Morphological indexes to describe snow-cover patterns in a high-alpine area

The spatiotemporal distribution of snow affects hydrological and climatological processes at different scales. Accordingly, quantifying geometric features of snow-cover patterns is important, providing a valuable complement for snow water equivalent (SWE) modelling. This study on satellite-based mor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of Glaciology
Main Authors: Lucia Ferrarin, Karsten Schulz, Daniele Bocchiola, Franziska Koch
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.62
https://doaj.org/article/ead38be2c32d4859841c503f677b2a9c
Description
Summary:The spatiotemporal distribution of snow affects hydrological and climatological processes at different scales. Accordingly, quantifying geometric features of snow-cover patterns is important, providing a valuable complement for snow water equivalent (SWE) modelling. This study on satellite-based morphological analysis originally uses two types of geometric indexes: (1) MN, Minkowski numbers (area (MN1), perimeter (MN2), Euler number (MN3)), and (2) CL, average chord length, to describe the morphology of Sentinel-2-derived snow-covered areas (SCAs), within the high-alpine site Zugspitze for a 5 year period. Results indicate that they capture the seasonal variability of snow-cover patterns, particularly during accumulation and ablation. Being to some degree independent from each other, MN2, MN3 and CL provide additional information upon shape, connectivity and length scale of snow cover, compared to most used indexes (e.g. fractional SCA). Correlation values up to +0.7 for MN2, +0.58 for MN3 and +0.46 for CL were observed with selected topographic characteristics, suggesting a close connection between geometric features of snow cover and ground features. Comparing in situ SWE measurements with MN and CL shows a correlation between −0.5 and +0.5. These indexes can hence be applied in combination with in situ data and/or modelling approaches to improve spatially distributed SWE in high-alpine catchments.