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The Winter of 2013 – 2014: A Cold, Snowy and Icy Winter in North America
This animation shows the snow cover over North America during the 2013-2014 winter as well as the ice concentration over the Great Lakes. The date and a graph showing the percent of ice cover over the Great Lakes and Lake Superior is shown on this version. file size is 5.2 MB
Snow Cover & Sea Ice Animation
This animation shows the advance and retreat of daily snow cover along with daily sea ice surface temperature globally from September 2002 through May 2003. file size is 31MB
Surface Temperature of the Greenland Ice Sheet During the Summer of 2005
This animation shows daily surface temperature of the Greenland ice sheet from May 1 through September 1, 2005. An overlay contains a date bar, a color bar and text labels. file size is 14MB
Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature over the North Pole
This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over the North Pole during the winter of 2002-2003. file size is 31MB
Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature over North America
This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over North America during the winter of 2002-2003. file size is 15MB
Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature over Europe
This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over Europe during the winter of 2002-2003. file size is 31MB
Daily Snow and Sea Ice Temperature over Asia
This animation shows the daily advance and retreat of snow cover, and sea ice surface temperature over Asia during the winter of 2002-2003. file size is 7MB
Detection of snow cover using Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) data
Andrew Tait1, Dorothy Hall2, Jim Foster2, Al Chang,2 Andrew Klein3
1 Universities Space Research Association, 7501 Forbes Blvd., Suite #206, Lanham, MD 20706.
2 Hydrological Sciences, Code 974, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771.
3 Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3147.
ABSTRACT
Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) data, collected from a NASA ER-2 flight over the Great Lakes region and New England in February 1997, are used to identify snow cover. Data at 89, 150, and 220 GHz are compared with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow cover product. Additional datasets used in this analysis are the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) land cover classification and the MODIS cloud cover mask. Results show that for cloud-free scenes, the MIR data are well related to the snow and vegetation cover. Under cloudy conditions the MODIS snow mapping algorithm, which uses visible and near-infrared data, is unable to detect snow cover. However, the surface cover is still clearly discernible in the MIR images. It is suggested that high frequency microwave data may be used to supplement the MODIS, or other visible and near-infrared derived snow cover products, during cloudy conditions. The development of snow cover algorithms combining future Earth Observing System (EOS) microwave, visible, and infrared data are discussed.
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