TY  - JOUR
A1  - Dietz, Andreas J.
A1  - Conrad, Christopher
A1  - Kuenzer, Claudia
A1  - Gesell, Gerhard
A1  - Dech, Stefan
T1  - Identifying Changing Snow Cover Characteristics in Central Asia between 1986 and 2014 from Remote Sensing Data
T2  - Remote Sensing
N2  - Central Asia consists of the five former Soviet States Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, therefore comprising an area of similar to 4 Mio km(2). The continental climate is characterized by hot and dry summer months and cold winter seasons with most precipitation occurring as snowfall. Accordingly, freshwater supply is strongly depending on the amount of accumulated snow as well as the moment of its release after snowmelt. The aim of the presented study is to identify possible changes in snow cover characteristics, consisting of snow cover duration, onset and offset of snow cover season within the last 28 years. Relying on remotely sensed data originating from medium resolution imagers, these snow cover characteristics are extracted on a daily basis. The resolution of 500-1000 m allows for a subsequent analysis of changes on the scale of hydrological sub-catchments. Long-term changes are identified from this unique dataset, revealing an ongoing shift towards earlier snowmelt within the Central Asian Mountains. This shift can be observed in most upstream hydro catchments within Pamir and Tian Shan Mountains and it leads to a potential change of freshwater availability in the downstream regions, exerting additional pressure on the already tensed situation.
KW  - AVHRR data
KW  - satellite
KW  - Northern Xinjiang
KW  - cloud
KW  - products
KW  - Central Asia
KW  - climate change
KW  - Amu Darya
KW  - Syr Darya
KW  - Tian Shan
KW  - snow
KW  - snow cover
KW  - snow cover duration
KW  - Pamir
KW  - AVHRR
KW  - MODIS
KW  - algorithm
KW  - validation
Y1  - 2014
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/11447
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-114470
SN  - 2072-4292
VL  - 6
IS  - 12
ER  -