Spatio-temporal variability of snow water equivalent in the extra-tropical Andes cordillera from a distributed energy balance modeling and remotely sensed snow cover
Abstract. Seasonal snow cover is the primary water resource precursor for human use and environmental sustain along the extratropical Andes Cordillera. Despite its importance, relatively little research has been devoted to understanding the properties, distribution and variability of this natural resource. This research provides high-resolution distributed estimates of end-of-winter and spring snow water equivalent over a 152 000 km2 domain that includes the mountainous reaches of central Chile and Argentina. Remotely sensed fractional snow covered area and other relevant forcings are combined with extrapolated data from meteorological stations and a simplified physically-based energy balance model in order to obtain melt-season peak SWE. Estimates show an overall coefficient of determination R2 of 0.61 compared to observations at 12 automatic snow water equivalent sensors distributed across the model domain, with R2 values between 0.32 and 0.88. Regional estimates of peak SWE accumulation show differential patterns strongly modulated by elevation, latitude and position relative to the continental divide. Average peak SWE increases by nearly 500 mm for every 1000 m in elevation gain for the central and southern sub-regions of the model domain, but this effect is much less pronounced in the northern reaches. The 3000–4000 m a.s.l. elevation band is the most significant accumulation area for most of the northern and central reaches of the domain, although the 4000–5000 m a.s.l. band, despite a smaller contributing area, almost doubles the accumulation amounts estimated for the lower adjacent subdomain. Snow accumulation reaches an earlier peak in the western Andes, and the eastern side of the continental divide shows lower snow accumulation at all elevations except for the southern region represented by the Neuquén River Basin. The results presented here have the potential of informing applications such as seasonal forecast model assessment and improvement, regional climate model validation, as well as evaluation of observational networks and water resource infrastructure development.