We investigated snow cover dynamics using time series of moderate (MODIS) to high (SPOT-4/5, Landsat-8) spatial resolution satellite imagery in a 3700 km2 region of the southwestern French Alps. Our study was carried out in the context of the SPOT (Take 5) Experiment initiated by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), with the aim of exploring the utility of high spatial and temporal re...

Accurately estimating basin-wide snow water equivalent (SWE) is the most important unsolved problem in mountain hydrology. Models that rely on remotely sensed inputs are especially needed in ranges with few surface measurements. The NASA Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) provides estimates of SWE at 50 m spatial resolution in several basins across the Western U.S. during the melt season. Primaril...

Snow has great environmental importance. Its physical properties influence the ground temperature; its long-term accumulation adds to mass of glaciers and is also a clear indicator climate variability. However, despite frequency snowfall in tropical high-mountain environments, quantitative study very scarce, it non-existent case Mexico. Due altitude large part Mexican territory high ecosystem v...

Mountain plants are particularly sensitive to climate warming because snowmelt timing exerts a direct control on their reproduction. Current warming is leading to earlier snowmelt dates and longer snow-free periods. Our hypothesis is that high-mountain Mediterranean plants are not able to take advantage of a lengthened snow-free period because this leads to longer drought that truncates the gro...

1. introduction heavy snow hazards, although have less frequency in comparison with extreme weather events such as freezing, but are major hazards in midlatitudes (smith, 2009, 196). heavy snow damages manmade structures, crops, casualties, even between urban and rural ways of blocking.(briant. 69, 2005. ohara et al, 2009, 1611). various definitions have been offered for heavy snow, those are c...

1. Given sexual size dimorphism, differential mortality owing to body size can lead to sex-biased mortality, proximately biasing sex ratios. This mechanism may apply to mountain pine beetles, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, which typically have female-biased adult populations (2 : 1) with females larger than males. Smaller males could be more susceptible to stresses than larger females as deve...

SnowModel is a spatially distributed snow-evolution modeling system designed for application in landscapes, climates, and conditions where snow occurs. It is an aggregation of four submodels: MicroMet defines meteorological forcing conditions, EnBal calculates surface energy exchanges, SnowPack simulates snow depth and water-equivalent evolution, and SnowTran-3D accounts for snow redistribution...