Sublimation from the seasonal snowpack was calculated using the aerodynamic pro®le method at Niwot Ridge in the Colorado Front Range. Past studies of sublimation from snow have been inconclusive in determining both the rate and timing of the transfer of water between the snowpack and the atmosphere, primarily because they relied on one-dimensional measurements of turbulent ̄uxes or short term d...

A snow data assimilation study was undertaken in which real data were used to update a conceptual model, SNOW-17. The aim of this study is to improve the model’s estimate of snow water equivalent (SWE) by merging the uncertainties associated with meteorological forcing data and SWE observations within the model. This is done with a view to aiding the estimation of snowpack initial conditions fo...

Operational ground-based measurements of snow water equivalent (SWE) do not adequately explain spatial variability in mountainous terrain. To address this problem, we combine satellite-based retrievals of fractional snow cover for the period 20 0 0 to 2011 with spatially distributed energy balance calculations to reconstruct SWE values throughout each melt season in the Sierra Nevada of Califor...

[1] A reliable snow water equivalent (SWE) product is critical for climate and hydrology studies in Arctic regions. Passive microwave sensors aboard satellites provide a capability of observing global SWE and have produced many SWE datasets. However, these datasets have significant errors in boreal forest regions and where snowpack is deep or wet. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GR...

a r t i c l e i n f o A multitemporal method to map snow cover in mountainous terrain is proposed to guide Landsat climate data record (CDR) development. The Landsat image archive including MSS, TM, and ETM + imagery was used to construct a prototype Landsat snow cover CDR for the interior northwestern United States. Landsat snow cover CDRs are designed to capture snow-covered area (SCA) variab...

Radar instruments have been widely used to measure snow water equivalent (SWE) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture is a promising approach for doing so from spaceborne platforms. Electromagnetic waves propagate through the snowpack at velocity determined by its dielectric permittivity. Velocity estimates are significant source of uncertainty in radar SWE retrievals, especially wet snow. In d...

Passive microwave sensors onboard satellites can provide global snow water equivalent (SWE) observations day or night, even under cloudy conditions. However, there are both systematic (bias) and random errors associated with the passive microwave measurements. While these errors are well known, they have thus far not been adequately quantified. In this study, unbiased SWE maps, random error map...

The feasibility for retrieving the mass of snow on ground (the snow water equivalent, SWE) by means of repeat-pass SAR interferometry has been investigated. Because the SAR signal of ground covered by dry snow is dominated by backscatter from the snow/ground interface, the differential phase shift due to propagation in the snow can be directly related to SWE. The factors of relevance for cohere...