Qualitative Evaluation of MODIS 8-day
Maximum Snow Extent Product In Alaska
Dave Verbyla
Professor of GIS/Remote Sensing
University of Alaska Fairbanks
email: D.Verbyla@uaf.edu.
The MOD10A2 Snow Cover Product is an 8-day composite
of maximum snow extent at 500m pixel size. This product
is important for high latitude vegetation applications
because there is a strong correlation between the timing
of spring snowmelt and spring green-up. The spring snowmelt
period generally occurs under less cloudy conditions
relative to the later spring green-up period, and thus may
be more reliable to estimate. Snow cover is also important
in mapping Dall sheep habitat.
I compared Landsat ETM+ scenes from May through
August 2001 with MOD10A2 Maximum Snow Extent data.
The MOD10A2 Snow Cover was in close agreement with
the Landsat ETM+ scenes during the May-June snowmelt
period.
The Landsat ETM+ images are displayed as a false color
composite with snow portrayed as bright magenta (bands
4,5,3 assigned to the red, green, blue planes)
Select one of the four scenes from the following image map:
Unfortunately, there was a MODIS power supply
problem and no science data were acquired from
June 15-July 2, 2002. After July 2, 2001 the
electronics side A was used and new lookup tables
were applied. Unfortunately, the MOD10A2 product
seemed to have spurious over-estimates of snow cover
after this period.
Select one of the four scenes from the following image map:
Email: D.Verbyla@uaf.edu