Snow provides large seasonal storage of freshwater, and information about the distribution 6 of snow mass as Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is important for hydrological planning and detecting 7 climate change impacts. Large regional disagreements remain between estimates from reanalyses, 8 remote sensing and modelling. Assimilating passive microwave information improves SWE estimates 9 in many re...

pricing for an insurance policy can be described as the process of calculation of expectedcompensation to be paid to property losers as well as associated costs of potential risks. loss forecast isaccurate if the risks will be identified appropriately in order to calculate the frequency and expected severityof losses.this is particularly important about environmental risks since most of them ap...

Satellite observations of snow in the near-infrared wavelengths can be used to roughly estimate snow grain size. When the grain size is large, it is possible to use measurements in the visible wavelengths to estimate snow water equivalence below some threshold value of around 100 mm. While sufficient data to fully evaluate these possibilities are not available, model calculations, selected sate...

Understanding remote sensing retrieval errors is important for correct interpretation of observations, and successful assimilation of observations into numerical models. Passive microwave sensors onboard satellites can provide global snow water equivalent (SWE) observations day or night and under cloudy conditions. However, there are errors associated with the passive microwave measurements, wh...

This study links two models, one that simulates changes in snow microstructure and one that recovers microstructure properties from measurements of snow reflectance. An energy and mass transfer model, SNTHERM.89, was used to calculate snow grain growth. Grain-sizes from the model and measurements of grain bond areas provided estimates of the surface-to-volume ratio of the bulk snow, which were ...

We present scientific and computing improvements to our new reconstruction model compared to a previous model. Snow water equivalent (SWE) reconstruction involves building a snowpack up in reverse, from melt out to peak SWE, given estimates of melt energy and fractional snow covered area (fSCA). The model was initially tested at an energy balance site on Mammoth Mountain, near the Upper Tuolumn...

Title of Document: SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF MACHINE LEARNING IN BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE PREDICTIONS OVER SNOW-COVERD REGIONS USING THE ADVANCED MICROWAVE SCANNING RADIOMETER Yuan Xue, Master of Science, 2014 Directed By: Assistant Professor, Barton A. Forman Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Snow is a critical component in the global energy and hydrologic cycle. Further, it is imp...

The mountain pygmy possum (Burramys parvus) is an endangered marsupial restricted to boulder fields in the Australian Alps, where it hibernates under the snow during winter. Understanding its habitat requirements is essential for conservation, so we examine here ecological implications of the thermal consequences of maintaining water balance during the hibernation season. Hibernating mountain p...

The overall idea behind the work presented is to combine the use of optical and SAR sensors and utilise the best features of each sensor when possible in order to map snow cover area (SCA) more frequently and with better spatial coverage than would otherwise be possible. Optical remote sensing sensors are able to map snow cover quite accurately, but are limited by clouds. SAR sensors penetrate ...