Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-413
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-413
18 Feb 2025
 | 18 Feb 2025

SPASS – new gridded climatological snow datasets for Switzerland: Potential and limitations

Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski

Abstract. Gridded information on the past, present and future state of the surface snow cover is an indispensable climate service for any snow-dominated region like the Alps. Here, we present and evaluate the first long-term gridded datasets of modeled daily snow water equivalent and snow depth, which are available for the last 60+ years (since 1962) at 1 km spatial resolution over Switzerland. The comparison against a higher quality, but shorter model dataset shows on the one hand a good performance regarding bias and correlation and on the other hand acceptable absolute and relative errors except for ephemeral snow and for shorter time aggregations like weeks. The comparison against in-situ station data for yearly, monthly and weekly aggregated values at different elevation bands demonstrates only slightly better performance scores for the higher quality dataset, which demonstrates the good performance of the quantile-mapping method which was used to produce the long-term climatological from the higher quality dataset. A trend analysis of yearly mean snow depth from this gridded climatological- and from station-based data revealed a very good agreement on direction and significance at all elevations. However, at the lowest elevations the strength of the decreasing trend in snow depth is clearly overestimated by the gridded datasets. Moreover, a comparison of the trends between individual stations and the corresponding grid points revealed a few cases of larger disagreements in direction and strength of the trend. All these results imply that the performance of the new snow datasets is generally encouraging but can vary at low elevations, at single grid points or for short time windows. Therefore, despite some limitations, the new gridded snow products show promise as they provide high-quality and spatially high-resolution information of snow water equivalent and snow depth, which is of great value for typical climatological products like anomaly maps or elevation dependent long-term trend analysis.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

20 Oct 2025
SPASS – new gridded climatological snow datasets for Switzerland: potential and limitations
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski
The Cryosphere, 19, 4391–4407, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4391-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4391-2025, 2025
Short summary
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-413', Michael Matiu, 12 Mar 2025
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Christoph Marty, 30 Apr 2025
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-413', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 Mar 2025
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Christoph Marty, 30 Apr 2025

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-413', Michael Matiu, 12 Mar 2025
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Christoph Marty, 30 Apr 2025
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-413', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 Mar 2025
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Christoph Marty, 30 Apr 2025

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (01 May 2025) by Chris Derksen
AR by Christoph Marty on behalf of the Authors (26 Jun 2025)  Author's response   Author's tracked changes   Manuscript 
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Jun 2025) by Chris Derksen
RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (07 Jul 2025)
RR by Michael Matiu (11 Jul 2025)
ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (20 Jul 2025) by Chris Derksen
AR by Christoph Marty on behalf of the Authors (25 Jul 2025)  Author's response   Manuscript 

Journal article(s) based on this preprint

20 Oct 2025
SPASS – new gridded climatological snow datasets for Switzerland: potential and limitations
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski
The Cryosphere, 19, 4391–4407, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4391-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4391-2025, 2025
Short summary
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski

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Latest update: 20 Oct 2025
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Short summary
This work presents the first long-term (since 1962), daily, 1 km gridded dataset of snow depth and water storage for Switzerland. Its quality was assessed by comparing yearly, monthly, and weekly values to a higher-quality model and in-situ measurements. Results show good overall performance, though some limitations exist at low elevations and short timescales. Despite this, the dataset effectively captures trends, offering valuable insights for climate monitoring and elevation-based changes.
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