Abstract
Abstract. Numerous global and regional validation studies have examined MODIS snow mapping accuracy by using measurements at climate stations, which are mainly at open sites. MODIS accuracy in alpine and forested regions is, however, still not well understood. The main objective of this study is to evaluate MODIS (MOD10A1 and MYD10A1) snow cover products in a small experimental catchment by using extensive snow course measurements at open and forest sites. The MODIS accuracy is tested in the Jalovecky creek catchment (northern Slovakia) in the period 2000–2011. The results show that the combined Terra and Aqua images enable snow mapping at an overall accuracy of 91.5%. The accuracies at forested, open and mixed land uses at the Červenec sites are 92.7%, 98.3% and 81.8%, respectively. The use of a 2-day temporal filter enables a significant reduction in the number of days with cloud coverage and an increase in overall snow mapping accuracy. In total, the 2-day temporal filter decreases the number of cloudy days from 61% to 26% and increases the snow mapping accuracy to 94%. The results indicate three possible factors leading to misclassification of snow as land: patchy snow cover, limited MODIS geolocation accuracy and mapping algorithm errors. Out of a total of 27 misclassification cases, patchy snow cover, geolocation issues and mapping errors occur in 12, 12 and 3 cases, respectively.
Highlights
Snow pack is an important storage reservoir of water in many regions of the world, especially in mountains
The MODIS snow mapping accuracy (SI) at open sites is summarized in Table 3 and Fig. 4
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the MODIS snow mapping accuracy in a small mountain catchment
Summary
Snow pack is an important storage reservoir of water in many regions of the world, especially in mountains. All of them are based on snow measurements taken at climate stations, which are mainly open grassy sites. These sites may not represent snow cover conditions beneath the forest canopy. The existing studies relate the snow mapping accuracy to the dominant land cover class in a radius of typically 1 km around the climate station. Simic et al (2004) used land cover satellite images at 1 km resolution and grouped 2000 in situ measurements in Canada into four dominant classes: evergreen forest, Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union
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