New GlobSnow dataset provides gridded daily Northern Hemisphere snow mass
Photo: Adobe StockThe GlobSnow v3.0 dataset provides a state-of-the-art estimation of the hemispheric snow mass containing daily, monthly, and monthly bias-corrected snow water equivalent (SWE) at the nominal resolution of 25 km x 25 km (EASE-Grid). The SWE data record spans from 1979 to 2018 and gives up-to-date and most accurate assessment of the seasonal snow mass of the northern hemisphere non-alpine regions.
The quantitative accuracy characteristics of the data record have been evaluated trough comparisons against about 300 000 independent snow course observations of SWE from Eurasia and North America. The development of the GlobSnow methodology is continuing as part of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative – Snow (Snow CCI) project: https://climate.esa.int/en/projects/snow/
In 2020, the GlobSnow v3.0 dataset was utilized groundbreakingly in reliable estimation of the amount of annual snow mass and changes in snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere between 1980 and 2018. During the research period snow mass remained the same in Eurasia and decreased in North America, although the extent of snow cover has decreased simultaneously in both continental regions.
More information
Head of Satellite Services and Research Group Kari Luojus, Arctic Space Centre, Finnish Meteorological Instute, kari.luojus@fmi.fi, tel. +358 40 505 8417
K. Luojus, J. Pulliainen, M. Takala, J. Lemmetyinen, C. Mortimer, C. Derksen, L. Mudryk, M. Moisander, M. Hiltunen, T. Smolander, J. Ikonen, J. Cohen, M. Salminen, J. Norberg, K. Veijola, P. Venäläinen. GlobSnow v3.0 Northern Hemisphere snow water equivalent dataset. Scientific Data, 8:163, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00939-2
Access the paper full-text version here: https://rdcu.be/cnya (in Nature, 2020)