Snow precipitation variability in the west alps in Italy: evaluation of an algorithm for the survey of snow cover through satellite images

Snow cover greatly influences the climate in the Alpine region and it is one of the most important factors in the analysis of the climate change because of its interconnections with other phenomena: the different distribution and amount of snow precipitation during the winter season influence energy, radiation and hydrologic budgets, as well as atmospheric circulation. In this paper the results of the analysis of snow precipitations in North-West Italy in the period 2000-2009 are presented: nivometric measurements performed in 10 automatic meteorological stations of ARPA Piemonte Network were used. In the studying of Alpine climatology satellite data can be exploited to achieve information on temporal and spatial variability of snow cover extent: for this purpose MSG's SEVIRI snow cover algorithm was evaluated for 19 cases of study in the period 2007-2009 using at-ground stations.