1025 
ESTIMATION OF GLACIERS AND SNOW COVERAGE IN WESTERN PART OF 
MONGOLIA USING MODIS SNOW PRODUCTS 
B.Khosbayar 3 * R.Tsolmon 3 Y.Uranchimeg b 
a NUM-ITC-UNESCO Laboratory for Remote Sensing and GIS, National University of Mongolia 
b Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia Ink 
azazell 2@yahoo.eom a tsolmon(q)num.edu.mn a Uranbilegy@ivancorp.net b 
Commission VII, WG VII/5 
KEY WORDS: MODIS, Glaciers, Snow Coverage 
ABSTRACT: 
The purpose of the research study is to determine area Glaciers and Snow Coverage in Western part of Mongolia using by remote 
sensing methods. MODIS snow product by 8 day temporal resolution for June-August 2006 was applied in this research work. As a 
result of this research work, MODIS snow products are easy to use and suitable for seasonal period of many year snow cover. There 
is need more multi years data for snow coverage monitoring and use of Radar data for snow thickness in the study area in future. 
1. PURPOSE 
The purpose of this research study is to determine and examine 
the yearly areal extent of Glaciers and Snow Coverage in the 
Western part of Mongolia by using remote sensing methods. 
The continuity period for snow coverage is of particular interest. 
2. DATA AND ANALYSIS 
MODIS sensors MOD10A2 and MODIS’s snow product 8 day 
temporal resolution data from 2000 to 2006 was applied to this 
research work to determine the continuity period of snow 
coverage and the relative difference between Glaciers and Snow 
coverage in square kms. 
To use the MODIS products one need to calculate Mosaic and 
Reprojection functions (Table 1). After this calculation we can 
do a classification of the snow cover using the digital number 
representative of snow cover. We study this digital number 
attached to the snow cover by following the instruction for 
)IS snow cover 
products. 
Integer Value 
Meaning 
255 
Fill Data-no data expected for pixel 
254 
Saturated MODIS sensor detector 
200 
Snow 
100 
Snow-Covered Lake Ice 
50 
Cloud Obscured 
39 
Ocean 
37 
Inland Water 
25 
Land—no snow detected 
11 
Darkness, terminator or polar 
1 
No Decision 
0 
Sensor Data Missing 
Table 1 Interpretation key for MODIS snow product. 
Landsat 
Using the Landsat satellite data we determined the square kms 
difference between Snow cover and Glaciers. For this 
calculation was used Normalized Difference Snow Index using 
the K-means classification method (figure 1). 
Figure 1. Classification methodology of snow cover products 
using by Landsat satellite data 
3. RESULT 
MODIS 
Figure 2. Total areas having snow cover during the period June- 
Aug,2006