Spatial and Temporal Variability of Seasonal Snow Cover in North America
Tingjun
Zhang, National Snow and Ice Data Center,, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,, University of Colorado at Boulder,, tzhang@nsidc.org
(Presenting)
James
McCreight, National Snow and Ice Data Center,, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,, University of Colorado at Boulder, mccerigh@nsidc.org
Kevin
Schaefer, National Snow and Ice Data Center,, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,, University of Colorado at Boulder, kevin.schaefer@nsidc.org
(Presenting)
Lixin
Lu, CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder, lixin@nsidc.org
(Presenting)
Andrew
Etringer, National Snow and Ice Data Center,, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,, University of Colorado at Boulder,, etringer@nsidc.org
Changes in soil thermal regime and soil freeze/thaw cycle have significant impact on carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface. Snow cover plays a critical role on soil thermal regime and soil freeze/thaw status in cold seasons/cold regions, thus has dramatically impact on ecosystem and carbon cycle as a whole. The ultimate goad this work is to investigate spatial and temporal impact of snow cover on ground thermal regime and soil freeze/thaw status and then to further study how changes in snow conditions influence ecosystem and carbon exchange in North America (NA). To archive this goal, we collected all available snow data from various sources and develop a comprehensive snow depth data time series over North America. We have obtained in-situ snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) data from more than 4000 stations from the US National Weather Service, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) Snow-Course and SnoTel data, and Canadian National Snow Information System for Water (NSISW). We also obtained daily snow depth/SWE derived from passive microwave satellite remote sensing data from 1978 through 2005 at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado at Boulder. Based on in-situ data at stations where both snow depth/SWE are available, we have obtained monthly snow density climatology and its standard deviation for five different snow types over North America. We further grided monthly snow density across NA with resolution of 25 km. Finally, we use daily snow depth/SWE from SMMR and SSM/I data as background and in-situ daily snow depth/SWE as control to generate a combined daily snow depth/SWE data product over NA. We will present all details of snow products and discuss its potential applications for ecosystem and carbon exchange studies over North America.
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