ABoVE: Passive Microwave-derived Annual Snowpack Main Melt Onset Date Maps, 1988-2023

This dataset provides the annual date of snowpack seasonal beginning melt (i.e., main melt onset date, MMOD) across northwest Canada, Alaska, US, and parts of far eastern Russia at 6.25-km resolution for the period 1988-2023. MMOD was derived from the daily 19V (K-band) and 37V (Ka-band) GHz bands from the Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Calibrated Enhanced-Resolution Passive Microwave (PMW) EASE-Grid Brightness Temperature (Tb) Earth System Data Record (ESDR). The PMW MMOD dataset was validated using the transition date from Freeze Degree Days (FDD) to Thaw Degree Days (TDD) from in situ air temperature observations from 31 SNOw TELemetry network (SNOTEL) stations, and compared to an established Freeze-Thaw ESDR (FT-ESDR) spring onset date record. The resulting MMOD data record is suitable for documenting the spatial-temporal impacts of MMOD variability in ecosystem services, wildlife movements, and hydrologic processes within the ABoVE (Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment) domain. The data from 1988-2016 included a coastal mask removing coastal pixels due to potential water contamination from coarse brightness temperature observations (Dersken et al., 2012). No coastal mask is used for the 2017-2023 data. The full data are included, and data users should be aware that values adjacent to large water bodies can be adversely affected.