GlobSnow project - long term datasets on snow and snow water equivalent

The European Space Agency (ESA) Data User Element (DUE) funded GlobSnow project aims at creating a global database of snow parameters for climate research purposes. The main objective is to create a long term dataset on two essential snow parameters. The project will provide information concerning the areal extent of snow (SE) on a global scale and snow water equivalent (SWE) for the Northern Hemisphere. Both products will include the end product derived from the satellite data along with accuracy information for each snow parameter. The temporal span of the SE product will be 15 years and the span for the SWE product will be 30 years. A key improvement of the snow products, when compared with the currently available data sets, will be the inclusion of a statistically derived accuracy estimate accompanying each SE or SWE estimate (on a pixel level). In addition to the SE and SWE time-series, an operational near-real time (NRT) snow information service will be implemented. The service will provide daily snow maps for hydrological, meteorological, and climate research purposes. The snow products will be based on data acquired from optical and passive microwave-based spaceborne sensors combined with ground-based weather station observations. The work was initiated in November 2008, and is being coordinated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). Other project partners involved are NR (Norwegian Computing Centre), ENVEO IT GmbH, GAMMA Remote Sensing AG, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Environment Canada (EC) and Northern Research Institute (Norut).