespective of the grain shape. Digital volume correlation (DVC) was applied to investigate displacement and strain fields in the snow volume due to the compaction. Results from the DVC analysis show that grains close to the moving punch experience most of the displacement. The reconstructed snow volume is segmented into several cylinders via horizontal cross-sectioning, to evaluate the vertical heterogeneity of porosity distribution of the snow volume. It was observed that the porosity (for the whole volume) in principle decreases as the level of compaction increases. A distinct vertical heterogeneity is observed in porosity distribution in response to compaction. The observations from this initial study may be useful to understand the snow microstructure under applied stress.