Updated monthly and new daily bias correction for assimilation-based passive microwave SWE retrieval

Abstract

Snow water equivalent (SWE) is a valuable characteristic of global snowpack, and it can be estimated using passive spaceborne radiometer measurements. The radiometer-based GlobSnow SWE retrieval methodology, which assimilates weather station snow depth observations with passive microwave brightness temperatures, has improved the reliability and accuracy of SWE retrieval when compared to stand-alone radiometer passive microwave (PMW) methods. However, even this assimilation-based method fails to estimate large (> 150 mm) SWE values as snow changes from a scatterer to an emitter. Correcting for these systematic biases can improve PMW-based SWE estimates, especially for high SWE magnitudes. Previously, a monthly bias correction using snow course observations was applied to the GlobSnow v3 product for February–May. This method reduced the spread in March SWE estimated from four gridded products. In this research, we use newly available snow course data to update this bias correction and expand it to cover the months of December through May; we also extend the monthly bias correction to a daily bias correction. The new monthly and daily bias corrections are applied to an updated version of the GlobSnow product - Snow CCI v3.1 product. The Northern Hemisphere climatological snow mass from the Snow CCI v3.1 bias corrected products (daily and monthly) is consistent with that from a suite of reanalysis products. This represents a significant improvement for the months of April and May compared to the original GlobSnow v3.0 bias corrected product, as is the provision of daily bias corrected SWE estimates.