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Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is a key indicator of seasonal water availability and climate variability in high-latitude regions. Conventional SWE monitoring methods, such as ground-based snow courses and passive microwave retrievals, are limited by sparse coverage and uncertainties related to snowpack properties. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission offers a unique, basin-integrated perspective by measuring mass changes directly from space, providing an independent approach to large-scale SWE estimation. In this study, we evaluate the performance of GRACE-derived SWE across four high-latitude river basins (Yenisei, Ob, Mackenzie, and Yukon) over the period 2003–2022. The average monthly GRACE RL06 mascon water-storage anomalies from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Center for Space Research (CSR) at the University of Texas at Austin, and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) were used in this study. SWE anomalies were derived by isolating the cold-season signal and restricting the analysis to areas identified by removing all the non-snow components using the hydrological models. SWE estimates were compared against long-term in-situ snow-course observations, multiple Hydrological Models, and passive microwave product. Results show that GRACE reliably captures the seasonal accumulation–melt cycle and interannual variability, achieving robust correlations ranging from 0.81 to 0.90 against in-situ observations and 0.71 to 0.92 during seasonal peaks. Following our refined processing workflow, basin-averaged root-mean-square errors (RMSE) were reduced to a range of 23.4 to 41.7 mm. The analysis reveals that while hydrological models typically return to a fixed seasonal baseline, the GRACE-derived signal reflects total integrated mass changes, capturing interannual deviations and deep storage fluctuations – particularly in the North American basins – that are absent in process-based models. GRACE also demonstrates sensitivity to extreme snow years that are underestimated by conventional datasets. These findings confirm the added value of GRACE gravimetry for SWE assessment, particularly at basin scales where traditional observations are sparse.

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Assessing the Contribution of GRACE Data to Snow Water Equivalent Estimation in Comparison with Conventional Snow Measurement Techniques

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Hussein A. Mohasseb,
  • Shuang Yi,
  • Hussein A. Abd-Elmotaal,
  • Mostafa Abd-Elbaky

摘要

Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is a key indicator of seasonal water availability and climate variability in high-latitude regions. Conventional SWE monitoring methods, such as ground-based snow courses and passive microwave retrievals, are limited by sparse coverage and uncertainties related to snowpack properties. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission offers a unique, basin-integrated perspective by measuring mass changes directly from space, providing an independent approach to large-scale SWE estimation. In this study, we evaluate the performance of GRACE-derived SWE across four high-latitude river basins (Yenisei, Ob, Mackenzie, and Yukon) over the period 2003–2022. The average monthly GRACE RL06 mascon water-storage anomalies from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Center for Space Research (CSR) at the University of Texas at Austin, and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) were used in this study. SWE anomalies were derived by isolating the cold-season signal and restricting the analysis to areas identified by removing all the non-snow components using the hydrological models. SWE estimates were compared against long-term in-situ snow-course observations, multiple Hydrological Models, and passive microwave product. Results show that GRACE reliably captures the seasonal accumulation–melt cycle and interannual variability, achieving robust correlations ranging from 0.81 to 0.90 against in-situ observations and 0.71 to 0.92 during seasonal peaks. Following our refined processing workflow, basin-averaged root-mean-square errors (RMSE) were reduced to a range of 23.4 to 41.7 mm. The analysis reveals that while hydrological models typically return to a fixed seasonal baseline, the GRACE-derived signal reflects total integrated mass changes, capturing interannual deviations and deep storage fluctuations – particularly in the North American basins – that are absent in process-based models. GRACE also demonstrates sensitivity to extreme snow years that are underestimated by conventional datasets. These findings confirm the added value of GRACE gravimetry for SWE assessment, particularly at basin scales where traditional observations are sparse.