Binary and Fractional MODIS Snow Cover Mapping Boosted by Machine Learning and Big Landsat Data

It is promising to improve Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow cover mapping by training effective machine learning models. However, considering the strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity of snow cover, the representativeness of training samples becomes a critical issue to ensure the model effectiveness over large areas and long terms. To deal with this issue, we propose the
$m$
-day dynamic training strategy. The core of this strategy is to divide a long-term snow cover mapping task into multiple short-term tasks with consecutive
$m$
days (
$m$
is greater or equal to the number of days that higher resolution remote sensing images used as equivalent ground references cover the study area once). It can ensure the spatial representativeness of training samples by utilizing all available equivalent ground references data, and reduce the issue caused by snow cover changing over time. We apply this strategy to random forest (RF) for both binary snow cover mapping (BSC) and fractional snow cover mapping (FSC) using Landsat-8 data as equivalent ground reference and validate its effect on the Tibetan Plateau. Results show that this strategy achieves higher accuracies than other training strategies, with
$F1$
of 0.9596 for BSC mapping,
$R$
and mean square error (MSE) of 0.9037 and 0.0260 for FSC mapping, respectively. In addition, spatiotemporal analysis of results further demonstrates that this strategy holds advantages for snow cover mapping in areas of complex terrain and in periods when snow cover changes rapidly. In conclusion, this strategy can effectively ensure the representativeness of training samples generated from Landsat-8 data and thus improve MODIS snow cover mapping through machine learning.