Downscaling Snow Cover Fraction Data in Mountainous Regions Based on Simulated Inhomogeneous Snow Ablation

High-resolution snow distributions are essential for studying cold regions. However, the temporal and spatial resolutions of current remote sensing snow maps remain limited. Remotely sensed snow cover fraction (SCF) data only provide quantitative descriptions of snow area proportions and do not provide information on subgrid-scale snow locations. We present a downscaling method based on simulated inhomogeneous snow ablation capacities that are driven by air temperature and solar radiation data. This method employs a single parameter to adjust potential snow ablation capacities. Using this method, SCF data with a resolution of 500 m are downscaled to a resolution of 30 m. Then, 18 remotely sensed TM, CHRIS and EO-1 snow maps are used to verify the downscaled results. The mean overall accuracy is 0.69, the average root-mean-square error (RMSE) of snow-covered slopes between the downscaled snow map and the real snow map is 3.9°, and the average RMSE of the sine of the snow covered aspects between the OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 8996 downscaled snow map and the real snow map is 0.34, which is equivalent to 19.9°. This method can be applied to high-resolution snow mapping in similar mountainous regions.