Snow Water Equivalent by MW Radiometry

Abstract:
Maps of snow water equivalent derived from MW measurements sensitive to snow thickness and density. The product may be processed in different ways and have different quality depending on the surface being flat, forested or mountainous. The algorithm is based on assimilating MW brightness temperatures of several channels at frequencies with different penetration in snow, into a first-guess field built by the (sparse) network of stations measuring snow depth for flat areas, for mountainous areas snow depth measured at stations is not used directly in the algorithm.