Articles | Volume 27, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-21-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-21-2023
Research article
 | 
02 Jan 2023
Research article |  | 02 Jan 2023

Estimating spatiotemporally continuous snow water equivalent from intermittent satellite observations: an evaluation using synthetic data

Xiaoyu Ma, Dongyue Li, Yiwen Fang, Steven A. Margulis, and Dennis P. Lettenmaier

Related authors

Spatiotemporal snow water storage uncertainty in the midlatitude American Cordillera
Yiwen Fang, Yufei Liu, Dongyue Li, Haorui Sun, and Steven A. Margulis
The Cryosphere, 17, 5175–5195, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5175-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5175-2023, 2023
Short summary
Improving Runoff Simulation in the Western United States with Noah-MP and VIC
Lu Su, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Ming Pan, and Benjamin Bass
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2164,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2164, 2023
Short summary
Interactions between thresholds and spatial discretizations of snow: insights from estimates of wolverine denning habitat in the Colorado Rocky Mountains
Justin M. Pflug, Yiwen Fang, Steven A. Margulis, and Ben Livneh
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 2747–2762, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-2747-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-2747-2023, 2023
Short summary
Spatiotemporal distribution of seasonal snow water equivalent in High Mountain Asia from an 18-year Landsat–MODIS era snow reanalysis dataset
Yufei Liu, Yiwen Fang, and Steven A. Margulis
The Cryosphere, 15, 5261–5280, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5261-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5261-2021, 2021
Short summary
Satellite-based remote sensing data set of global surface water storage change from 1992 to 2018
Riccardo Tortini, Nina Noujdina, Samantha Yeo, Martina Ricko, Charon M. Birkett, Ankush Khandelwal, Vipin Kumar, Miriam E. Marlier, and Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 1141–1151, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1141-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1141-2020, 2020
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Snow and Ice | Techniques and Approaches: Remote Sensing and GIS
Extending the utility of space-borne snow water equivalent observations over vegetated areas with data assimilation
Justin M. Pflug, Melissa L. Wrzesien, Sujay V. Kumar, Eunsang Cho, Kristi R. Arsenault, Paul R. Houser, and Carrie M. Vuyovich
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 631–648, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-631-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-631-2024, 2024
Short summary
Assimilation of airborne gamma observations provides utility for snow estimation in forested environments
Eunsang Cho, Yonghwan Kwon, Sujay V. Kumar, and Carrie M. Vuyovich
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 4039–4056, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-4039-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-4039-2023, 2023
Short summary
Characterizing 4 decades of accelerated glacial mass loss in the west Nyainqentanglha Range of the Tibetan Plateau
Shuhong Wang, Jintao Liu, Hamish D. Pritchard, Linghong Ke, Xiao Qiao, Jie Zhang, Weihua Xiao, and Yuyan Zhou
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 933–952, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-933-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-933-2023, 2023
Short summary
Development and validation of a new MODIS snow-cover-extent product over China
Xiaohua Hao, Guanghui Huang, Zhaojun Zheng, Xingliang Sun, Wenzheng Ji, Hongyu Zhao, Jian Wang, Hongyi Li, and Xiaoyan Wang
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 1937–1952, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1937-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1937-2022, 2022
Short summary
Processes governing snow ablation in alpine terrain – detailed measurements from the Canadian Rockies
Michael Schirmer and John W. Pomeroy
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 143–157, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-143-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-143-2020, 2020
Short summary

Cited articles

Abiodun, O. I., Jantan, A., Omolara, A. E., Dada, K. V., Mohamed, N. A., and Arshad, H.: State-of-the-art in artificial neural network applications, A survey, Heliyon, 4, 3–6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00938, 2018. 
Barnett, T. P., Adam, J. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions, Nature, 438, 303–309, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04141, 2005. 
Breiman, L.: Random Forests, Mach. Learn., 45, 5–32, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010933404324, 2001. 
Chakraborty, D., Başağaoğlu, H., Gutierrez, L., and Mirchi, A.: Explainable AI reveals new hydroclimatic insights for ecosystem-centric groundwater management, Environ. Res. Lett., 16, 114024, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2fde, 2021. 
Clark, M. P., Hendrikx, J., Slater, A. G., Kavetski, D., Anderson, B., Cullen, N. J., Kerr, T., Örn Hreinsson, E., and Woods, R. A.: Representing spatial variability of snow water equivalent in hydrologic and land-surface models: A review, Water Resour. Res., 47, 17–18, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011WR010745, 2011. 
Download
Short summary
We explore satellite retrievals of snow water equivalent (SWE) along hypothetical ground tracks that would allow estimation of SWE over an entire watershed. The retrieval of SWE from satellites has proved elusive, but there are now technological options that do so along essentially one-dimensional tracks. We use machine learning (ML) algorithms as the basis for a track-to-area (TTA) transformation and show that at least one is robust enough to estimate domain-wide SWE with high accuracy.