Validation test of the CIVCO topographic correction model on snow mapping algorithm in Tibetan Plateau

Snow cover is an important part and one of the most active natural elements of the earth surface as well as an important factor affecting climate. As one of seasonal snow area in China, estimating the snow cover of the Tibet Plateau accurately has a great significance on hydrology, climate and economic. The MODIS/Terra daily snow product (MOD10A1) would underestimate snow cover area because of shade during mapping snow cover in mountainous regions over the Tibetan Plateau. To achieve snow cover image in mountainous regions with higher algorithm, the present study used Landsat 30 m observations as “ground truth” and MODIS data(MOD10A1 and MOD09GA) as data sources to improve the method of snow mapping by topographic correcting based on CIVCO. The results showed that, the overall accuracy, snow classification accuracy, Kappa coefficient of the improved method were 86.46%, 73.66% and 0.61, while MOD10A1 were 85.69%、65.35% and 0.57, respectively. Therefore, the algorithm of the improved method were higher than the method of MOD10A1, meanwhile, the missed error of the improved method were much lower than MOD10A1, which indicated the improved method based on CIVCO topographic correction model were more capable of the alpine snow cover mapping and dynamic monitoring in Tibetan Plateau.