For many cases modeled and measured UV global irradiances agree to within +/-5% for cloudless conditions, provided that all relevant parameters for describing the atmosphere and the surface are well known. However, for conditions with snow-covered surfaces this agreement is usually not achievable, because on the one hand the regional albedo, which has to be used in a model, is only rarely avail...

Amongst the potential applications of SAR data in Canada, snow monitoring has certainly been one catching the interest of many. In the 90’s, INRS worked on an approach that would combine SAR data (ERS-1, RADARSAT-1) and field measurements for SWE estimation (EQeau model). After an exhaustive sensitivity analysis of this model, some improvements were done. The approach was then ready to be teste...

Information on snow cover and snow properties is an important factor for hydrology and runoff modeling. Frequent updates of snow cover information can help to improve water balance and discharge calculations. Within the frame of Polar View, snow products from multisensoral satellite data are operationally provided to control and update water balance models for large parts of Southern Germany. T...

Snow water equivalence, which is the product of snow density and depth, is the most important parameter in snow hydrology. This paper demonstrates the algorithms for estimating dry snow density, depth, grain size, underground dielectric constant and surface RMS height using multi-frequency and –polarization SAR (SIR-C/X-SAR) measurements. The algorithms were developed based on the numerically s...

The spatial distribution of the mountain snow cover is of high importance for many issues in hydrology (e.g. water supply, flooding), natural hazards (e.g. snow avalanches) or mountain ecology. The snow distribution is typically characterised by a strong spatial heterogeneity, that is the result of different processes interacting with the local topography. Characterising this spatial heterogene...

Competition between sympatric carnivores has long been of interest to ecologists. Increased understanding of these interactions can be useful for conservation planning. Increased snowmobile traffic on public lands and in habitats used by Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) remains controversial due to the concern of coyote (Canis latrans) use of snowmobile trails and potential competition with lynx. ...

The temporal and spatial continuity of spatially distributed estimates of snow-covered area (SCA) are limited by the availability of cloud-free satellite imagery; this also affects spatial estimates of snow water equivalent (SWE), as SCA can be used to define the extent of snow telemetry (SNOTEL) point SWE interpolation. In order to extend the continuity of these estimates in time and space to ...

Abstract The Eurasian winter and spring snow cover anomalies along with spring snowmelt have been considered as the important factors affecting the Indian summer monsoon rainfall in particular and the Asian summer monsoon rainfall in general. No previous study has been found in which the effects of Eurasian snow cover on the monsoon of Pakistan would have been analyzed. In this study authors tr...

Output from satellite-borne passive microwave sensors has increasingly been recognized as an important means of monitoring snow cover. However, employing a single global algorithm t o extract a snow signal from multichannel microwave data does not accurately monitor snow across all landscapes. One such region where difficulties occur is the Tibetan Plateau, where global algorithms overestimate ...

Snow is a familiar scene in the Nordic countries during the winter months. This paper discusses some of the complex numerical algorithms behind snow simulations. Previous methods for snow simulation have either covered only a very limited aspect of snow, or have been unsuitable for real-time performance. Here, some of these methods are combined into a model for real-time snow simulation that ha...