CREST-SAFE Field Experiment: Comparison and Validation Remote Sensing Observations of Snow Surfaces

Since 2011 routine observations of snow physical properties and microwave emission have been conducted at the NOAA-CREST-Snow Analysis and Field Experiment (CREST-SAFE) in Caribou, ME. The primary objective of observations is to monitor seasonal properties of the snow pack through the winter season and their changes with atmospheric conditions, support studies of physical and radiative transfer processes in the snow pack as well as to help validating and calibrating snow retrievals from satellite microwave sensors. The set of instruments installed at the station provides measurements of the snow pack emission at 10.65, 19, 37 and 89 GHz at both polarizations, snow depth, snow water equivalent, snowpack skin temperature, snowpack temperature profile as well as measurements of major meteorological and actinometric parameters. These observations are captured throughout the winter season at 1-5 min time interval. Automated observations are complemented by snow pit measurements (snow grain size, density, hardness, ice layer, etc.) conducted 2-3 times a week. More information on the experiment is available at the project web site at http://noaacrest.org/snow/

This presentation provides a detailed description of the experiment and of available datasets. We routinely compare our ground-based measurements with satellite observations. In situ observed surface temperature is also used to validate the land surface temperature (LST) derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and from the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature (LST) products. We will demonstrate and discuss the results of comparison of in-situ microwave brightness temperature observed on the ground with matched observations of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) onboard GCOM-W1 satellite.