Snowpack dynamics in the Lebanese mountains from quasi-dynamically downscaled ERA5 reanalysis updated by assimilating remotely sensed fractional snow-covered area

Alonso-González, Esteban; Gutmann, Ethan; Aalstad, Kristoffer; Fayad, Abbas; Bouchet, Marine; Gascoin, Simon

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4455-2021

Articles | Volume 25, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4455-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Changes in the Mediterranean hydrology: observation and...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4455-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 8

Research article

|

19 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 19 Aug 2021

Snowpack dynamics in the Lebanese mountains from quasi-dynamically downscaled ERA5 reanalysis updated by assimilating remotely sensed fractional snow-covered area

Esteban Alonso-González, Ethan Gutmann, Kristoffer Aalstad, Abbas Fayad, Marine Bouchet, and Simon Gascoin

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4455-2021-supplement

Data sets

Flexible Snow Model - a multi-physics energy balance model of accumulation and melt of snow on the ground and in forest canopies R. Essery https://github.com/RichardEssery/FSM2

Snow dataset for Mount-Lebanon (2011-2016) A. Fayad, S. Gascoin, G. Faour, P. Fanise, and L. Drapeau https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.583733

Model code and software

The official repository for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model W. C. Skamarock, J. B. Klemp, J. Dudhia, D. O. Gill, D. M. Barker, M. G. Duda, X.-Y. Huang, W. Wang, and J. G. Powers https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF

The Intermediate Complexity Atmospheric Research model (ICAR) E. D. Gutmann, I. Barstad, M. P. Clark, J. R. Arnold, and R. M. Rasmussen https://github.com/NCAR/icar

Short summary

Snow water resources represent a key hydrological resource for the Mediterranean regions, where most of the precipitation falls during the winter months. This is the case for Lebanon, where snowpack represents 31 % of the spring flow. We have used models to generate snow information corrected by means of remote sensing snow cover retrievals. Our results highlight the high temporal variability in the snowpack in Lebanon and its sensitivity to further warming caused by its hypsography.