EU COST Action ES1404-HarmoSnow

The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) promoted and funded the Action ES1404 called “A European network for a harmonized monitoring of snow for the benefit of climate change scenarios, hydrology, and numerical weather prediction,” or “HarmoSnow” (2014-2018). With 29 European COST countries and the international partners Andorra and Taiwan (https://www.cost.eu/actions/ES1404/) HarmoSnow coordinated efforts towards harmonized snow data processing and handling practices by promoting new observing strategies. The vision was to connect different communities, facilitating data transfer, upgrading and enlarging knowledge through networking and linking them to activities in international agencies and global networks (www.harmosnow.eu).

The main aim of HarmoSnow was to enhance the capability of the research community and operational services to provide and exploit quality-assured and comparable observation data on the variability of the state and extent of snow. The overall objectives were (1) Establish a European-wide science network on snow measurements for their optimum use with interactions across disciplines and expertise, (2) Assess and harmonise practices, standards and retrieval algorithms applied to snow measurements, (3) Develop a rationale and long term strategy for snow measurements and their dissemination, (4) Advance snow data assimilation in NWP and hydrological models, (5) Establish a validation strategy for climate, NWP and hydrological models against snow observations and foster its implementation, (6) Training of a new generation of scientists on snow science and measuring techniques with a broader and more holistic perspective.

We will present outcomes from the HarmoSnow activities and discuss how to move forward.