Method of determining the water equivalent depth of snowfall using neutrons of cosmic rays
AssigneeRikagaku Kenkyusho
InventorsMasami Wada, Masahiro Kodama, Shinkichi Kawasaki
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of determining a depth of an accumulation of snow in which the water-equivalent depth of an accumulation of snow is determined from the count of survival neutrons of cosmic rays after passing through an accumulation of snow.
Claims1
A method of determining the water-equivalent depth of an accumulation of snow, which comprises the steps of counting the neutrons of cosmic rays incident upon a given accumulation of snow, counting the neutrons of said cosmic rays after passing through said accumulation of snow, and determining the water-equivalent depth of said accumulation of snow from said countings of neutrons and upon the basis of the formula:
- ##EQU5## wherein N.sub.o is the count of neutrons of the cosmic rays incident upon said snow, N.sub.s is the count of neutrons of the cosmic rays after passing through said snow, b is an absorption factor within the range 0.01/gcm.sup..sup.-2 to 0.02/gcm.sup..sup.-2, and W is the water-equivalent depth, in cm., of said accumulation of snow.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.