Radiative forcing by light absorbing impurities in snow from MODIS surface reflectance data

Painter, T. H.; Bryant, A. C.; Skiles, M.

doi:10.1029/2012gl052457

Cited by 150 publications

(183 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Recent work has quantified the non-uniform nature of the spatial variability of dust radiative forcing in the UCRB using data from the MODIS instrument for the time period 2000-2013 (Painter et al, 2012b). Our spatially uniform application is therefore a simplification, consistent with our sensitivity approach, and likely overestimating dust impacts in portions of the domain while underestimating it in others.…”

Section: Snow Albedo Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 60%

Combined impacts of current and future dust deposition and regional warming on Colorado River Basin snow dynamics and hydrology

Deems

Painter

Barsugli

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people in seven western states and two countries and to 5.5 million irrigated acres. The river has long been overallocated. Climate models project runoff losses of 5-20 % from the basin by mid-21st century due to human-induced climate change. Recent work has shown that decreased snow albedo from anthropogenic dust loading to the CO mountains shortens the duration of snow cover by several weeks relative to conditions prior to western expansion of the US in the mid-1800s, and advances peak runoff at Lees Ferry, Arizona, by an average of 3 weeks. Increases in evapotranspiration from earlier exposure of soils and germination of plants have been estimated to decrease annual runoff by more than 1.0 billion cubic meters, or ∼ 5% of the annual average. This prior work was based on observed dust loadings during 2005-2008; however, 2009 and 2010 saw unprecedented levels of dust loading on snowpacks in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), being on the order of 5 times the 2005-2008 loading. Building on our prior work, we developed a new snow albedo decay parameterization based on observations in 2009/10 to mimic the radiative forcing of extreme dust deposition. We convolve low, moderate, and extreme dust/snow albedos with both historic climate forcing and two future climate scenarios via a delta method perturbation of historic records. Compared to moderate dust, extreme dust absorbs 2× to 4× the solar radiation, and shifts peak snowmelt an additional 3 weeks earlier to a total of 6 weeks earlier than pre-disturbance. The extreme dust scenario reduces annual flow volume an additional 1 % (6 % compared to pre-disturbance), a smaller difference than from low to moderate dust scenarios due to melt season shifting into a season of lower evaporative demand. The sensitivity of flow timing to dust radiative forcing of snow albedo is maintained under future climate scenarios, but the sensitivity of flow volume reductions decreases with increased climate forcing. These results have implications for water management and suggest that dust abatement efforts could be an important component of any climate adaptation strategies in the UCRB.

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Section: Snow Albedo Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 60%

Combined impacts of current and future dust deposition and regional warming on Colorado River Basin snow dynamics and hydrology

Deems

Painter

Barsugli

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…In addition, the spectral endmembers representing snow used in MODSCAG are based on theoretical spectra in which snow grains are assumed to be spherical, the effect of soot on reflectance is ignored, and the effect of the anisotropy of snow reflection is addressed using an assumption of a constant viewing geometry. Recent updates of MODSCAG make it possible to evaluate the surface radiative forcing of light absorbing impurities in the snowpack (Painter et al, 2012). Alternatively, the semianalytical snow retrieval algorithm (ART) was developed by Kokhanovsky and Zege (2004) and applied to MODIS data (Tedesco and Kokhanovsky, 2007;Lyapustin et al, 2009;Negi and Kokhanovsky, 2011a,b;Zege et al, 2011).…”

Section: A Mary Et Al: Mountain Snow Ssa From Modismentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercomparison of retrieval algorithms for the specific surface area of snow from near-infrared satellite data in mountainous terrain, and comparison with the output of a semi-distributed snowpack model

Mary¹,

Dumont

Dedieu

et al. 2013

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. This study compares different methods to retrieve the specific surface area (SSA) of snow from satellite radiance measurements in mountainous terrain. It aims at addressing the effect on the retrieval of topographic corrections of reflectance, namely slope and aspect of terrain, multiple reflections on neighbouring slopes and accounting (or not) for the anisotropy of snow reflectance. Using MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data for six different clear sky scenes spanning a wide range of snow conditions during the winter season 2008-2009 over a domain of 46 × 50 km in the French Alps, we compared SSA retrievals with and without topographic correction, with a spherical or non-spherical snow reflectance model and, in spherical case, with or without anisotropy corrections. The retrieved SSA values were compared to field measurements and to the results of the detailed snowpack model Crocus, fed by driving data from the SAFRAN meteorological analysis. It was found that the difference in terms of surface SSA between retrieved values and SAFRAN-Crocus output was minimal when the topographic correction was taken into account, when using a retrieval method assuming disconnected spherical snow grains. In this case, the root mean square deviation was 9.4 m 2 kg −1 and the mean difference was 0.1 m 2 kg −1 , based on 3170 pairs of observation and simulated values. The added-value of the anisotropy correction was not significant in our case, which may be explained by the presence of mixed pixels and surface roughness. MODIS retrieved data show SSA variations with elevation and aspect which are physically consistent and in good agreement with SAFRAN-Crocus outputs. The variability of the MODIS retrieved SSA within the topographic classes of the model was found to be relatively small (3.9 m 2 kg −1 ). This indicates that semi-distributed snowpack simulations in mountainous terrain with a sufficiently large number of classes provides a representation of the snowpack variability consistent with the scale of MODIS 500 m pixels.

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“…This feedback becomes particularly important in the context of climate change and strong glacier retreat, since it hampers our capability to project the future of glacier ice worldwide (e.g. Flanner, Zender, Randerson, & Rasch, 2007;Painter, Bryant, & McKenzie Skiles, 2012;Xu et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaging spectroscopy to assess the composition of ice surface materials and their impact on glacier mass balance

Naegeli

Damm

Huss

et al. 2015

Remote Sensing of Environment

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Glacier surfaces are not only composed of ice or snow but are heterogeneous mixtures of different materials. The occurrence and dynamics of light-absorbing impurities affect ice surface characteristics and strongly influence glacier melt processes. However, our understanding of the spatial distribution of impurities and their impact on ice surface characteristics and the glacier's energy budget is still limited. We use imaging spectroscopy in combination with in-situ experiments to assess the composition of ice surface materials and their respective impact on surface albedo and glacier melt rates. Spectroscopy data were acquired in August 2013 using the Airborne Prism EXperiment (APEX) imaging spectrometer and were used to map the abundances of six predominant surface materials on Glacier de la Plaine Morte, Swiss Alps. A pixel-based classification revealed that about 10% of the ice surface is covered with snow, water or debris. The remaining 90% of the surface can be divided into three types of glacier ice, namely~7% dirty ice,~43% pure ice and~39% bright ice. Spatially distributed spectral albedo derived from APEX reflectance data in combination with in-situ multi-angular spectroscopic measurements was used to analyse albedo patterns present on the glacier surface. About 85% of all pixels exhibit a low albedo between 0.1 and 0.4 (mean albedo 0.29 ± 0.12), indicating that Glacier de la Plaine Morte is covered with a significant amount of light-absorbing impurities, resulting in a strong ice-albedo feedback during the ablation season. Using a pixel-based albedo map instead of a constant albedo for ice (0.34) as input for a mass balance model revealed that the glacier-wide total ablation remained similar (10% difference). However, the large local variations in mass balance can only be reproduced using the pixel-based albedo derived from APEX, emphasizing the need to quantify spatial albedo differences as an important input for glacier mass balance models.

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Radiative forcing by light absorbing impurities in snow from MODIS surface reflectance data

Cited by 150 publications

References 33 publications

Combined impacts of current and future dust deposition and regional warming on Colorado River Basin snow dynamics and hydrology

Combined impacts of current and future dust deposition and regional warming on Colorado River Basin snow dynamics and hydrology

Intercomparison of retrieval algorithms for the specific surface area of snow from near-infrared satellite data in mountainous terrain, and comparison with the output of a semi-distributed snowpack model

Imaging spectroscopy to assess the composition of ice surface materials and their impact on glacier mass balance

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