Water and Environmental Research Center
Seminars
23 October 2009
You Can Only Melt Snow Where There IS Snow
Joel Homan
The model-based depletion curve that we wanted to develop would not require any ground based surveys, which is a big deal when trying to model large scale areas. Instead we wanted to develop them using satellite-based fractional snow covered area (FSCA) and modeled snow water equivalent (SWE).
Abstract
Snow accumulation and melt parameterization at a watershed or mountain-front scale is important for improvements in distributed snowmelt modeling. Snowmelt depletion curves, which relate fractional decreases in snow-covered area against normalized decreases in snow water equivalent, are an effective way to scale-up snowmelt models. This study involved the development of remotely sensed snowmelt depletion curves to parameterize snowpack variability throughout the snowmelt season within three study areas. The depletion curves were evaluated against ground-based depletion curves, which were considered ground truth. The evaluation determined that the remotely sensed depletion curves, developed with satellite-based fractional snow-covered area and physically-based snowmelt modeled snow water equivalents, produced comparable results and required much less labor to develop.