Abstract
Microwave Scanning Radiometer (MSR) is one of the sensors on board Japan's first Marine Observation Satellite (MOS-1) which will be launched in 1987. Ground-based microwave experiments for snowpack properties using Bread Board Model (BB-M) of MSR have been carried out under cooperative project between National Space Development Agency of Japan and National Resources Laboratory, Science and Technology Agency since 1982. Based on brightness temperature data collected at the ground experiments, this study shows that two major snowpack parameters, snow depth and snow water equivalent may be estimated by the MSR.
Two stages of analyses adopted were discriminating presence or absence of snow, and dry or wet snow, respectively. For the dry snow data discriminated, multiple regression analysis was made to estimate the snow depth and the snow water equivalent.
Although reliability of the estimation should be verified for further analysis, the analytical method developed here using selected data sets for estimating snowpack parameters is practical enough to be operational and expected to incorporate with an automatic data analysis procedure which synergistically utilizes different type of sensor data.
