Evaluation and comparison of FY-2E VISSR, MODIS and IMS snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau

Snow cover information is crucial to global climate change research and hydrological applications. Snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau is important to water resources and Asian climate. Based on high temporal resolution of geostationary satellite data, snow cover map with less cloud obscuration can be obtained daily. In this paper, geostationary meteorological satellite FY2E VISSR data is used to obtain the snow cover information over the Tibetan Plateau in year 2010 and 2011 winter seasons. Meteorological station observations are used to evaluate the performance of snow cover maps. In addition, MODIS and IMS snow cover products are used for comparison and validation. Results indicate VISSR snow cover maps show good performance in reducing cloud obscuration. MODIS snow cover maps present highest overall accuracy, followed by VISSR and IMS. VISSR and IMS snow cover maps show slight over-estimation of snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau.