Diurnal variation of brightness temperature of terrestrial snow during snowmelt

Abstract

We have compared theoretical 37 GHz and 16.5 GHz vertically polarized brightness temperatures (incidence angle 50 degrees off nadir) with experimental time series data obtained over a 26-hr period in an extensive ground-based experiment in southern Finland. During the 26-hr monitoring effort, the snowpack included a variety of dry and wet snow layers (top layer mentioned first) dry/wet snow, wet/dry/wet snow, dry/wet/dry/wet snow, and, again, dry/wet snow, with the characteristics of each layer varying considerably with time.