Remote sensing of mountain snow from space: status and recommendations

2024/05/10 by Simon Gascoin, Kari Luojus, Thomas Nägler +5 · 1 voice · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Medicine · #Climate change and permafrost #Cryospheric studies and observations #Winter Sports Injuries and Performance

paper · pdf · doi:10.3389/feart.2024.1381323

openalex publication_date 2024/05/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The spatial and temporal variation of the seasonal snowpack in mountain regions is recognized as a clear knowledge gap for climate, ecology and water resources applications. Here, we identify three salient topics where recent developments in snow remote sensing and data assimilation can lead to significant progress: snow water equivalent, high resolution snow-covered area and long term snow cover observations including snow albedo. These topics can be addressed in the near future with institutional support.

Citations

• The ERA5 global reanalysis
• Agricultural risks from changing snowmelt
• Increasing dependence of lowland populations on mountain water resources
• Climate Changes and Their Elevational Patterns in the Mountains of the World

Cited by

• Superconducting Gravimeter Observations Show That a Satellite‐Derived Snow Depth Image Improves the Simulation of the Snow Water Equivalent Evolution in a High Alpine Site
• A 37 years [1984–2021] Landsat/Sentinel-2 derived snow cover time-series for Switzerland
• Using a Random Forest Model to Combine Airborne Lidar and Snotel Data for Daily Estimates of Snow Depth Across Mountain Drainage Basins of Colorado
• Past and future trends in swiss snow cover: multi-decades analysis using the snow observation from space algorithm

Discussions

• The WMO identified a knowledge gap in mountain snow and organized a consultation in March 2023. This paper is an output of this workshop. We highlight topics where recent developments in remote sensin [bsky, 7 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Remote sensing of the mountain cryosphere: Current capabilities and future opportunities for research
• A 37 years [1984–2021] Landsat/Sentinel-2 derived snow cover time-series for Switzerland
• Snowpack Estimation in Key Mountainous Water Basins from Openly-Available, Multimodal Data Sources
• Towards the assimilation of satellite reflectance into semi-distributed ensemble snowpack simulations
• Investigating the Impact of Optical Snow Cover Data on L-Band InSAR Snow Water Equivalent Retrievals