Improved Snow-Covered Forest Bidirectional Reflectance Model Incorporating Canopy-Intercepted Snow and Atmospheric Effects

Snow-covered forests are widely distributed in middle- and high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere and have significant impacts on global climate change and albedo feedback. However, knowledge of the radiative transfer mechanism in snow–canopy–atmosphere systems is insufficient. Existing bidirectional reflectance models often oversimplify, assuming that snow only persists on the floor, and neglect the interactions between the atmosphere and snow-covered forests. In our previous snow-covered forest bidirectional reflectance (SFBR) model, we considered ground snow, the concentration of soot pollution, needle leaf characteristics, and discontinuous canopy distributions. Furthermore, this study proposed an improved snow-covered forest bidirectional reflectance (SFBR2) model by considering canopy-intercepted snow (CIS) and atmospheric effects. Specifically, the SFBR2 model was constructed by a series of analytical models for CIS, ground snow (asymptotic radiative transfer (ART) snow model), soil [brightness shape moisture (BSM)], needle leaf [leaf incorporating biochemistry exhibiting reflectance and transmittance yields (LIBERTY)], canopy [two-layer version of four-stream scattering by arbitrarily inclined leaves (4SAIL2)], and atmosphere [simplified method for atmospheric correction (SMAC)], in which the CIS is parameterized by snow optical properties and two-stream theory, and the interaction between the atmosphere and snow-covered forests is optimized by a four-stream theory. It makes the model able to simulate the reflectance at the top of the canopy/atmosphere (TOC/TOA). Validations against 3-D large-scale remote sensing data and image simulation framework over heterogeneous 3-D scenes (LESS) model, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) observations, and MODIS data indicated a good consistency with SFBR2 model in the reflectance simulation. The established model has the ability to simulate the bidirectional reflectance of different snow-covered forest scenes whether CIS exists or not. Potential applications include satellite signal simulation, radiation mechanism analysis, and parameter inversion in snow-covered forests.