Daily snow water equivalent product with SMMR, SSM/I and SSMIS from 1980 to 2020 over China

The reliable knowledge of seasonal snow volume and its trend is very important to understand Earth’s climate system. Thus, a long-time snow water equivalent (SWE) dataset is necessary. This work presents a daily SWE product of 1980–2020 with a linear unmixing method through passive microwave data including SMMR, SSM/I and SSMIS over China after cross-calibration and bias-correction. The unbiased root-mean-square error of snow depth is about 5–7 cm, corresponding to 10–15 mm for SWE, when compared with stations measurements and field snow course data. The spatial patterns and trends of SWE over China present significant regional differences. The overall slope trend presented an insignificant decreasing pattern during 1980–2020 over China; however, there is an obvious fluctuation, i.e. a significant decrease trend during the period 1980–1990, an upward trend from 2005 to 2009, a significant downward trend from 2009 to 2018. The increase of SWE occurred in the Northeast Plain, with an increase trend of 0.2 mm per year. Whereas in the Hengduan Mountains, it presented a downward trend of SWE, up to −0.3 mm per year. In the North Xinjiang, SWE has an increasing trend in the Junggar Basin, while it shows a decreasing trend in the Tianshan and Altai Mountains.