Snow cover mapping over the Tibetan Plateau with MODIS and ASTER data

Lina Xu; Ruiqing Niu; Yannan Zhao; Jiong Li; Ting Wu

doi:10.1117/12.836457

9 October 2009 Snow cover mapping over the Tibetan Plateau with MODIS and ASTER data

Lina Xu, Ruiqing Niu, Yannan Zhao, Jiong Li, Ting Wu

Proceedings Volume 7471, Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes; 747115 (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.836457
Event: Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes, 2009, Chengdu, China

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau, called "the third pole" of the Earth by its highest altitude, is a very sensitive area for hydrological cycle and climatic change. To estimate and map the snow covered areas of the Tibetan Plateau is very important for the regional climatic change and hydrological cycle. The fractional snow cover of an image pixel is estimated with a linear mixture approach, where the reflectance of a "mixed" pixel is represented as sum of the reflectance of each pure land cover type weighted by their respective area proportion in the Instrument Field of View (IFOV). A method based on linear spectral unmixing using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data in the Tibetan Plateau was presented and validated by Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) 15m data in this study. The change of the snow covers in the whole Tibetan Plateau was also analyzed. In the year of 2004 the area of the snow covers increased much from October to February of the following year. However, then declined to be a relatively small area until September of 2005. SRTM DEM data was applied to identify the relationship between snow distribution and terrain altitude.

Citation Download Citation

Lina Xu, Ruiqing Niu, Yannan Zhao, Jiong Li, and Ting Wu "Snow cover mapping over the Tibetan Plateau with MODIS and ASTER data", Proc. SPIE 7471, Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes, 747115 (9 October 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.836457

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