Publications

Dozier, J, Painter, TH, Rittger, K, Frew, JE (2008). Time-space continuity of daily maps of fractional snow cover and albedo from MODIS. ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, 31(11), 1515-1526.

Abstract
Using reflectance values from the seven MODIS land bands with 250 or 500 m resolution, along with a corresponding cloud product, we estimate the fraction of each 500 m pixel that snow covers, along with the albedo of that snow. The daily products have data gaps and errors because of cloud cover and sensor viewing geometry. Rather than make users interpolate and filter these patchy daily maps without completely understanding the retrieval algorithm and instrument properties, we use the daily time series to improve the estimate of the measured snow properties for a particular day. We use a combination of noise filtering, snow/cloud discrimination, and interpolation and smoothing to produce our best estimate of the daily snow cover and albedo. We consider two modes: one is the predictive mode, whereby we estimate the snow-covered area and albedo on that day using only the data up to that day; the other is the retrospective mode, whereby we reconstruct the history of the snow properties for a previous period. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI:
10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.08.011

ISSN:
0309-1708