Evaluation of VIIRS and MODIS Snow Cover Fraction in High-Mountain Asia Using Landsat 8 OLI

We present the first application of Snow Covered Area and Grain size model (SCAG) to Visible Infrared imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) assess these retrievals with finer?resolution fractional snow cover maps from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). Because OLI avoids saturation issues common 1–7 in visible wavelengths, we re-assess accuracy SCAG Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that were previously evaluated using data earlier sensors. Use shows a negative bias ?0.5% for MODSCAG ?1.3% VIIRSCAG, whereas previous evaluations found ?7.6% Himalaya. find similar root mean squared error (RMSE) values 0.133 0.125 MODIS VIIRS, respectively. The Recall statistic (probability detection) cells more than 15% this challenging steep topography was be 0.90 both significantly higher based on 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) 7 Enhanced Plus (ETM+). In addition, daily VIIRS are consistent across gradients elevation, slope, aspect. Different native resolutions gridded products at 1 km 500 m MODIS, respectively, result showing slightly different distribution having mixed pixels 7% pure pixels. Despite resolution differences, sensors produce total snow-covered areas snow-line elevations region, R 2 0.98 0.88, algorithm performs consistently various spatial instruments aboard Suomi NPP, JPPS–1, JPPS–2 can suitable replacement as reach their ends life.