Data from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission helped researchers to calculate the depth of water in Death Valley's temporary lake. The analysis found that water depths ranged from about 3 feet to less than 1.5 feet over the course of about 6 weeks.
Water depths in Death Valley ’s temporary lake ranged between about 3 feet to less than 1.5 feet from February through early March. By measuring water levels from space, SWOT enabled research to calculate the depth.Data from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission helped researchers to calculate the depth of water in this transient freshwater body.
The researchers found that the water levels varied across space and time in the roughly 10-day period between SWOT observations. In the visualization above, water depths of about 3 feet appear dark blue; those of less than 1.5 feet appear light yellow. Right after a series of storms in early February, the temporary lake was about 6 miles long and 3 miles wide. Each pixel in the image represents an area that is about 330 feet by 330 feet .
Unlike many lakes around the world, Death Valley’s lake is temporary, relatively shallow, and strong winds are enough to move the freshwater body a couple of miles, as happened from Feb. 29 to March 2. Since there isn’t typically water in Badwater Basin, researchers don’t have permanent instruments in place for studying water in this area. SWOT can fill the data gap for when places like this, and others around the world, become inundated.
NASA Death Valley Temporary Lake Water Depths Surface Water And Ocean Topography
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