Title
Interpreting the remotely sensed microwave radiance FROm snow covered mountains via a high-resolution modeling framework
Abstract
Applying passive microwave (PM) remote sensing to estimate mountain snow water equivalent (SWE) is challenging due to the complex interaction between the microwave radiance and the mountain environment; a better knowledge of the interaction is requisite to improve the characterization of mountain SWE via PM. In this study, we modeled the 36.5GHz V-Pol microwave radiance at 90m spatial resolution over the Upper Kern Basin. We replicated the AMSR-E observations with the modeling results, and used the modeled radiance to interpret the satellite observations, as well as to explore the impacts of the mountain environment on microwave radiance. We found snow grain size, model stratigraphic representation, liquid water content and intense snowfall event close related with the modeling accuracy; the calibration to these parameters reduced the error in the modeled radiance by 81%. We aggregated the modeled radiance to AMSR-E footprint scale using the antenna sampling pattern to facilitate the comparison between the modeled radiance and the AMSR-E observations. The RMSE of the basin-scale modeling was 3.1K during the dry snow season. Using the modeling results, we classified the environmental variables in terms of their influence on microwave radiance in the study area; from high to low: SWE (significant only when snowpack is deep), vegetation, elevation, aspect, slope.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/IGARSS.2014.6946736
IGARSS
Keywords
Field
DocType
snow,usa,passive microwave remote sensing,remote sensing,calibration,remotely sensed microwave radiance,snow grain size,microwave radiance modeling,snow covered mountains,grain size,mountain snow estimate,stratigraphic representation,stratigraphy,high resolution modeling framework,v-pol microwave radiance,snow water equivalent,upper kern basin,amsr-e observations,spatial resolution,correlation,vegetation,computational modeling
Meteorology,Microwave,Computer science,Remote sensing,Radiance,Snow
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
2153-6996
1
0.49
References 
Authors
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dongyue Li121.91
Michael Durand210.49
Steven A. Margulis310.49