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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Informatics and Remote Sensing
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1416597
This article is part of the Research Topic Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere View all 4 articles

The two-layered radiative transfer model for snow reflectance and its application to remote sensing of the Antarctic snow surface from space

Provisionally accepted
Alexander Kokhanovsky Alexander Kokhanovsky 1*Maximilian Brell Maximilian Brell 1*Karl Segl Karl Segl 1*Dmitrii Efremenko Dmitrii Efremenko 2Boyan Petkov Boyan Petkov 3*Giovanni Bianchini Giovanni Bianchini 4*
  • 1 GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
  • 2 German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
  • 3 University of Studies G. d'Annunzio Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy
  • 4 National Institute of Optics, Department of Physical Sciences and Technologies of Matter, National Research Council (CNR), Florence, Tuscany, Italy

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

    The two-LAyered snow Radiative Transfer (LART) model has been proposed for snow remote sensing applications. It is based on analytical approximations of the radiative transfer theory. The geometrical optics approximation has been used to derive the local snow optical parameters such as the probability of photon absorption by ice grains and the average cosine of single light scattering in a given direction in snowpack. The application of the model to the selected area in Antarctica has shown that the technique is capable to retrieve the snow grain size both in upper and lower snow layers with sizes of grains larger in the lower snow layer as one might expect due to the metamorphism processes. Such a conclusion is confirmed by ground measurements of the vertical snow grain size variability in Antarctica.

    Keywords: Cryosphere and climate, radiative transfer, Light scattering, snowfall detection, Ice crystals, Remote sensing-

    Received: 12 Apr 2024; Accepted: 19 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kokhanovsky, Brell, Segl, Efremenko, Petkov and Bianchini. 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:
    Alexander Kokhanovsky, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, 14473, Brandenburg, Germany
    Maximilian Brell, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, 14473, Brandenburg, Germany
    Karl Segl, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, 14473, Brandenburg, Germany
    Boyan Petkov, University of Studies G. d'Annunzio Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, 66013, Abruzzo, Italy
    Giovanni Bianchini, National Institute of Optics, Department of Physical Sciences and Technologies of Matter, National Research Council (CNR), Florence, 50125, Tuscany, Italy

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