Monitoring of snow covered area the during ablation period with effective solar UV retrievals

摘要: Monitoring the temporal evolution of snow covered area (SCA) during the ablation period is essential to estimate the total volume of snow in mountainous regions. Area wide observations of SCA are used as input and verification of operational snow hydrological models and can be applied for reconstructing the total volume of snow at the beginning of melt. This study shows that effective solar UV albedo retrievals based on spectral solar UV measurements may constitute an alternative remote sensing approach to observe SCA in extended areas around the UV instrument. Spectral solar ultraviolet radiation measurements between 300-360 nm are strongly affected by the reflective snow surface of the surrounding terrain in an area of about 40 km. The decrease of SCA during snow ablation and the decreased backscattered diffuse UV radiation can be detected by the significant changes of effective solar UV albedo …