Combining Snow Depth From FY-3C and In Situ Data Over the Tibetan Plateau Using a Nonlinear Analysis Method

Abstract

Snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau plays a vital role in the regional and global climate system because it affects not only the climate but also the hydrological cycle and ecosystem. However, high-quality snow data are hindered due to the sparsity of observation networks and complex terrain in the region. In this study, a nonlinear time series analysis method called phase space reconstruction was used to obtain the Tibetan Plateau snow depth by combining the FY-3C satellite data and in situ data for the period 2014–2017. This method features making a time delay reconstruction of a phase space to view the dynamics. Both of the grids and their nearby in situ snow depth time series were reconstructed with two appropriate parameters called time delay and embedding dimension. The values of the snow depth for grids were averaged over the in situ observations and retrieval of the satellite if their two parameters were the same. That implies that the two trajectories of the time series had the same evolution trend. Otherwise, the snow depth values for grids were averaged over the in situ observation. If there were no in situ sites within the grids, the retrieval of the satellite remained. The results show that the integrated Tibetan Plateau snow depth (ITPSD) had an average bias of –1.35 cm and 1.14 cm, standard deviation of the bias of 3.96 cm and 5.67 cm, and root mean square error of 4.18 cm and 5.79 cm compared with the in situ data and FY-3C satellite data, respectively. ITPSD expressed the issue that snow depth is usually overestimated in mountain regions by satellites. This is due to the introduction of more station observations using a dynamical statistical method to correct the biases in the satellite data.