A BASIC STUDY ON A NEW SATELLITE ALGORITHM FOR SNOW BY CONSIDERING THE EFFECTS OF SNOW GRAIN SIZE

Abstract

In this study, a new algorithm for snow depth and snow grain size is developed based on the microwave radiative transfer theory and validated by using the in-situ snow depth data at the 65 ground-based stations in the northern hemisphere and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observation System (AMSRE) on Aqua launched by NASA in 2002. In the cases with the snow depth less than 40cm, the results of validation wre showng ood correspondence of observationv alue and estimationv alue. However, in the case with the snow depth more than 40cm, it is argued that the lower frequenciesh ould be used in the algorithm.