Global SnowPack - MODIS - Yearly

This product shows the snow cover duration for a hydrological year. Its beginning differs from the calendar year, since some of the precipitation that falls in late autumn and winter falls as snow and only drains away when the snow melts in the following spring or summer. The meteorological seasons are used for subdivision and the hydrological year begins in autumn and ends in summer. The snow cover duration is made available for three time periods: the snow cover duration for the entire hydrological year (SCD), the early snow cover duration (SCDE), which extends from autumn to midwinter (), and the late snow cover duration (SCDL), which in turn extends over the period from mid-winter to the end of summer. For the northern hemisphere SCD lasts from September 1st to August 31st, for the southern hemisphere it lasts from March 1st to February 28th/29th. The SCDE lasts from September 1st to January 14th in the northern hemisphere and from March 1st to July 14th in the southern hemisphere. The SCDL lasts from January 15th to August 31st in the northern hemisphere and from July 15th to February 28th/29th in the southern hemisphere.

The “Global SnowPack” is derived from daily, operational MODIS snow cover product for each day since February 2000. Data gaps due to polar night and cloud cover are filled in several processing steps, which provides a unique global data set characterized by its high accuracy, spatial resolution of 500 meters and continuous future expansion. It consists of the two main elements daily snow cover extent (SCE) and seasonal snow cover duration (SCD; full and for early and late season). Both parameters have been designated by the WMO as essential climate variables, the accurate determination of which is important in order to be able to record the effects of climate change. Changes in the largest part of the cryosphere in terms of area have drastic effects on people and the environment.

For more information please also refer to:

Dietz, A.J., Kuenzer, C., Conrad, C., 2013. Snow-cover variability in central Asia between 2000 and 2011 derived from improved MODIS daily snow-cover products. International Journal of Remote Sensing 34, 3879–3902. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2013.767480

Dietz, A.J., Kuenzer, C., Dech, S., 2015. Global SnowPack: a new set of snow cover parameters for studying status and dynamics of the planetary snow cover extent. Remote Sensing Letters 6, 844–853. https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2015.1084551

Dietz, A.J., Wohner, C., Kuenzer, C., 2012. European Snow Cover Characteristics between 2000 and 2011 Derived from Improved MODIS Daily Snow Cover Products. Remote Sensing 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs4082432

Dietz, J.A., Conrad, C., Kuenzer, C., Gesell, G., Dech, S., 2014. Identifying Changing Snow Cover Characteristics in Central Asia between 1986 and 2014 from Remote Sensing Data. Remote Sensing 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs61212752

Rößler, S., Witt, M.S., Ikonen, J., Brown, I.A., Dietz, A.J., 2021. Remote Sensing of Snow Cover Variability and Its Influence on the Runoff of Sápmi’s Rivers. Geosciences 11, 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences11030130

Citation proposal
. Global SnowPack - MODIS - Yearly. https://gdk.gdi-de.org/geonetwork/srv/api/records/820296dc-11c9-4214-84bf-4871a01fc926

INSPIRE
SDS

INSPIRE

Identification

File identifier: 820296dc-11c9-4214-84bf-4871a01fc926 XML

Hierarchy level: Series

Online resource

Protocol: OGC:WMS

Protocol: OGC:WMS

Protocol: OGC:WMS

Protocol: OGC:WMS-http-get-capabilities

Protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

Protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

Protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

Resource identifier

code: https://geoservice.dlr.de/catalogue/srv/metadata/820296dc-11c9-4214-84bf-4871a01fc926

Metadata language: English

Spatial representation type: Grid

Encoding

Format: GeoTIFF

Projection

Classification of data and services

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource

Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 ( Theme )

Land cover

Spatial scope

global

Other keywords

Keywords

MODIS
Global SnowPack
snow cover duration
snow cover duration late season
snow cover duration early season
snow
SCD
SCDE
SCDL
opendata
inspireidentifiziert

Geographic coverage

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Date ( Creation ): 2022-03-01T00:00:00

Quality and validity

Lineage

Created from MODIS daily snow cover products MOD10A1, MYD10A1 provided by the National Snow and Ice Datacenter NSIDC (https://nsidc.org/)

Processing steps include combination of observations recorded by Aqua and Terra, temporal interpolation of 3 successive days, snow line identification, and a seasonal filter. More details are available in the publication "Dietz A.J., Kuenzer, C., and Dech, S. (2015): Global SnowPack: a new set of snow cover parameters for studying status and dynamics of the planetary snow cover extent; Remote Sensing Letters 6, No. 11. pp. 844-853