Hybrid Assimilation of Snow Cover Improves Land Surface Simulations over Northern China

Abstract Ensemble data assimilation (DA) is an efficient approach to reduce snow simulation errors by combining observation and land surface modeling. However, there is a small spread between ensemble members of simulated snowpack, which typically occurs for a long time with 100% snow cover fraction (SCF) or snow-free conditions. Here, we apply a hybrid DA method, in which direct insertion (DI) is a supplement of the ensemble square root filter (EnSRF), to assimilate the spaceborne SCF into a land surface model, driven by China Meteorological Administration Land Data Assimilation System high-resolution climate forcings over northern China during the snow season in 2021/22. Compared to the open-loop experiment (without SCF assimilation), the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of SCF is reduced by 6% through the original EnSRF and is even lower (by 14%) in the combined DI and EnSRF (EnSRFDI) experiment. The results reveal the ability of both EnSRF and EnSRFDI to improve the SCF estimation over regions where the snow cover is low, while only EnSRFDI is able to efficiently reduce the RMSE over areas with high SCF. Moreover, the SCF assimilation is also observed to improve the snow depth and soil temperature simulations, with the Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE) increasing at 60% and 56%–70% stations, respectively, particularly under conditions with near-freezing temperature, in which reliable simulations are typically challenging. Our results demonstrate that the EnSRFDI hybrid method can be applied for the assimilation of spaceborne observational snow cover to improve land surface simulations and snow-related operational products. Significance Statement Due to the small spread between the seasonal snowpack of ensemble simulations, ensemble snow cover fraction (SCF) data assimilation (DA) proves to be ineffective. Therefore, we apply a hybrid method that combines the direct insertion (DI) and ensemble square root filter (EnSRF) to assimilate the spaceborne SCF into a land surface model (LSM) driven by high-resolution climate forcings. Our results reveal the applicability of the EnSRFDI to further improve snow cover simulations over regions with high SCF. Furthermore, the DA experiments were validated through a large number of in situ observations from the China Meteorological Administration. The uncertainties of snow depth and soil temperature simulations are also slightly reduced by the SCF DAs, particularly over regions with a poor LSM performance.