Passive Microwave SWE Algorithms
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Numerous studies have constructed passive microwave snow water equivalent (SWE) algorithms that monitor seasonal snowpack.   My masters work, completed at the University of Utah with Dr. Richard Forster, evaluated the performance of three SWE algorithms, produced by Chang, Tait and Goodison, in the Kuparuk River Watershed in Northern Alaska.  The Kuparuk site was selected because it has an extensive amount of ground truth data (links below) and because it has a snowpack that develops large snow crystals called depth hoar.  This research not only evaluated and created a specific SWE algorithm for the Kuparuk Watershed but also gave insight on the use of passive microwave data in mediums with large volume-scattering particles.  The results from this study were published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, "Evaluation of passive microwave snow water equivalent algorithms in the depth hoar-dominated snowpack of the Kuparuk River Watershed, Alaska, USA" (Koenig_Forster, 2004).

Links:

North Slope Hydrology Research Project- UAF

http://www.uaf.edu/water/projects/NorthSlope/northslope.html

Met and Hydro Data for Kuparuk

http://nsidc.org/data/arcss015.html

Depth Hoar Website

http://whyfiles.org/105avalanche/3.html

References:

Chang, A. T. C. (1985). Remote sensing of snowpack properties bymicrowave radiometry. International workshop on hydrologic applicationsof space technology. Cocoa Beach, FL7 IAHS-AISH Publishing.

Goodison, B. E. (1989). Determination of areal snow water equivalenton the Canadian prairies using passive microwave satellite data.12th Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing, Vancouver, Canada July10–14, 1989, vol. 13. (pp. 1243– 1246).

Tait, A. B. (1998). Estimation of snow water equivalent using passive microwave radiation data. Remote Sensing of the Environment, 64,286– 291.