Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) region, often referred to as the Third Pole, is the world's highest plateau and exerts a considerable influence on regional and global climate. The state of the snowpack over the TP is a major research focus due to its great impact on the headwaters of a dozen major Asi...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2612179 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 |
id |
ftnilu:oai:nilu.brage.unit.no:11250/2612179 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftnilu:oai:nilu.brage.unit.no:11250/2612179 2023-07-30T04:07:14+02:00 Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations Orsolini, Yvan Wegmann, Martin Dutra, Emanuel Liu, Boqi Balsamo, Gianpaolo Yang, Kun de Rosnay, Patricia Zhu, Congwen Wang, Wenli Senan, Retish Arduini, Gabriele 2019 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2612179 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 eng eng NILU - Norsk institutt for luftforskning: 119047 The Cryosphere. 2019, 13 2221-2239. urn:issn:1994-0416 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2612179 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 cristin:1719706 Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no © Author(s) 2019. 2221-2239 13 The Cryosphere Journal article Peer reviewed 2019 ftnilu https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 2023-07-08T19:54:26Z The Tibetan Plateau (TP) region, often referred to as the Third Pole, is the world's highest plateau and exerts a considerable influence on regional and global climate. The state of the snowpack over the TP is a major research focus due to its great impact on the headwaters of a dozen major Asian rivers. While many studies have attempted to validate atmospheric reanalyses over the TP area in terms of temperature or precipitation, there have been – remarkably – no studies aimed at systematically comparing the snow depth or snow cover in global reanalyses with satellite and in situ data. Yet, snow in reanalyses provides critical surface information for forecast systems from the medium to sub-seasonal timescales. Here, snow depth and snow cover from four recent global reanalysis products, namely the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 and ERA-Interim reanalyses, the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55) and the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2), are inter-compared over the TP region. The reanalyses are evaluated against a set of 33 in situ station observations, as well as against the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) snow cover and a satellite microwave snow depth dataset. The high temporal correlation coefficient (0.78) between the IMS snow cover and the in situ observations provides confidence in the station data despite the relative paucity of in situ measurement sites and the harsh operating conditions. While several reanalyses show a systematic overestimation of the snow depth or snow cover, the reanalyses that assimilate local in situ observations or IMS snow cover are better capable of representing the shallow, transient snowpack over the TP region. The latter point is clearly demonstrated by examining the family of reanalyses from the ECMWF, of which only the older ERA-Interim assimilated IMS snow cover at high altitudes, while ERA5 did not consider IMS snow cover for high altitudes. We further tested the ... Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research: NILU Brage Merra ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) The Cryosphere 13 8 2221 2239 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research: NILU Brage |
op_collection_id |
ftnilu |
language |
English |
description |
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) region, often referred to as the Third Pole, is the world's highest plateau and exerts a considerable influence on regional and global climate. The state of the snowpack over the TP is a major research focus due to its great impact on the headwaters of a dozen major Asian rivers. While many studies have attempted to validate atmospheric reanalyses over the TP area in terms of temperature or precipitation, there have been – remarkably – no studies aimed at systematically comparing the snow depth or snow cover in global reanalyses with satellite and in situ data. Yet, snow in reanalyses provides critical surface information for forecast systems from the medium to sub-seasonal timescales. Here, snow depth and snow cover from four recent global reanalysis products, namely the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 and ERA-Interim reanalyses, the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55) and the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2), are inter-compared over the TP region. The reanalyses are evaluated against a set of 33 in situ station observations, as well as against the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) snow cover and a satellite microwave snow depth dataset. The high temporal correlation coefficient (0.78) between the IMS snow cover and the in situ observations provides confidence in the station data despite the relative paucity of in situ measurement sites and the harsh operating conditions. While several reanalyses show a systematic overestimation of the snow depth or snow cover, the reanalyses that assimilate local in situ observations or IMS snow cover are better capable of representing the shallow, transient snowpack over the TP region. The latter point is clearly demonstrated by examining the family of reanalyses from the ECMWF, of which only the older ERA-Interim assimilated IMS snow cover at high altitudes, while ERA5 did not consider IMS snow cover for high altitudes. We further tested the ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Orsolini, Yvan Wegmann, Martin Dutra, Emanuel Liu, Boqi Balsamo, Gianpaolo Yang, Kun de Rosnay, Patricia Zhu, Congwen Wang, Wenli Senan, Retish Arduini, Gabriele |
spellingShingle |
Orsolini, Yvan Wegmann, Martin Dutra, Emanuel Liu, Boqi Balsamo, Gianpaolo Yang, Kun de Rosnay, Patricia Zhu, Congwen Wang, Wenli Senan, Retish Arduini, Gabriele Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
author_facet |
Orsolini, Yvan Wegmann, Martin Dutra, Emanuel Liu, Boqi Balsamo, Gianpaolo Yang, Kun de Rosnay, Patricia Zhu, Congwen Wang, Wenli Senan, Retish Arduini, Gabriele |
author_sort |
Orsolini, Yvan |
title |
Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
title_short |
Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
title_full |
Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
title_fullStr |
Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
title_sort |
evaluation of snow depth and snow cover over the tibetan plateau in global reanalyses using in situ and satellite remote sensing observations |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2612179 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) |
geographic |
Merra |
geographic_facet |
Merra |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
2221-2239 13 The Cryosphere |
op_relation |
NILU - Norsk institutt for luftforskning: 119047 The Cryosphere. 2019, 13 2221-2239. urn:issn:1994-0416 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2612179 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 cristin:1719706 |
op_rights |
Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no © Author(s) 2019. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2221-2019 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
2221 |
op_container_end_page |
2239 |
_version_ |
1772820445011116032 |