A Study of the Spatio-temporal Changes in Snow Cover in Northern Xinjiang from 2002 to 2020 based on MODIS Data
Northern Xinjiang is one of the three typical snow-covered regions in China.It is of great significance to explore the characteristics and rules of snow cover change in Northern Xinjiang in the context of global cli-mate warming.In this study,the MOD10C1 and MYD10C1 data products in MODIS data were used to extract the daily snow cover products for 18 snow seasons from September 1,2002 to May 31,2020,obtaining infor-mation such as the number of snow days,the initial and final dates in Northern Xinjiang.Based on this,the spa-tial and temporal distribution characteristics and changing trends of snow cover in Northern Xinjiang were ana-lyzed,and the correlation between snow characteristics and temperature was analyzed in conjunction with tem-perature data.The results showed that the average number of snow days in Northern Xinjiang was about 50~90 days,and the number of snow days in the southern mountainous areas showed a general downward trend,while the number of snow days in the central basin area showed an upward trend.The first snow day mainly concen-trated between the 315 th and 330 th day,and the last snow day mainly concentrated between the 42 nd and 72 nd day.The overall change of the first snow day was small,only slightly earlier in the eastern and western border areas,and the last snow day showed an overall trend of earlier occurrence.The change in the snow-cov-ered area of Northern Xinjiang during a single snow season showed a unimodal distribution,reaching its maxi-mum in January.There was a significant negative correlation between the number of snow days and the last snow day and temperature,but there was a clear positive correlation between the first snow day and tempera-ture.