Recent advances and challenges in satellite-based snowfall detection and estimation

Panegrossi, Giulia; Casella, Daniele; Sanò, Paolo; Camplani, Alberto; Battaglia, Alessandro

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-822973-6.00015-9

Cited by 6 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…However, assessing long‐term trends in oceanic precipitation remains challenging due in part to the comparatively short and heterogeneous satellite record (Nicolas & Bromwich, 2011). This is particularly true prior to the advent of operational passive microwave imagers in 1987 as well as up to the present at higher latitudes, where microwave sensors may miss shallower, lighter, and especially frozen precipitation (Panegrossi et al., 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, assessing long-term trends in oceanic precipitation remains challenging due in part to the comparatively short and heterogeneous satellite record (Nicolas & Bromwich, 2011). This is particularly true prior to the advent of operational passive microwave imagers in 1987 as well as up to the present at higher latitudes, where microwave sensors may miss shallower, lighter, and especially frozen precipitation (Panegrossi et al, 2022).Gu and Adler (2022) have undertaken an analysis of trends in precipitation amount covering the 42-year period from 1979 to 2020. Based on the Global Precipitation Climatology Project precipitation product (Adler et al, 2018), their findings reveal a generally weak but statistically significant long-term trend in global mean precipitation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Seventy‐Year Trends in Ship‐Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

Petty

Tran

2023

Geophysical Research Letters

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In recent years, calibrated satellite measurements have improved our understanding of global precipitation distribution and seasonal evolution, including that of ocean precipitation (Skofronick-Jackson et al., 2017). However, assessing long-term trends in oceanic precipitation remains challenging due in part to the comparatively short and heterogeneous satellite record (Nicolas & Bromwich, 2011). This is particularly true prior to the advent of operational passive microwave imagers in 1987 as well as up to the present at higher latitudes, where microwave sensors may miss shallower, lighter, and especially frozen precipitation (Panegrossi et al., 2022).Gu and Adler (2022) have undertaken an analysis of trends in precipitation amount covering the 42-year period from 1979 to 2020. Based on the Global Precipitation Climatology Project precipitation product (Adler et al., 2018), their findings reveal a generally weak but statistically significant long-term trend in global mean precipitation. On regional scales, both positive and negative trends have been observed, but statistical significance could not be established.Non-satellite-based attempts to estimate climatological oceanic precipitation have of necessity relied on subjective and qualitative reports of precipitation occurrence and type submitted by sparsely and unevenly distributed commercial and military vessels. Researchers produced climatologies of monthly precipitation amounts by assigning nominal intensities to each common present-weather code and aggregating ship reports over time

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Seventy‐Year Trends in Ship‐Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

Petty

Tran

2023

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…However, assessing long-term trends in oceanic precipitation remains challenging due in part to the comparatively short and heterogeneous satellite record (Nicolas & Bromwich, 2011). This is particularly true prior to the advent of operational passive microwave imagers in 1987 as well as up to the present at higher latitudes, where microwave sensors may miss shallower, lighter, and especially frozen precipitation (Panegrossi et al, 2022). Gu and Adler (2022) have undertaken an analysis of trends in precipitation amount covering the 42-year period from 1979 to 2020.…”

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confidence: 99%

70-Year Trends in Ship-Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

Petty

Tran

2023

Preprint

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Ship present-weather reports from 1950 through 2019 are used to assess trends in the reporting of precipitation occurrence over the global oceans. Annual reported precipitation frequency shows statistically significant positive trends of up to $\sim$15\% per decade throughout most ocean areas equatorward of 45 degrees. However, latitudes poleward of 45 degrees are dominated by negative trends, some areas of which meet the 95\% confidence threshold. Nine smaller regions were subjectively selected for further investigation, revealing that the observed trends, both positive and negative, are often but not always nearly linear, with the amplitude of interannual fluctuations usually being much larger than that expected from random sampling error alone. The annual time series reveal that four comparatively dry areas are associated with the largest overall positive trends, ranging from 8.3\% to 12.8\% (relative) per decade. Trends were also computed separately for each season, revealing remarkable overall consistency in trends across seasons.

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“…PMW snowfall detection and quantification is typically based on the ability to interpret the snowfall scattering signature in the high frequency channels (> 90 GHz), which respond more effectively to ice microphysics and are less prone to surface effects than low frequency channels, and to distinguish it from the clear-sky (surface and atmosphere) contribution (e.g., Panegrossi et al, 2017). However, several factors make the PMW snowfall signal ambiguous and the relationship between multichannel measurements and surface snowfall intensity highly nonlinear, especially in extremely cold/dry environmental conditions (see Panegrossi et al, 2022). The snowfall scattering signal is relatively weak and is highly dependent on the complex microphysical properties of snowflakes (Kim et al, 2008, Kulie et al, 2010, Kongoli et al, 2015, it is often masked by supercooled liquid water emission signal, and can be contaminated by the extremely variable background surface emissivity (Liu and Seo, 2013, Takbiri et al, 2019, Rahimi et al, 2017, especially in cold and dry conditions typical of the high latitude regions (Camplani et al, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In this context, the availability of the last generation microwave radiometers -such as the conically-scanning radiometer GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and the cross-track scanning radiometer Advanced Technology Microwave Sensor (ATMS) -whose channels cover a wide range of frequencies -offers new possibilities for global snowfall monitoring. The multi-channel PMW observations can be used for both a radiometric characterization of the background surface -using the low-frequency channels (< 90 GHz) -and for the detection and the estimation of the snowfall using the high-frequency channels (> 90 GHz) (see Panegrossi et al, 2022). The PMW capability to characterize physically and radiometrically the background surface varies from sea to land, especially for the identification of cold/frozen surfaces.…”

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confidence: 99%

The High lAtitude sNowfall Detection and Estimation aLgorithm for ATMS (HANDEL-ATMS): a new algorithm for the snowfall retrieval at high latitudes

Camplani

Casella

Sanò

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Snowfall detection and quantification are challenging tasks in the Earth system science field. Ground-based instruments have limited spatial coverage and are scarce or absent at high latitudes. Therefore, the development of satellite-based snowfall retrieval methods is necessary for the global monitoring of snowfall. Passive Microwave (PMW) sensors can be exploited for snowfall quantification purposes because their measurements in the high-frequency channels (> 80 GHz) respond to snowfall microphysics. However, the highly non-linear PMW multichannel response to snowfall, the weakness of snowfall signature and the contamination by the background surface emission/scattering signal make snowfall retrieval very difficult. This phenomenon is particularly evident at high latitudes, where light snowfall events in extremely cold and dry environmental conditions are predominant. ML techniques have been demonstrated to be very suitable to handle the complex PMW multichannel relationship to snowfall. Operational microwave sounders on near-polar orbit satellites such as the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), and the European MetOp-SG Microwave Sounder in the future, offer a very good coverage at high latitudes. Moreover, their wide range of channel frequencies (from 23 GHz to 190 GHz), allows for the radiometric characterization of the surface at the time of the overpass along with the exploitation of the high-frequency channels for snowfall retrieval. The paper describes the High lAtitude sNow Detection and Estimation aLgorithm for ATMS (HANDEL-ATMS), a new machine learning-based snowfall retrieval algorithm developed specifically for high latitude environmental conditions and based on the ATMS observations. HANDEL-ATMS is based on the use of an observational dataset in the training phase, where each ATMS multichannel observation is associated with coincident (in time and space) CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) vertical snow profile and surface snowfall rate. The main novelty of the approach is the radiometric characterization of the background surface (including snow covered land and sea ice) at the time of the overpass to derive multi-channel surface emissivities and clear-sky contribution to be used in the snowfall retrieval process. The snowfall retrieval is based on four different artificial neural networks for snow water path (SWP) and surface snowfall rate (SSR) detection and retrieval HANDEL-ATMS shows very good detection capabilities - POD = 0.83, FAR = 0.18, and HSS = 0.68 for the SSR detection module. Estimation error statistics show a good agreement with CPR snowfall products for SSR > 10−2 mm h−1 (RMSE 0.08 mm h−1, bias = 0,02 mm h−1). The analysis of the results for an independent CPR dataset and of selected snowfall events evidence the unique capability of HANDEL-ATMS to detect and estimate SWP and SSR also in presence of extreme cold and dry environmental conditions typical of high latitudes.

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Recent advances and challenges in satellite-based snowfall detection and estimation

Cited by 6 publications

References 104 publications

Seventy‐Year Trends in Ship‐Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

Seventy‐Year Trends in Ship‐Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

70-Year Trends in Ship-Reported Oceanic Precipitation Frequency

The High lAtitude sNowfall Detection and Estimation aLgorithm for ATMS (HANDEL-ATMS): a new algorithm for the snowfall retrieval at high latitudes

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