The project aim is to monitor some target lakes and detect the extent of ice, the duration of lake ice and in particular the ice-on/off dates, with focus on the integration of various input data and processing methods. Thereby, various approaches will be implemented, developed, compared and integrated. Firstly, low spatial resolution (250 - 1000 m) but high temporal resolution (1 day) satellite images from various sensors will be used. Several spectral bands will be used, both reflective and emissive (thermal). Secondly, and as a pilot project, the use of existing Webcams will be investigated for (a) validation of results from satellite data, and (b) independent estimation of lake ice, especially for small lakes that cannot be detected in the satellite images. Thirdly, in-situ measurements will be made in order to characterize the development of the temperature profiles before freezing and under the ice-cover until melting. Besides the validation of the results from other data, this data will be used to calibrate a one-dimensional turbulence model so that the criteria for freezing of different Swiss lakes can be derived as a function of meteorological and other conditions in late autumn and winter. It is expected that the developed methods and software can be used, possibly with some modifications, also for data acquired in the future. The project is a feasibility study, which should lead to a comparison and analysis of the above three techniques and recommendations to MeteoSwiss for further actions.
