Runoff in glacierized alpine basins results from the seasonal snow cover and from the glacier melt. Due to high resolution satellite sensors, it is possible to map snow cover and glacier areas in the basin of Massa-Blatten, 196 km2, 1447 4191 m a.s.l. Depletion curves of snow covered areas were derived in six elevation zones. In addition, the date was determined when the glacierice became expos...

The Snow and Ice Research Center (SIRC) of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) of Japan has been developing a snow disaster forecasting system. This system consists of an atmospheric mesoscale model NHM, the numerical snow cover model SNOWPACK, and three diagnostic models of snow disasters. In this paper, the performance of NHM and SNOWPACK is invest...

Variations in the strength of the current spring snow albedo feedback (SAF) over Northern Hemisphere land surfaces (NH) explain over one third of the 21 century temperature response to anthropogenic forcings in this region within global circulation model (GCM) projections. Observation based estimates of controls on SAF are needed to constrain the snow and albedo parameterizations in these model...

This paper reports on the radiometric calibration and the use of calibrated intensity data in applications related to snow cover monitoring with a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). An application of the calibration method to seasonal snow cover change detection is investigated. The snow intensity from TLS data was studied in Sodankylä, Finland during the years 2008-2009 and in Kirkkonummi, Finla...

The Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) is an effective index for snow-cover mapping at large scales, but in forested regions the identification accuracy for snow using the NDSI is low because of forest cover effects. In this study, typical evergreen coniferous forest zones on Qilian Mountain in the Upper Heihe River Basin (UHRB) were chosen as example regions. By analyzing the spectral sig...

Freshly fallen snow is a popular natural phenomenon able to evoke great beauty in all kinds of scenes. However, there still does not exist an all-purpose algorithm for automated snow distribution in virtual worlds. Previous works modelled snow either relying on costly particle simulations or oversimplified surface displacements. In this paper we develop a novel geometric snow model. In a first ...

[1] The design of sensor networks for measuring the mean and spatial distribution of snow depth at the scale of 1–16 km was evaluated by deploying an embedded‐sensor network consisting of ultrasonic snow depth sensors to capture the variable physiographic features around an operational snow course in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada of California. Manual snow surveys were also carrie...

Improved representations of snow processes in vegetation canopies and snow hydrology are implemented in the Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme 2 (MOSES 2) land-surface model. Snow falling on forests is partitioned between interception and throughfall; the intercepted snow is removed by sublimation, melt and unloading. A reduction in sublimation of wind-blown snow through trapping by shrubs is s...

Snow disasters cause immeasurable losses to human society each year, threatening people’s lives and properties and therefore attaching much importance to the measurement of snow cover. Snowfall, however, is one of the most difficult to be measured among meteorological elements, especially on the railways. To solve this problem, the real-time monitoring of snow along the railway can be helpful. ...

An analysis of snow grain size behavior with respect to other snow parameters such as snow depth, density, and temperature was performed. From this analysis, a pattern was derived which can be used to approximate the range of grain size variations. Data used in this research are from NASA Cold Land Processes Field Experiment (CLPX) in Colorado. This intensive field survey was conducted in Febru...