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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Cryospheric Sciences
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1465071
This article is part of the Research Topic Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere View all 6 articles

Spatio-temporal variation of snow cover area and its fragmentation in northeast China

Provisionally accepted
Jiakai Gu Jiakai Gu 1Yanmin Ma Yanmin Ma 2*Lijuan Zhang Lijuan Zhang 1*Yutao Huang Yutao Huang 1Wenshuai Zhang Wenshuai Zhang 1*Fan Zhang Fan Zhang 1*Jie Liu Jie Liu 1*Chunyang Li Chunyang Li 1*
  • 1 Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China
  • 2 Jilin Province Meteorological Bureau, Changchun, Hebei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Under the background of climate warming, along with the change of snow cover area, the spatial fragmentation characteristics of snow cover also need to be studied in depth. We analyzed the spatial and temporal change pattern of snow cover area and explored the changing characteristics of spatial fragmentation of snow cover in Northeast China from 1980 to 2019 by using the "China AVHRR Daily Cloudless 5 km Snow Area Product Dataset". It is concluded that the mean stable snow cover area in Northeast China from 1980 to 2019 was 79.41×10 4 km 2 (± 14.47×10 4 km 2 ), and has not undergone significant changes since the 1980s. But compared to the 1980s, and the mountainous areas such as Changbai Mountain and Lesser Khingan Mountains region are the main areas of snow cover recession. From 1980 to 2019, the average patch size (MPS), maximum patch index (LPI), and coefficient of variation (PSCV) of the three indicators expressing spatial fragmentation had rates of change of -1.06×10 4 km 2 /10 a (P<0.05), -1.04%/10 a (P>0.05), and 71.6%/10 a (P<0.05). The spatial continuity of snow fragmentation in Northeast China was significantly enhanced, and fragmentation increased significantly. From 2010 to 2019, the spatial fragmentation of snow cover in Northeast China increased by 50% compared to 1980-1989.This paper suggests that the increase in temperature is the major factor leading to the important factor in the fragmentation of snow cover. The main contribution of this paper is to analyze the change characteristics of the spatial fragmentation of the regional snow cover.

    Keywords: Snow cover, fragmentation, Spatio-temporal variation, Northeast China, AVHRR

    Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Gu, Ma, Zhang, Huang, Zhang, Zhang, Liu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yanmin Ma, Jilin Province Meteorological Bureau, Changchun, 130062, Hebei Province, China
    Lijuan Zhang, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China
    Wenshuai Zhang, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China
    Fan Zhang, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China
    Jie Liu, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China
    Chunyang Li, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China

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