Enhance existing Swiss precipitation products with particular regards to snowfall

Gestion de projet

Tobias Jonas

Suppléance

Michael Schirmer

Collaborateurs du projet

Tobias Jonas

Snow is an important component of the water cycle in Switzerland, contributing approximately 40% of the runoff in Swiss rivers. Measuring snowfall is associated with considerable uncertainties, in particular in mountainous terrain, where undercatch of snowfall can cause biases of several 10%. In Switzerland there are hundreds of stations to measure snow depth. In the absence of sufficient snow water equivalent data, the combination of precipitation and snow depth data along with snow modelling and data assimilation methods enable determining biases in existing precipitation products. The project will advance datasets for one of the most important Essential Climate Variables (ECV) of the country, integrating existing monitoring and modelling systems for the benefit of any project or service that requires national-wide precipitation data as input.