Daily Fractional Snow Cover for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 2000-2017

Landsat-derived daily fractional snow cover estimates for the North Slope of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The data was processed from the Level-3 fSCA product for 2000–2017, masked for cloud cover, aggregated to bimonthly medians, and interpolated to a daily time step. The final raster stack includes the calculated 'last snow day' for each pixel.

Use Cases

• Modeling snowmelt timing and duration based on the interpolated daily fractional snow cover.
• Analyzing long-term snow cover trends from the 2000–2017 time series.
• Mapping habitat suitability based on the derived 'last snow day' metric.
• Validating hydrological or climate models against observed fractional snow cover data.

Strengths

• Data spans an 18-year period from 2000 to 2017.
• Provides daily interpolated snow cover estimates at a 30-meter pixel resolution.
• Processed from the established Landsat Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area (fSCA) product.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific study area.

Provenance

Source

Department of the Interior

Collection Method

Compiled and processed from Landsat Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area (fSCA) product imagery.

Time Range

2000–2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-04 08:06:12.135848; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North Slope of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, USA