ESA’s Snow Radiance Project Offers New Insight into Snow Properties
25.03.2011 - Ice & Snow, Bi-polar
The European Space Agency's Snow Radiance Project has demonstrated a new method in satellite data processing to observe different properties of snow from space. This method, say researchers, will lead to a better understanding of the role snow plays in the Earth’s climate system.
Taking archived data and applying new algorithms to yield detailed information on the grain size and temperature of snow, scientists managed to gain better insight into the effects of the declining snow cover on the Earth’s climate system. The Snow Radiance project further explored the potential of the future Sentinel-3 satellite mission to retrieve snow parameters.
The encouraging results suggest that the new algorithms based on radiative transfer modelling could allow more accurate data on snow properties and their variations over time to be collected. The new method could also lead to more detailed monitoring of mountain glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
