HR: 1340h
AN: H23D-1149    [Abstracts]
TI: Ku-band Radar Response to Terrestrial Snow Properties
AU: * Cline, D
EM: Donald.Cline@noaa.gov
AF: National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, NWS, NOAA 1735 Lake Drive West, Chanhassen, MN 55317 United States
AU: Simon, Y
EM: Simon.Yueh@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Nghiem, S
EM: Nghiem@solar.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: McDonald, K
EM: Kyle.McDonald@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AB: Microwave data from the SeaWinds Ku-band (13.4 GHz) scatterometer aboard the QuikSCAT platform were compared to coincident National Snow Analyses (NSA) data sets describing terrestrial snow pack properties. The scatterometer collects data from two beams with different polarizations and incidence angles. The inner beam (H-pol) 3db footprints are 24 x 31 km with a nominal incidence angle of 46\deg. The outer beam (V-pol) 3db footprints are 26 x 36 km with a nominal incidence angle of 54\deg. The microwave measurements for individual footprints throughout the coterminous U.S. (CONUS) during the 2003-2004 snow season were gridded to a series of daily 25-km grids for each beam and for ascending and descending orbits. The NSA are produced by the NOAA National Weather Service by daily assimilation of all available in situ observations of snow water equivalent and snow depth, and satellite observations of snow cover, into a high-resolution (1-km$^{2}$) land surface model for the CONUS. The NSA products used in this study included snow water equivalent, snow depth, snow pack temperature, and snow melt rate. Snow and non-snow precipitation data sets used to force the NSA snow model were also examined. The 1-km NSA data sets were aggregated to the same 25-km grid used for the microwave data. The mean, variance, minimum, and maximum of the snow pack properties for the 625 1-km NSA grid cells within each 25-km were computed and used in the comparative analysis. The two data sets were compared to help understand Ku-band radar response to terrestrial snow properties. The empirical data show that the Ku-band backscatter is strongly correlated to the snow pack water storage, and importantly is also sensitive to perturbations of the snow pack resulting from new snowfall and snow melt. The results support the instrument concept for the Cold Land Processes Pathfinder mission (CLPP), an experimental mission proposed to measure snow water storage.
DE: 1655 Water cycles (1836)
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (1827)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting