What was the purpose of SnowSum?

ESA Study: "SnowSum" experiment is designed to support the development of future concepts to monitor the cryosphere by investigating and documenting the science potential of atmospheric precipitation time series together with other relevant long-term atmospheric observations over the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS).

Such atmospheric observations complement existing surface observations of snow accumulation or mass balance based on gravimetric or altimetry techniques, thereby providing an independent method of assessing snowfall.

This study identifies four different tasks, namely:

• Task 1: Temporal variability of precipitation
• Task 2: Spatial variability of precipitation over the GrIS using PROMICE (Program for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet) and GC-NET (Greenland Climate Network) data.
• Task 3: Initial evaluation of the use of space-borne precipitation radar observations for precipitation studies.
• Task 4: Initial evaluation of snow depth by means of precipitation accumulation from spaceborne precipitation radar.

Download the SnowSum Final Report

Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-vcpeyfv - SnowSum: "Technical Support for the SnowSum Experiment"

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