1,3,- 1Marburg University, Department of Geography, Marburg, Germany (kokhanoa@staff.uni-marburg.de)
- 2Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
- 3Institute of Polar Sciences, National Research Council of Italy, Milan, Italy
- 4Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
It is known for a long time that the solar light reflectance around 1030nm ice absorption band is sensitive to the liquid water content (LWC) in snow [1]. In particular, this feature has been used to derive the abundance of water in melting snow using an imaging spectrometer [2]. In this work we propose a new technique to derive the snow LWC measuring snow reflectance at three wavelengths (1000, 1020, and 1060nm) together with independent measurements of snow density. The spectral measurements are used to derive the relative snow LWC defined as the ratio of volumetric concentration of water to that of ice in melting snow. The independently measured snow density is needed for the calculation of the snow liquid water content. The developed retrieval technique is fast, simple and can be easily implemented for the express analysis of the snow LWC distribution in the field. The theoretical model is based on the assumption that wet snow can be presented as a collection of air pockets in ice-water matrix [3]. The technique is validated using independent LWC measurements over melted snow performed in combination with snow density and snow hyperspectral reflectance measurements in Italian Alps [4]. The close correspondence of the measured and retrieved LWC in the range 8 - 18% is found.
References
[1] R. O. Green, J. Dozier, D. Roberts, T. Painter, ''Spectral snow - reflectance models for grain size and liquid water fraction in melting snow for the solar-reflected spectrum'', Ann. Glaciol., vol. 34, pp. 71–73, 2002, https://doi.org/10.3189/172756402781817987.
[2] R. O. Green, T. H. Painter, D. A. Roberts, J. Dozier, ''Measuring the expressed abundance of the three phases of water with an imaging spectrometer over melting snow'', Water Resour. Res., vol. 42, W10402, 2006, doi:10.1029/2005WR004509.
[3] A. A. Kokhanovsky, K. Segl, J. Bendix, ''Reflectance of solar light from wet snowpack: direct and inverse problems'', IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.., 2026, doi: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11322691.
[4] C. Ravasio, R. Garzonio, B. Di Mauro, E. Matta, C. Giardino, M. Pepe, et al. , ''Retrieval of snow liquid water content from radiative transfer model, field data and PRISMA satellite data'', Remote Sens. Env., vol. 311, 2024, 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114268.
How to cite: Kokhanovsky, A., Segl, K., DI Mauro, B., Ravasio, C., Colombo, R., and Bendix, J.: The retrieval of the liquid water content in snow from solar light spectral reflectance measurements, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-6902, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-6902, 2026.
