Analysis between AMSR-E swath brightness temperature and snow cover area in winter time over Sierra Nevada, Western U.S.

Terrestrial snow cover has largest geographic extent in the northern hemisphere. Melting snow supplies most of California’swater supply. Recent analyses of long-term surface observations show a good relationship between the snow depth and AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System) swath brightness temperature. In this work, we employ one snow season (AMSR-E) dataset and the retrieved snow cover area (SCA) to analyze the snow microwave emission and gradient algorithm ability. The time series analysis shows that the relationship between SCA and the SWE. The result show that when the ground was covered with a light fall of snow, the SCA increase immediately and the bright temperature is well indicate the snow exist. When the snow become deeper, the SCA reach the maximum and bright temperature become not sensitivity. All the date show that the SCA and ground observation is consistent in the whole snow season, but when the snow is more than 0.5m or snow is begin to melt, the bright temperature have less useful information.