Bioscience engineers at KU Leuven have developed a method to measure the snow depth in all mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere using satellites. This technique makes it possible to study areas that cannot be accessed for local measurements, such as the Himalayas. The findings were published .
"In Western Europe, we tend to associate snow with ski trips, outdoor fun, or traffic jams, which goes to show that the importance of snow is often underestimated," says postdoctoral researcher Hans Lievens from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at KU Leuven, who is the lead author of this study.
"Each year, a fifth of the Northern Hemisphere gets covered in snow. More than one billion people rely on this snow for drinking water. ...