CUNY CREST Institute’s Ice Detection System Now Online

Jan. 24, 2013 - PRLog -- With annual damages caused by ice related hydrologic events nationwide in excess of $100 million, availability of accurate and detailed information on river icing has significant commercial implications to our national economy.  

With the 2013 winter freeze well underway, CUNY’s CREST Institute is fine-tuning its own technique that can help detect ice on rivers and help mitigate these potential losses, as well as assist river navigators with making faster and safer passage. Scientists at CUNY CREST have developed an automated algorithm for river ice monitoring that continuously draws information from satellites through the CREST Satellite Receiving Station and posts the information on a website that is publicly accessible.  

Development of the CREST River Ice Observation System, known as “CRIOS” was originally supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service and has been implemented on the Susquehanna River, which spans Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland.  Dr. Marouane Temimi, CREST Scientist, explained “There was a need for a system that could improve upon tracking river ice beyond the existing network of river gauge stations, and a method that could use satellite-produced information was the obvious next step in enhancing ice monitoring.”

After testing and validating the product through six winter seasons on the Susquehanna, CREST researchers are working to expand the model to New York’s Hudson River and other major rivers in the U.S important for interstate commercial navigation.  Additional beneficiaries of the product are regional emergency planners and responders, hydropower energy companies, and bridge engineers.

Visit the CRIOS website http://water.ccny.cuny.edu/crios/

About CREST Institute

As a Science and Educational partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), CUNY CREST Institute provides cutting edge research and products that are continuously refined for top government science agencies such as NOAA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of the Navy.  

The multidisciplinary Institute is also charged with educating and training the next generation of scientists, and includes over 70 collaborating Faculty across an international consortium of universities.  These institutions form a world-class research and educational effort in remote sensing applied to earth, atmospheric, environmental, and marine sciences.

To find out more about CREST Institute, visit the website at http://crest.ccny.cuny.edu/data-and-products/ (http://crest.ccny.cuny.edu/)