Abstract
In this study, a new algorithm for snow is developed based on microwave radiative transfer theory and evaluated using the measured snow at the 100 ground-based stations which locate widely in the northern hemisphere. At about the half of the evaluated stations, the estimation errors are very low. Further, the reasons for over- or underestimation are discussed in relation to snow particle size and vegetation cover. Using the proposed algorithm, 6 years data sets of snow in the Eurasian continent are generated from SSM/I. The characteristics of seasonal variation of snow in the Eurasian continent and inter-annual variation of maximum snow on the Tibetan Plateau are demonstrated by analyzing the generated data sets.
