Estimating Daily Snow Density Through a Spatiotemporal Random Forest Model

Snow density is of paramount importance in water resource management, snow avalanche warning, and climate change research. However, the lack of competent methods for long‐term and vast‐scale snow density mapping persists due to the intricate spatiotemporal dependencies inherent in snow density, resulting in scarce and inaccurate snow density products. To address this challenge, a spatiotemporal random forest (STRF) model is constructed by leveraging in‐situ measurements, multisource remote sensing, and reanalysis data. It tackles the spatiotemporal dependencies in snow density arising from its inherent heterogeneity and the relations involving snow density and nonlinearly connected meteorological, terrain, vegetation, and snow‐related factors. The effectiveness of the model is substantiated through rigorous validation methods, including random, temporal, and spatial block cross‐validations as well as independent validation, apparently surpassing ERA5‐Land snow density. The estimated snow density is also demonstrated to be able to improve existing snow water equivalent data set using fixed snow density. Utilizing the proposed model, a data set of daily 25‐km snow density from 1980 to 2018 is constructed for stable snow cover areas in China, which holds significant potential for research and applications in the realm of snow hydrology. Plain Language Summary Snow density plays a crucial role in managing water resources and issuing snow avalanche warnings. Snow density exhibits great spatiotemporal dependent structure due to its spatiotemporal heterogeneity and its relations with various influencing factors, which pose challenges to mapping long‐term and large‐scale snow density. This leads to a scarcity of accurate snow density products. To tackle this issue, we develope a spatiotemporal random forest (STRF) model by combining ground measurements, remote sensing sources, and reanalysis data. Notably, our model shows impressive results apparently outperforming the ERA5‐Land snow density data set. Our estimated snow density can also enhance existing snow water equivalent data set that rely on fixed snow density. Using our model, we produce a data set of daily 25‐km snow density from 1980 to 2018 for stable snow cover areas in China. This data set holds significant potential for research and practical applications in the field of snow hydrology. Key Points A spatiotemporal random forest (STRF) model is proposed for estimating large‐scale and long‐term snow dens