INTEGRATED SNOW OBSERVATION DURING THE COLD LAND PROCESSES FIELD EXPERIMENT AND ITS APPLICATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RADIATIVE TRANSFER MODEL FOR SNOW

Abstract

This paper introduces microwave radiometric data, snow pack properties and meteorological forcing data observation collected during the winter season '02/'03 in Fraser, Colorado, USA. The observation was part of the NASA Cold Land Processes Field Experiment (CLPX) at the Local Scale Observation Site (LSOS). Apart from continuous observation of meteorological data, which can be used to constrain physically based snow models, intensive ground-based passive microwave observations have been implemented during the winter season. Furthermore regular observations of snow pit properties have been conducted, including the snow density and snow grain size profiles. The data set provides the possibility to evaluate and improve radiative transfer models for snow and satisfactory modeling results have been achieved using the dense media radiative transfer theory (DMRT). All data will be released to the public on October 1, 2004 and are available from the website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.