European Snow Booklet: Best Practices for Snow Monitoring

• Research unit: COST
• Project number: C16.0077

Key words (English)

Snow monitoring; snow depth; snow water equivalent; depth snowfall; solid precipitation; snow hydrology; snow climatology; harmonisation

Research programs (English)

COST-Action ES1404 - A EUROPEAN NETWORK FOR A HARMONISED MONITORING OF SNOW FOR THE BENEFIT OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS, HYDROLOGY AND NUMERICAL WEATHER PREDICTION

Short description (English)

Practitioners and researchers worldwide have developed different best practices for snow-related in-situ measurements. However, these practices lack harmonisation and hamper further developments, for example, of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, remote sensing applications, homogenisation of long-term records needed for hydrological and climatological applications. Indeed, homogenising long-term data series of snow depth are scientifically challenging mostly because of the marked spatial variability of this Essential Climate Variable. The scientific community recognised early that such guidelines should be widely harmonized to be able to easily use records across borders and for scientific purposes. This is the incentive for the COST Action 'HarmoSnow' to plan producing a “European Snow Booklet” as one of its most valuable deliverable. The aim of this project is to provide resources for co-ordinating this task. Indeed, in the past, the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF always either contributed to or launched such initiatives, providing both its know-how in snow-cover measurements and long-term data series. The planned document will further provide a comprehensive inventory of snow-cover measurements and associated best practices across Europe. In addition, it will allow starting a sensitivity study on the effect of typical station inhomogeneities on the different measured snow parameters, which is essential for their use in many applications.

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise: WSL-Institut für Schnee- und Lawinenforschung SLF

Partners and International Organizations (English)

AT; BE, BA; BG; CZ; DKJ; EE; FI; FR; DE; EL; HU; IS; IE; IT; LU; NL; NO; PL; PT; RS; SK; SI; ES; SE; TR; UK; AD

Abstract (English)

See short description

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C16.0077