The strength of snow-albedo feedback (SAF) in transient climate change simulations of the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is generally determined by the surfacealbedo decrease associated with a loss of snow cover rather than the reduction in snow albedo due to snow metamorphosis in a warming climate. The large intermodel spread in SAF strength is likewise attr...

MODIS, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), is scheduled for launch in late 1998 or 1999 aboard the first Earth Observing System (EOS) platform. Global, daily snow-cover maps with a spatial resolution of 500 meters will be produced from MODIS data using a fully-automated and computationally-frugal snow-mapping algorithm. Recently, modifications to the original snow-mapping...

Snow cover plays a crucial role in surface hydrology and energy balance, especially in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). This study used 12 years (2000–2011) of ground-observed snow depth at 87 meteorological stations to assess and verify the accuracy of the daily cloud-free snow-cover product from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over the QTP. On average, the daily cl...

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Snow density is a key property in monitoring the water content of snow-covered regions. However, sampling snow density is a difficult and time consuming task, which explains why few previous studies have analyzed the spatial variability of snow density. In this study we analyzed snow density measurements made in February...

At winter the problem that how to efficiently clear solid ice and snow, which always plagues the staff .The interfacial materials—solid snow-ice— cause the major operational problem related to snow removed performance. The central issue is how to evaluate the yield characteristics when the solid snow-ice was broken and fracture failure. Measurement system of freezing adhesive yield characterist...

This paper presents a study to demonstrate the potential of a spaceborne u-band scatterometer to monitor global snow cover. Global u-band data were acquired by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Scatterometer (NSCAT) operated on the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) from September 1996 to June 1997. NSCAT backscatter patterns over the northern hemisphere reveals b...

The classification of snow profiles is traditionally based on the discrete interpretation of snow layers in a snow pack. The layers are discriminated according to the physical properties of the snow. To account for the micro-mechanical behaviour of snow in deformation, the classification needs to be extended to the micro-structure of snow. A new instrument, the high-resolution snow penetrometer...

Levels of neutral poly-/perfluoroalkyl substances (nPFASs) in air and snow collected from Ny-Ålesund were measured and their air-snow exchange was determined to investigate whether they could re-volatilize into the atmosphere driven by means of air-snow exchange. The total concentration of 12 neutral PFASs ranged from 6.7 to 39 pg m(-3) in air and from 330 to 690 pg L(-1) in snow. A significant...

The distribution of forest cover exerts strong controls on the spatiotemporal distribution of snow accumulation and snowmelt. The physical processes that govern these controls are poorly understood given a lack of detailed measurements of snow states. In this study, we address one of many measurement gaps by using contact spectroscopy to measure snow optical grain size at high spatial resolutio...

Snow cover depletion curves are required for several water management applications of snow hydrology and are often difficult to obtain automatically using optical remote sensing data owing to both frequent cloud cover and temporary snow cover. This study develops a methodology to produce accurate snow cover depletion curves automatically using high temporal resolution optical remote sensing dat...