A climate version of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) is used to simulate snow-related land-atmosphere interactions in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. The availability of observed snow-distribution products allow snow-water-equivalent distribution data to be assimilated directly into the RAMS simulations. By performing two kinds of model integrat...

Remote sensing of snow-covered area (SCA) can be binary (indicating the presence/absence of snow cover at each pixel) or fractional (indicating the fraction of each pixel covered by snow). Fractional SCA mapping provides more information than binary SCA, but is more difficult to implement and may not be feasible with all types of remote sensing data. The utility of fractional SCA mapping relati...

An evaluation of the Biosphere±Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) snow submodel was conducted, both in a stand-alone mode and within the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3). We evaluated, in the stand-alone mode, the performance of BATS parameterizations at local scales using ground-based observations from the former Soviet Union and fromMammo...

Detection and determination of ice and snow characteristics using remote sensing data is a new method in obtaining hydrology parameters. In order to determine these characteristics the numbers of meteorological stations are not enough in the glacier and mountain regions. We suggest using remotely sensing data for removing these deficiencies. Snow is distinguished more than other objects in the ...

Subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) weather forecasting has improved in recent years, thanks partly to better representation of physical variables in models. For instance, realistic initializations of snow and soil moisture in models yield enhanced predictability on S2S time scales. Snow depth and soil moisture also mediate month-to-month persistence of near-surface air temperature. Here the role of ...

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...

In Lesotho, snow cover is not only highly relevant to the climate system, but also affects socio-economic factors such as water storage for irrigation or hydro-electricity. However, while sound knowledge of annual and inter-annual snow dynamics is strongly required by local stakeholders, in-situ snow information remains limited. In this study, satellite data are used to generate a time series o...

Snow on Antarctic sea ice plays a complex and highly variable role in air-sea-ice interaction processes and the Earth’s climate system. Using data collected mostly during the past 10 years, this paper reviews the following topics: snow thickness and snow type and their geographical and seasonal variations; snow grain size, density, and salinity; frequency of occurrence of slush; thermal conduct...

Precise measurements of snow structural parameters and stratigraphy are essential to understand and model snow physical processes, in particular with respect to avalanche formation. However, most snow measurements are limited in spatial resolution and by extensive measurement times, and therefore lack practicability for avalanche professionals. The snow micro-penetrometer (SMP), a portable, hig...

Climate change has a complex effect on snow at the regional scale. The change in snow patterns under climate change remains unknown for certain regions. Here, we used high spatiotemporal resolution snow-related variables simulated by a weather research and forecast model (WRF) including snowfall, snow water equivalent and snow depth along with fractional snow cover (FSC) data extracted from Mod...