LAND SURFACE ASSIMILATION

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SNOW ASSIMILATION

Snow influences climate through its higher albedo and emissivity, its ability to insulate the soil, and its utilization of energy for snowmelt and sublimation. The role of snow in climate variations is well documented in observational and modeling studies. For example, early season snow cover anomalies in Eurasia have been found to modulate wintertime climate variability in northern hemisphere mid-latitudes. Land data assimilation systems use numerical land surface models along with observations of snow and precipitation to provide enhanced estimates of snow conditions.

Research highlights

• Estimating Passive Microwave Brightness Temperature over Snow-covered Land in North America Using the GEOS-5 Catchment Land Surface Model and an Artificial Neural Network (2012)

• Multi-scale assimilation of AMSR-E snow water equivalent and MODIS snow cover fraction observations in northern Colorado (2011)

• Assimilation of Terrestrial Water Storage from GRACE in a Snow-dominated Basin (2010)

• Satellite-scale snow water equivalent assimilation into a high-resolution land surface model (2010)

• Snow and soil moisture contributions to seasonal streamflow prediction (2009)