snow science salgados research focus is on accurately assessing snow distribution and snow depth in grand mesa colorado while comparing results quality between airborne and terrestrial lidar systems with my research i am looking to find out how accurately we can measure snow properties such as depth and how these measurements compare with airborne and terrestrial lidar systems salgado said i would also like to quantify the variability and accuracy of models produced via uav sfm over snow finally we want to demonstrate that uav sfm works in challenging environments for other snow remote sensing locations such as alpine forests the field work salgado takes part in is drastically different between summer and winter months the two environments couldnt be more different he said our snow-free flights in late summer / early fall are a lot of fun colorado is absolutely gorgeous at that time of the year as the aspen leaves are changing and the weather is usually magnificent its an absolute privilege to be able to work in such a beautiful environment and it really hammers home how vital it is that we protect some of these places he emphasized winter field work is a little more challenging and it can be difficult to move around in the mountainous environment when it is covered with deep snow work in the winter is also quite beautiful but its also way more challenging he said i am a large man and as such i sink farther into the snow than some of my lighter colleagues! there have been times when i am sinking into snow up to my hips and moving around in that is quite difficult he added snow shoes help you stay on top of the snow surface but walking around with them also presents its troubles the number of times i have tripped with snow shoes on is quite high salgado said thankfully ive always had helpful and more experienced snow scientists around to help me out and ive gotten much better at getting around than when i first started it can still be a challenge however significant research salgado shared that the purpose of his research is to develop an efficient methodology that properly accounts for the complexities in snow research while i wouldnt say that my research contains the keys to solving global warming or even snow remote sensing problems (on its own anyway) i wouldnt do it if i didnt think it mattered salgado said snow remote sensing is an incredibly complicated field that faces a lot of obstacles to producing accurate global datasets that account for the amount of water stored in snow uav sfm definitely wont solve that but what it can do is provide us with a method of acquiring information on snow characteristics and dynamics on a small scale a better understanding of how the snow behaves on small scales furthers our understanding and can help produce better models of snow at larger scales he said utilizing uavs also proves to be a more affordable method to study something that is constantly changing uav sfm is a fairly inexpensive method that may open avenues to citizen science salgado shared there are currently many efforts to collect snow observations from the general public the great explosion in the number of uavs in use by the general public and the fact that my models are produced with these same small commercially available drones means that anyone who has a small uav they bought on amazon can produce these models i think theres a role for the general public to add to snow science through the widespread production of sfm models he said moving forward salgado is interesting in exploring the policy side of science and potentially continuing his current research and projects in other research institutes im a bit open on this right now he said i would love to continue to build upon my projects here once i graduate through a government research position or possibly a faculty position at a research university he is planning to graduate in the spring semester of 2022 however i am also quite interested in the policy side of science salgado said we are at the point where we need to start not only acting to prevent climate change but also enacting policy to counteract its effects that are already occurring i would love to find a position where i could advise policy makers and help craft environmental policy he said by mariam moeen ‘19