U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

Analysis of topographic controls on depletion curves derived from airborne lidar snow depth data

Supporting Files Public Domain
File Language:


Details

  • Journal Title:
    Hydrology Research: an international journal
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
  • Description:
    The annual consistency of spatial patterns of snow accumulation and melt suggests that the evolution of these patterns, known as depletion curves, is useful for estimating basin water content and runoff prediction. Theoretical snow cover depletion curves are used in models to parameterize fractional snow-covered area (fSCA) based on modeled estimates of snow accumulation and snowmelt. Directly measuring the spatio-temporal snow distribution, characterization of depletion curves, and understanding how they vary across mountainous landscapes was not possible until the recent U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO). Herein, for the first time, high-resolution spatio-temporal snow depth information from the ASO is used to derive observation-based snow cover depletion curves across physiographic gradients by estimating the slope of the fSCA–snow depth relationship (i.e. depletion slope). The depletion slope reveals important insights into snow processes as it is strongly related to snow depth variability (r2 = 0.58). Regression tree analysis between observed depletion slopes and physiography, particularly vegetation height and terrain roughness, displays clear nonlinear dynamics and explains 31% of the variance in depletion slope. This unique observation-based analysis of snow cover depletion curves has implications for energy and water flux calculations across many earth system models.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Hydrology Research (2021) 52 (1): 253–265
  • DOI:
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:59e673cb5b459b83e40c59dfa8adc4c11dedea4469722ec805ef5041a7f76ed9
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 504.76 KB ]

Supporting Files

PREVIOUS
File Language:
ON THIS PAGE
Details Supporting Files
The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
BACK TO TOP