Manual snow survey (active & inactive) locations as part of the BC Snow Survey program.

This data contains location information for 1 of Ontario’s snow monitoring networks: * Surface Water Monitoring Centre (SWMC) Snow course data is collected by: * conservation authorities * Ontario Power Generation * Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) districts Data is collected twice a month from November 15 until May 15. The Surface Water Monitoring Centre uses this data to assess: * current snow cover * frozen ground conditions * snowpack * potential snowmelt * contributions to streamflow The snow data is located in a corporate water and climate database. This data helps MNR and conservation authorities assess the potential for flood at the local and provincial scale.

Snow survey administrative basin areas, which are components of the BC snow survey network. Basin codes are used as basis of snow survey station names, and for some reporting purposes.

Locations of automated snow weather stations, active and inactive. Automated snow weather stations are components of the BC snow survey network.

This catalog contains annual 30 m spatial resolution snow dynamics metrics for each snow-year from 2018-2019 to 2023-2024 for all of Canada. We gather all Landsat and Sentinel-2 images collected over Canada and identify the status of each pixel observation on the image collection date: snow (and ice), non-snow (i.e., land, water), unclear (i.e., clouds, shadows). We built an algorithm to calculate snow cover metrics for each pixel during each winter: start date of the first (and biggest) snow period [startF, startB], end date of the last (and biggest) snow period [endL, endB], number of days with snow cover in total (or in the biggest snow period) [lengthT, lengthB], number of snow periods (i.e., separated times with multiple confirmed snow observations) [periods], and a status classification (e.g., continuous snow, snow free) [status]. We do not obtain a clear observation every day because of satellite orbit frequencies and clouds. This means that timing-based metrics are identified by the middle date between two clear observations, with uncertainty quantified as half the length of the gap (i.e., ± days) [startF_u, startB_u, endL_u, endB_u, lengthT_u, lengthB_u].

This dataset contains location information for 2 of Ontario’s snow monitoring networks: * Surface Water Monitoring Centre (SWMC) * Snow Network for Ontario Wildlife (SNOW), administered by the Wildlife Research and Monitoring Section Snow course data is collected by: * conservation authorities * Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) districts * Ontario Power Generation SWMC network data is collected twice a month from November 15 until May 15. SNOW network data is collected once a week from the first snowfall until snowmelt. The Surface Water Monitoring Centre uses the data to assess: * current snow cover * frozen ground conditions * snowpack * potential snowmelt * contributions to streamflow MNR’s Science and Research Branch use the data to: * help manage wildlife species including deer, moose, wild turkey, elk, wolves and coyotes * help ministry resource managers and scientists administer programs and conduct research * inform game management decisions such as white-tailed deer harvest quotas * support flight planning for the Moose Aerial Inventory program

Seasonal and annual multi-model ensembles of projected change (also known as anomalies) in snow depth based on an ensemble of twenty-eight Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models are available for 1900-2100. Projected change in snow depth is with respect to the reference period of 1986-2005 and expressed as a percentage (%). The 5th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 95th percentiles of the ensemble of snow depth change are available for the historical time period, 1900-2005, and for emission scenarios, RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, for 2006-2100. Twenty-year average changes in snow depth (%) for four time periods (2021-2040; 2041-2060; 2061-2080; 2081-2100), with respect to the reference period of 1986-2005, for RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are also available in a range of formats. The median projected change across the ensemble of CMIP5 climate models is provided. Note: Projections among climate models can vary because of differences in their underlying representation of earth system processes. Thus, the use of a multi-model ensemble approach has been demonstrated in recent scientific literature to likely provide better projected climate change information.

Multi-model ensembles of snow depth based on projections from twenty-eight Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models are available for 1900-2100. Specifically, the 5th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 95th percentiles of the monthly, seasonal and annual ensembles of snow depth (m) are available for the historical time period, 1900-2005, and for emission scenarios, RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, for 2006-2100. Note: Projections among climate models can vary because of differences in their underlying representation of earth system processes. Thus, the use of a multi-model ensemble approach has been demonstrated in recent scientific literature to likely provide better projected climate change information.

Snow and ice are important hydrological resources. Their minimum spatial extent here referred to as annual minimum snow/ice (MSI) cover, plays a very important role as an indicator of long-term changes and baseline capacity for surface water storage. The MSI probability is derived from sequence of seventeen 10-day clear-sky composites corresponding to April, 1 to September, 20 warm period for each year since 2000. Data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra satellite for the period since 2000 have been processed with the special technology developed at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) as described in Trishchenko, 2016; Trishchenko et al., 2016; 2009, 2006, Trishchenko and Ungureanu, 2021, Khlopenkov and Trishchenko, 2008, Luo et al., 2008. The presence of snow or ice is determined for each pixel of the image based on snow/ice scene identification procedure and the probability if computed for the entire warm season as a ratio of number of snow/ice flags to the total number of pixels available (less or equal to 17). The minimum snow and ice extent can be derived from the probability map by applying a certain threshold. New data version V5.0 replaces previous version V4.0 for all data available since 2000. All MSI files were reprocessed for all MODIS input data based on collection 6.1. The output format has not changed since previous version. It is described in Trishchenko (2024). The impact of input data change is small and can be detected only for time interval 2000-2015. Data starting 2016 has been already derived using MODIS collection 6.1 input.The differences between the MSI data based on MODIS Collection 5 (i.e. MSI V4) versus MODIS Collection 6.1 (i.e. MSI V5), on average, are quite small. The region-wide relative difference in the MSI extent varies from -3.97% to +1.75%. The mean value is -0.14%, the median value is 0.18% and standard deviation is 1.83%. As such, we do not expect any sizeable impact of the version change on our previous conclusions regarding trends and climate variations, except for refining the relative values of statistical parameters within the range of a few percents. References:TRISHCHENKO, A.P., 2024: Probability maps of the annual minimum snow and ice (MSI) presence over April,1 to September, 20 period since 2000 derived from MODIS 250m imagery over Canada and neighbouring regions. Data format description. CCRS, NRCan. 4pp.

This project was completed by the Shellfish Section in the Newfoundland and Labrador Science Branch of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), in collaboration with industry partners. The Coastal Environmental Baseline program supported the Placentia Bay portion of project work for an ongoing industry-DFO collaborative post-season trap survey for Snow Crab that was initiated in 2003 and has occurred each year. This survey is conducted by Snow Crab harvesters accompanied by at-sea observers and takes place in NAFO Divisions 2J3KLNOP4R. Historically the survey focused on commercial fishing grounds but began transitioning to a partly random stratified design in 2017. Since 2018, approximately 50% of survey stations are randomly allocated while 50% remain fixed. At each station, six (for inshore stations) or ten (for offshore stations) commercial traps are set in a fleet. To gather data on non-commercial sized Snow Crab, including females, many fleets also include one small-mesh trap. The coverage of small-mesh traps has been expanding in recent years with the aim of one small-mesh trap for every station in the coming years. Biological sampling is undertaken on at least one commercial trap and the small-mesh trap at each station. The data from this survey is incorporated into the annual stock assessment for Snow Crab in the Newfoundland and Labrador region. This record contains trap locations for Placentia Bay, and information on the types of data collected. More detailed information can be found in Pantin et al. (2022).https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/mpo-dfo/fs70-5/Fs70-5-2022-076-eng.pdf