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A Look at Seasonal Snow Cover and Snow Mass in the Southern Hemisphere from 1979-2006 Using SMMR and SSM/I Passive Microwave DataSeasonal snow cover in extra-tropical areas of South America was examined in this study using passive microwave satellite data from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) on board the Nimbus-7 satellite and from the Special Sensor Microwave Imagers (SSM/I) on board the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. For the period from 1979-2006, both snow cover extent and snow mass were estimated for the months of May-September. Most of the seasonal snow in South America occurs in the Patagonia region of Argentina. The average snow cover extent for July, the month with the greatest average extent during the 28-year period of record, is 321,674 sq km. The seasonal (May-September) 2 average snow cover extent was greatest in 1984 (464,250 sq km) and least in 1990 (69,875 sq km). In terms of snow mass, 1984 was also the biggest year (1.19 x 10(exp 13) kg) and 1990 was the smallest year (0.12 X 10(exp 13) kg). A strong relationship exists between the snow cover area and snow mass, correlated at 0.95, though no significant trend was found over the 28 year record for either snow cover extent or snow mass. For this long term climatology, snow mass and snow cover extent are shown to vary considerably from month to month and season to season. This analysis presents a consistent approach to mapping and measuring snow in South America utilizing an appropriate and readily available long term snow satellite dataset. This is the optimal dataset available, thus far, for deriving seasonal snow cover and snow mass in this region. Nonetheless, shallow snow, wet snow, snow beneath forests, as well as snow along coastal areas all may confound interpretation using passive microwave approaches. More work needs to be done to reduce the uncertainties in the data and hence, increase the confidence of the interpretation
Document ID
20100019275
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Foster, James
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
December 13, 2009
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Meeting Information
Meeting: American Geophysical Union Meetng
Location: San Francisco, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: December 13, 2009
End Date: December 16, 2009
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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