Research progress of satellite data utilization for snow monitoring in pastoral areas

Snowstorm is seriously restricting the development of animal productivity in pastoral areas. Satellite data play an important role for early warning the snowstorm. NOAA/AVHRR have the advantage for monitoring the dynamics of snow in clear air conditions at largescale. TM data are easy to identify snow and cloud and proper for smallscale monitoring of snow and precise positioning. Passive microwave remote sensing data, such as SMMR, SSM/I and AMSRE, have the advantage to probe the snow depth and snow internal stability. MODIS data are free and higher spatial resolution. Satellite data play a basic role in eliminating the clouds, processing the mixing pixel, monitoring the snow depth and snow covered area and establishing the snowmonitoring model.