Mazari, N; Tekeli, AE; Xie, HJ; Sharif, HO; El Hassan, AA (2013). Assessment of ice mapping system and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer snow cover maps over Colorado Plateau. JOURNAL OF APPLIED REMOTE SENSING, 7, 73540.

Abstract
Satellite snow cover area (SCA) mapping using optical sensors has been known to suffer severe obstruction due to vegetation canopy and cloud cover. Several algorithms have been developed to reduce cloud cover contamination and enhance the SCA mapping. In this study we introduce the use of a daily SCA product from the Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) at a nominal resolution of 4 km, assess its accuracy and error levels against in situ observations, and compare the IMS SCA product with the SCA products from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), a combination of daily Terra and Aqua satellites. The results show that the snow accuracies are higher during winter for both IMS and MODIS, and that there is not much difference between MODIS at 500 m and upscaled at 4 km. The IMS SCA mapping accuracies are significantly higher than MODIS accuracies for all sky conditions, while they are similar to or slightly lower than MODIS accuracies in clear sky conditions. The overestimate error of snow cover using IMS is higher (lower) than that of MODIS during ablation (accumulation) periods. Both MODIS and IMS show a similar pattern of underestimation errors of snow cover with the IMS being slightly higher than the MODIS. It is concluded that the IMS SCA product has potential as a good alternative for the MODIS daily SCA products or replacing those cloud pixels in the MODIS daily or multiday products. (C) 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

DOI:
10.1117/1.JRS.7.073540

ISSN: