Historical MODIS Snow Cover and Surface Properties with Dust and Albedo

NSIDC's SPIReS dataset provides daily, global 500m snow property estimates derived from MODIS/Terra surface reflectance. It includes snow fraction, grain size, dust concentration, albedo, radiative forcing, and snow cover duration. The data is processed using a spectral mixture analysis model and spans from March 2000 onward.

Use Cases

• Modeling snowmelt runoff by analyzing snow fraction and snow cover duration over watersheds.
• Assessing climate impacts by calculating radiative forcing from dust concentration and snow albedo values.
• Studying snow aging processes through time-series analysis of snow grain size.
• Validating snow models using spatially complete fields of viewable snow fraction and days without observation.
• Estimating surface energy balance by combining snow albedo (horizontal and sloped) with radiative forcing.

Strengths

• Data is spatially and temporally complete after interpolation, providing continuous global coverage.
• Derived from the peer-reviewed SPIReS spectral mixture analysis method, which solves for dust concentration, fractional snow cover, and grain size simultaneously.
• Includes extended outputs like snow albedo and radiative forcing not in the original SPIReS version.
• Covers a multi-decadal period starting from March 2000, enabling long-term trend analysis.

Limitations

• Exact row count, file size, and complete column list are not specified across platforms.
• Platforms disagree on the end date: one states data is available to 30 September 2024, while another suggests an ongoing series.
• The license is specified as 'other-license-specified' without explicit details.

Provenance

Source

NSIDC, using MOD09GA v6.1 surface reflectance inputs from MODIS/Terra.

Collection Method

Derived using the Snow Property Inversion from Remote Sensing (SPIReS) spectral mixture analysis model.

Time Range

2000-03-01 to at least 2024-09-30

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:39:03.654244

Geography

Global