Scandinavian Snow Monitoring Service (ScanSnow)

Summary

The ScanSnow project is developing a sustainable satellite-based snow cover monitoring service provide by KSAT in Tromsø for governmental agencies in Norway and Sweden. The main snow product provides a map of the current fractional snow cover area (FSC), which is a percentage of snow cover per pixel. The product is based on a multi-sensor time series algorithm fusing optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The service is one of the services provided through the Polar View project of the European Space Agency (ESA). NR’s role in the project is to provide the optical FSC retrieval algorithm, contribute to the multi-sensor time-series algorithm, provide parts of the product processing chain and contribute with improvements to all these as the project obtains further experience from service provision to the users.

Project goals

Provide quality snow products in agreement with well-defined parameters
Evaluate and improve the snow products in partnership with the users
Establish the long-term service by:
Securing sustainable long-term funding for the production of snow products
Establish agreements between the partners to ensure a fully operational service

Publications

References and further information:

Solberg, R., J. Amlien, H. Koren, L. Eikvil, E. Malnes and R. Storvold. Multi-sensor and time-series approaches for monitoring of snow parameters. IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2004), Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 20-24 September 2004.
Solberg, R., J. Amlien, H. Koren, L. Eikvil, E. Malnes and R. Storvold. Multi-sensor/multi-temporal analysis of ENVISAT data for snow monitoring. ESA ENVISAT & ERS Symposium, Salzburg, Austria, 6-10 September 2004.
Solberg, R., J. Amlien, H. Koren, L. Eikvil, E. Malnes and R. Storvold. Multi-sensor/multi-temporal approaches for snow cover area monitoring. 4th EARSeL workshop on Remote Sensing of Snow and Glaciers, 21-23 February 2005, Berne, Switzerland.
Storvold R. Malnes E. and Lauknes I. Near real time snow covered area mapping with Envisat ASAR wide swath in Norwegian mountainous areas. Proceedings to EARSeL LIS workshop on Remote Sensing of Snow and Glaciers, 21-23 February 2005, Berne, Switzerland.
KSAT snow service web page
Polar View web page.