Estimation of Seasonal Flow in the Ob River Using Passive Microwave Snow Water Equivalent Data

• Main Authors: James L. Foster, Richard J. Kelly, Edward Josberger, N. Mognard
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Category; Improving water resource management through better understanding of water cycle Theme; Snow cover monitoring Key Words; microwave; snow water equivalent; snow depth; runoff; river basin; ob river; Siberia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.141.5312; http://www.isprs.org/publications/related/ISRSE/html/papers/453.pdf

A passive microwave snow algorithm, produced using data from the AMSR sensor on the Aqua satellite, has been used to estimate snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) for the Ob River Basin in western Siberia. Because there are very few places in the world where spatially dense networks of ground measurements exist, it is important to validate satellite-derived estimates of SWE and snow depth using other approaches. One way to do this is to look at water balance measurements – discharge versus basin-wide snow water equivalent. In this study, snowmelt runoff for the entire Ob Basin, for 2002-2003 and 2003-2004, was compared with basin-wide SWE. Results