The effect of anisotropic reflectance on imaging spectroscopy of snow properties

How does snow's anisotropic directional reflectance affect the mapping of snow properties from imaging spectrometer data? This sensitivity study applies two spectroscopy models to synthetic images of the spectral hemispherical-directional reflectance factor (HDRF) with prescribed snow-covered area and snow grain size. The MEMSCAG model determines both sub-pixel snow-covered area and the grain size of the fractional snow cover. The Nolin/Dozier model analyzes the ice absorption feature that spans wavelength λ≅1.03 μm to estimate snow grain radius when the pixel is fully snow-covered. Retrievals of subpixel snow-covered area with MEMSCAG are progressively more sensitive to the HDRF as grain size decreases, solar zenith angle increases, and fractional snow cover increases. The model overestimates snow cover in the forward reflectance angles by up to +20% and underestimates it in the backward reflectance angles by as much as −15%. Grain size retrievals from both MEMSCAG and Nolin/Dozier are more sensitive to anisotropy as grain size and solar zenith angle increase. MEMSCAG retrievals of grain size are insensitive to snow-covered area. The largest inferred grain sizes occur around a peak in the backward reflectance angles and the smallest generally occur at the largest view angles in the forward direction. Retrievals of albedo from MEMSCAG and Nolin/Dozier are similarly sensitive to anisotropy, with albedo errors up to 5% for a 30° solar zenith angle and up to 10% at 60°. The albedo differences between the two models are less than 0.015 for all grain sizes and solar zenith angles.