Snow water equivalent spatiotemporal variability estimation in the Andes Cordillera through distributed energy balance modeling and intensive-study catchments.

Abstract:

Seasonal snow cover is the primary water resource precursor for human use and environmental sustain along the extratropical Andes Cordillera. This research provides high-resolution distributed estimates of end-of-winter and spring snow water equivalent over a 152,000-km² domain, based on remotely sensed snow cover and a simplified snowpack energy balance model. Important data for model validation was obtained through a sustained effort aimed at monitoring snow conditions throughout the domain from newly installed sensors and snow surveys. Peak SWE estimates show an overall coefficient of determination R² of 0.61 compared to observations at 12 automatic snow water equivalent sensors distributed across the model domain between latitudes 30º S and 37º S, with R² values between 0.32 and 0.88. Estimated patterns of snow accumulation reflect appropriately the dominant effect of elevation, and suggest that the current government operational snow observation network may be inadequate under future climate change scenarios. Several insights can be obtained by analyzing the shortcomings of the modeling results when compared with high-resolution time series of energy and mass balance, as well as with distributed SWE observations obtained at experimental catchments. The results presented here have the potential of informing applications such as seasonal forecast model assessment and improvement, regional climate model validation, as well as evaluation of observational networks and water resource infrastructure development.