Improving the Snow Volume Scattering Algorithm in a Microwave Forward Model by Using Ground-Based Remote Sensing Snow Observations

Abstract

Volume scattering (VS) estimation plays a critical role in microwave emission modeling of the snowpack. However, it is challenging to obtain VS accurately for different frequencies by using the microwave emission model of layered snowpacks (MEMLS), which is one of the representative microwave emission models. This article develops a new VS method to consider frequency and exponential correlation length based on a snowfield campaign from November 2015 to April 2016 in Altay, China. Compared with the commonly used empirical and improved Born approximation (IBA) algorithms, the proposed VS algorithm exhibits better performances at both 18 and 36 GHz with a wide range of snow grain sizes. The bias of brightness temperatures at vertical polarization from the proposed algorithm against the observed brightness temperatures are 1.1 K and −0.4 K at 18 and 36 GHz, respectively; the root mean square errors (RMSEs) are 1.8 K and 2.6 K, respectively. The RMSEs decreased by 16.2 K at 18 GHz and 6.5 K at 36 GHz compared with those from the empirical methods and by 2.1 K and 22.2 K compared with those from the IBA. This work demonstrates that the VS difference between 18 and 36 GHz is larger and the dependence of VS on grain size is weaker than those represented by existing methods.