Snow Cover & Properties

Snow Cover & Properties (e.g. Albedo)

Snow is the most reflective material in the solar domain and Earth and this property is an essential climate variable given its considerable influence on the climate at local and global scales. In Antarctica, the seasonal and even multi-annual change of snow cover extent is insignificant, and only the snow properties at the surface are influential. The objective in 5DAIS is to extend and maintain the production of albedo from Sentinel-3 OLCI using the SICE algorithm developed for the ESA S3SNOW project in Antarctica.

Map of Specific surface area on 31st Dec 2022 from OLCI using SICE retrieval algorithm.

Summary of albedo datasets planned within 5DAIS

• Daily maps of snow properties in summer will be produced at 500 m resolution.
• The produced snow properties will include the snow spherical and plane broadband albedo (also referred to as white and black sky albedo), as well as the snow specific surface area which is the main driver of albedo in the pristine snow found in Antarctica.