ESTIMATING DUST ON SNOW - APPLICATION OF A COUPLED ATMOSPHERE-SURFACE MODEL TO SPACEBORNE EMIT IMAGING SPECTROMETER DATA

Radiative forcing by small dust particles deposited on snow plays a key role in climate change. Detection and quantification of these particles is essential for predicting melt rates, and assessing the associated impacts on Earth’s climate. NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) aims to improve our understanding of the Earth’s dust source and sink regions. The latter include snow surfaces in topographically challenging mountainous terrain. We present estimated snow reflectance, dust concentration, and radiative forcing from a new retrieval framework, and highlight their sensitivity to topographic characteristics. These findings will be essential for updating snow melt and climate models, but also for the conception of retrieval algorithms for upcoming global spaceborne imaging spectroscopy missions, including NASA’s Surface Biology and Geology (SBG).