Terrestrial laser scanning was used to measure snow thickness changes (perpendicular to the surface) in a rock face. The aim was to investigate the accumulation and redistribution of snow in extremely steep terrain (>60). The north-east face of the Chlein Schiahorn in the region of Davos in eastern Switzerland was scanned before and several times after a snowfall event. A summer scan without sn...

In this study, we inter-compared observed Ku-, Xand C-band microwave backscatter from saline 14 cm, 8 cm, and 4 cm snow covers on smooth first-year sea ice. A Ku-, Xand C-band surface-borne polarimetric microwave scatterometer system was used to measure fully-polarimetric backscatter from the three snow covers, near-coincident with corresponding in situ snow thermophysical measurements. The stu...

The seasonal snow cover of the Tibetan Plateau exerts a profound environmental influence both regionally and globally. Daily observations of snow depth at 37 meteorological stations in Tibet and MODIS eight-day snow products (MOD10A2) during the period 2001–2015 are analyzed with respect to the frequency and spatial distribution of snow cover for each season and for various altitude ranges. The...

The Tienshan Urumqi Glacier No.1 (TUG1) usually shows "grey" surfaces in summers. Besides known regional warming, what should be responsible for largely reducing its surface albedo and making it look "grey"? A field campaign was conducted on the TUG1 on a selected cloud-free day of 2013 after a snow fall at night. Fresh and aged snow samples were collected in the field, and snow densities, grai...

[1] Measurements of snow using a high-resolution micropenetrometer can be used to discriminate between different snow types; in lower-density snow the signal is sensitive to microstructure, and micromechanical properties can be estimated. Although a physics-based snow penetration theory was first developed almost a decade ago, since that time the majority of studies using snow micropenetrometer...

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily snow cover products provide an opportunity for determining snow onset and melt dates across broad geographic regions; however, cloud cover and polar darkness are limiting factors at higher latitudes. This study presents snow onset and melt dates for Alaska, portions of western Canada and the Russian Far East derived from Terra MODIS sn...

Taking northern Xinjiang, China, as an example, this study first compares the standard MODIS Terra and Aqua snow cover classifications, and then compares the accuracy of the standard MODIS daily and 8-day snow cover products with the new daily and multi-day snow cover combination of MODIS Terra and Aqua observations using in situ measurements. Under clear sky in both products, the agreement of ...

The directional emissivity of snow and ice surfaces in the 8–14 Am thermal infrared (TIR) atmospheric window was determined from spectral radiances obtained by field measurements using a portable Fourier transform infrared spectrometer in conjunction with snow pit work. The dependence of the directional emissivity on the surface snow type (grain size and shape) was examined. We obtained emissiv...

The MODIS daily snow albedo product is a data layer in the MOD10A1 snow-cover product that includes snow-covered area and fractional snow cover as well as quality information and other metadata (Riggs et al., 2006; Hall and Riggs, 2007). It was developed to augment the MODIS BRDF/Albedo algorithm (MCD43) that provides 16-day maps of albedo globally at 500-m resolution (Schaaf et al., 2002). But...