Accurate mapping of snow cover continues to challenge cryospheric scientists and modelers. The Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow data products have been used since 2000 by many investigators to map and monitor snow cover extent for various applications. Users have reported on the utility of the products and also on problems encountered. Three problems or hindrances in t...

Central Asia consists of the five former Soviet States Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, therefore comprising an area of ~4 Mio km2. The continental climate is characterized by hot and dry summer months and cold winter seasons with most precipitation occurring as snowfall. Accordingly, freshwater supply is strongly depending on the amount of accumulated snow as w...

For many cases modeled and measured UV global irradiances agree to within +/-5% for cloudless conditions, provided that all relevant parameters for describing the atmosphere and the surface are well known. However, for conditions with snow-covered surfaces this agreement is usually not achievable, because on the one hand the regional albedo, which has to be used in a model, is only rarely avail...

Winter snowfall and its temporal variability are important factors in the development of water management strategies for snow-dominated regions. For example, mountain regions of Europe rely on snow for recreation, and on snowmelt for water supply and hydropower. It is still unclear whether in these regions the snow regime is undergoing any major significant change. Moreover, snow interannual va...

We developed a technique to improve spectral mixture Results were verified with a high spatial resolution aerial analysis of snow-covered area in alpine regions through photograph demonstrating equivalent accuracy. Analysis the use of multiple snow endmembers. Snow reflectance of fraction under/overflow and residuals confirmed mixin near-infrared wavelengths is sensitive to snow grain ture anal...

Since 2002, global snow water equivalent (SWE) estimates have been generated using Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E)/Aqua data. Accurate estimates of SWE are important to improve monitoring and managing of water resources in specific regions. SWE and snow map product accuracy are functions of topography and of land cover type because landscape characteristics have a strong influen...

Snow-covered area (SCA) is a key variable in the Snowmelt-Runoff Model (SRM) and in other models for simulating discharge from snowmelt. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM + ) or Operational Land Imager (OLI) provide remotely sensed data at an appropriate spatial resolution for mapping SCA in small headwater basins, but the temporal resolution of the data is low and may...

At ultraviolet wavelengths the albedo of most natural surfaces is small with the striking exception of snow and ice. Therefore, snow cover is a major challenge for various applications based on radiative transfer modelling. The aim of this work was to determine the characteristic effective UV range surface albedo of various land cover types when covered by snow. First we selected 1 by 1 degree ...

[1] This paper uses the Community Land Model (CLM2) to investigate the improvements of a new land surface data set, created from multiple high-quality collection 4 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data of leaf area index (LAI), plant functional type, and vegetation continuous fields, for modeled land surface variables. The previous land surface data in CLM2 underestimate LAI and ov...