International Snow Science Workshop Proceedings - Montana State University Library

Item: Can a Point Measurement Represent the Snow Depth in its Vicinity? A Comparison of Areal Snow Depth Measurements With Selected Index Sites

• • Title: Can a Point Measurement Represent the Snow Depth in its Vicinity? A Comparison of Areal Snow Depth Measurements With Selected Index Sites

    Proceedings: International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble – Chamonix Mont-Blanc - October 07-11, 2013

    Authors:

    • Thomas Grünewald  [ WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos, CH ]  [ Cryos, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, CH ]
    • Michael Lehning  [ WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos, CH ]  [ Cryos, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, CH ]

    Date: 2013-10-07

    Abstract: Information on the amount of snow stored in a catchment or on a mountain is an important issue for hydrology, natural hazards, winter tourism or mountain ecology. Area-wide measurements of the snow depth in an appropriate spatial and temporal resolution are usually not available as they are costly and difficult to obtain. In practice one often relies on few, selected point measurements, like meteorological stations which measure snow depth at a specific location in a high temporal resolution and one assumes that these index sites represent the snow cover of their vicinity. Such index sites are usually located in flat and sheltered terrain and it has been questioned if such places are really capable to represent the snow cover of their larger surrounding. In this study we use a large data set of areal snow depth measurements obtained by airborne laser scanning in different mountain regions and analyse, if virtual index-sites within the study areas do represent the real snow distribution of their direct vicinity and of the entire catchment. We show that single stations are not able to represent the snow cover and that most stations tend to clearly overestimate snow depth. There are, however, also index sites which measure lower snow depths than the surrounding area. Such stations are typically dominated by strong winds. We also show that elevation gradients of snow depth are qualitatively captured by index sites, even though quantitative estimation of real gradients using index sites has a large error.

    Language of Article: English

    Presenters: Unknown

    Keywords: index-site, representativeness of point measurement, snow depth, airborne laser scanning, lidar

    Page Number(s): 069-072

    Subjects: snow depth lidar (light distancing and ranging) snowfall measurements

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