Increasing production of artificial snow in ski resorts is controversially discussed, but only few investigations have been carried out systematically to specify the environmental impacts. We measured snow depth and density from groomed ski pistes (runs) with compacted snow and their effects on ground temperatures and timing of snowmelt. We analyzed groomed pistes with and without artificial sn...

A challenging problem in snow mapping is the discrimination of snow from clouds. Snow and clouds often have similar spectral reflectance features across the spectrum and may have similar temperatures making discrimination difficult. Data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra spacecraft, is used to generate many geophys...

Degree-day factors are widely used to estimate snowmelt runoff in operational hydrological models. Usually, they are calibrated on observed runoff, and sometimes on satellite snow cover data. In this paper, we propose a new method for estimating the snowmelt degree-day factor (DDFS) directly from MODIS snow covered area (SCA) and ground-based snow depth data without calibration. Subcatchment sn...

Snow cover in the Tibetan Plateau is highly variable in space and time and plays a key role in ecological processes of this cold-desert ecosystem. Resolution of passive microwave data is too low for regional-scale estimates of snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau, requiring an alternate data source. Optically derived snow indices allow for more accurate quantification of snow cover using higherres...

Characterization of snow is critical for understanding Earth’s water and energy cycles. Maps of snow from MODIS have seen growing use in investigations of climate, hydrology, and glaciology, but the lack of rigorous validation of different snow mapping methods compromises these studies. We examine three widely used MODIS snow products: the ‘‘binary’’ (i.e., snow yes/no) global snow maps that we...

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In the present work, failure of a snow slab is analyzed by accounting Normal mode criteria. The analysis has been extended to include residual stress into the model (in addition to body forces). Intensity of crack energy release rate, and displacement components have been derived and their values have been estimated. The obtained results have been compared with the existing snow slab failure mo...

Currently available snow pack monitoring methods are limited due to spatial resolution or to adequate weather and secure avalanche conditions. Snow pack monitoring is impossible if the method is destructive as snow probing and thereby the use for avalanche forecasts limited. Ultrasonic snow height sensors are not feasible for an application in snow deposition areas along ridges or in avalanche ...

In this work, X band images acquired by COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) on alpine environment have been analyzed for investigating snow characteristics and their effect on backscattering variations. Preliminary results confirmed the capability of simultaneous optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images (Landsat-8 and CSK) in separating snow/no-snow areas and in detecting wet snow. The sensitivity of b...