This was from a Science Olympiad remote sensing test. I know that each will reflect different wavelengths of light and that there's also a lot of overlap...I just don't really know what the exact (or approximate) differences are.
1 Answer
The key between clouds and snow / ice is visible in this illustration:
Depending on the specific sensor, different elements from the wavelengths can be utilized.
As for differentiating 'snow' & 'ice', it becomes much more difficult. 'Glacier ice' is quiet different from 'sea ice', which is again very different from 'freshwater ice / lake ice'. As such, with no additional information on the exact topic, the answer either has to focus on one case, or simply focus on workarounds to circumvent the nitty-gritty details. One possible "answer" would be to assert that ice is surface water that has turned solid, and then rely on water body mapping.
answered Apr 19, 2018 at 17:13
