Derivation of snow water equivalent in boreal forests using microwave radiometry

Abstract

Algorithms employing microwave data tend to underestimate snow depths. Preliminary results indicate that the amount of underestimation can be minimized when the fraction of forest cover can be accounted for and used as an additional input in microwave algorithms. In the boreal forest of Saskatchewan, the standard error between the measured and the estimated snow water equivalent was reduced from 2.7 to 2.1cm by using a generalized snow retrieval algorithm that includes the percentage of forest cover. However, perhaps as much as 25% of the boreal forest of North America and Eurasia is too dense to enable satisfactory snow water equivalent determinations to be made using passive microwave techniques alone. -from Authors