Articles | Volume 12, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1629-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1629-2018
Research article
 | 
04 May 2018
Research article |  | 04 May 2018

On the need for a time- and location-dependent estimation of the NDSI threshold value for reducing existing uncertainties in snow cover maps at different scales

Stefan Härer, Matthias Bernhardt, Matthias Siebers, and Karsten Schulz

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Cited articles

Abermann, J., Kuhn, M., and Fischer, A.: A reconstruction of annual mass balances of Austria's glaciers from 1969 to 1998, Ann. Glaciol., 52, 127–134, https://doi.org/10.3189/172756411799096259, 2011. 
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Short summary
The paper presents an approach which can be used to process satellite-based snow cover maps with a higher-than-today accuracy at the local scale. Many of the current satellite-based snow maps are using the NDSI with a threshold as a tool for deciding if there is snow on the ground or not. The presented study has shown that, firstly, using the standard threshold of 0.4 can result in significant derivations at the local scale and that, secondly, the deviations become smaller for coarser scales.