derivation of snow mask in Daily 4 km Gridded SWE dataset

[suetboyd]

I am working with the Daily 4 km Gridded SWE dataset avail at URL below. The dataset also provides a file "SWE_Mask_v01.nc" which contains integer values [0 1 2 3]. Where can I find information on what the integers represent and how this data was compiled. I have read the user guide for this data set as well as browsed FAQs and can't seem to find this specific info.

url for dataset files: 'https://daacdata.apps.nsidc.org/pub/DATASETS/nsidc0719_SWE_Snow_Depth_v1/

url for user guide:
https://nsidc.org/sites/default/files/documents/user-guide/nsidc-0719-v001-userguide.pdf

[NSIDC - fritzdi]

Hello,

I downloaded the file SWE_Mask_v01.nc associated with this data set and discovered the descriptions for the mask values are in the metadata for the variable `SWE_MASK`:

short SWE_MASK(lat=621, lon=1405);
:long_name = "Mask for UA SWE Data";
:grid_mapping = "crs";
:legend = "1: Water, 2: Permanent Snow/Ice; 3: Outside of ConUS";

... where 0 is the value for the locations where SWE is calculated using the methods described in the associated literature (and this covers most of CONUS).

Unfortunately, in my scan of some papers, the authors don't obviously talk about the mask development. But because the variable is described as the "Mask for UA [University of AZ] SWE Data" I'm fairly certain that the authors of the following papers have more information if necessary (see Section 2 of the first paper for data methods):

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL079621

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EA000174

I'm sorry if this doesn't fully answer your question, but I'm happy to help further!

Kind regards,
Diane

[suetboyd]

Thank you so much for the guidance! This definitely points me in the right direction to explore further. Thanks again.