Articles | Volume 19, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5361-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5361-2025
Research article
 | 
04 Nov 2025
Research article |  | 04 Nov 2025

Snow water equivalent retrieval and analysis over Altay using 12 d repeat-pass Sentinel-1 interferometry

Jingtian Zhou, Yang Lei, Jinmei Pan, Cunren Liang, Zhang Yunjun, Weiliang Li, Chuan Xiong, Jiancheng Shi, and Wei Ma

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Assessing the use of satellite products from multispectral unmixing and differential interferometry for Altay snow water equivalent estimation
Yiwen Fang, Jinmei Pan, Steven A. Margulis, Jingtian Zhou, Haorui Sun, Yang Lei, Chuan Xiong, Hua Wang, and Shurun Tan
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5345,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5345, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).
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Cited articles

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Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF): Sentinel-1 data, Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC) [dataset], https://search.asf.alaska.edu/, last access: 28 October 2025. 
Barnett, T. P., Adam, J. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions, Nature, 438, 303–309, 2005. 
Bonnell, R., Elder, K., McGrath, D., Marshall, H.-P., Starr, B., Adebisi, N., Palomaki, R., and Hoppinen, Z.: L-band InSAR snow water equivalent retrieval uncertainty increases with forest cover fraction, Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL111708, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL111708, 2024. 
Brown, R., Tapsoba, D., and Derksen, C.: Evaluation of snow water equivalent datasets over the Saint-Maurice river basin region of southern Québec, Hydrological Processes, 32, 2748–2764, 2018. 
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Understanding how much water is stored in snow is important for tracking climate change and managing water supply. This study used satellite radar data from 2019 to 2021 to measure snow water changes in a mountain region of China. The results matched ground data well, especially in cold, dry conditions without heavy snowfall. A new phase calibration method helped improve accuracy, offering a useful reference for global snow monitoring using widely available satellite data.
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