ORIGINAL ARTICLE Two-year comparative study of snow cover dynamics and its impact factors on glacier surface Junfeng Liu 1 • Rensheng Chen 1 • Chuntan Han 1 • Wenwu Qing 2 Received: 29 March 2015 / Accepted: 5 September 2015 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract Snow cover on glacial surfaces is a sensitive environmental indicator. However, it is difficult to differ- entiate snow cover from a bare ice surface, and snow cover also changes rapidly during the melt season. Monitoring these dynamics requires sufficient time and spatial resolu- tion; thus, traditional satellite data lack the necessary spa- tial resolution and rarely used to monitoring snow cover on glacier surface, which induced monitoring of snow dynamics on glacier is more challenging. Time-lapse photography has the advantage of obtaining images with high time and spatial resolution. By using an automated time-lapse digital camera, this paper documents two suc- cessive years snow cover dynamics on the Shiyi glacier and compared the meteorological conditions which induced different melt conditions. Monitoring indicate that the 2012 melt season experienced a higher snow cover fraction than the 2013 melt season because of a greater accumulated snow depth, lower air temperature and fewer sunlight hours. Successive photographs also indicate that, on the Shiyi glacier, atmospheric dust accelerates the snow melt speed and attenuates the snow depth. For the bare ice surface, the effects of atmospheric dust were reduced because the dusts were composed of Fine particles and are more easily washed away by melt water or rain. Studies on the Shiyi glacier indicate that the snow cover fraction is a key parameter that indicates the status of glacial accumu- lation or ablation. Keywords Snow cover Á Shiyi glacier Á Ground-based photography Á Qilian Mountains Introduction The distribution of snow on a glacier surface overtime is an important parameter for the study of glacier. Knowledge of the extent of snow cover provides valuable insight into the mass balance of glaciers during the melt season (Jaenicke et al. 2006; Huang et al. 2011). For example, the snow- covered fraction or accumulation area ratio at the end of melt season can be used to indicate the positive or negative mass balance conditions (Jaenicke et al. 2006). In addition, the snow cover and ice surface exhibit different radiation properties, which affect the surface melt and the hydro- logical budget of the glacier (Shi and Dozier 1995; Bernard et al. 2013). Monitoring the snow cover dynamics on a glacier surface can aid in the parameterization of albedo on the surface. Besides, the detailed monitoring of snow and ice melt dynamics on glacier can assist the discrimination of snow or ice hydrological contributions. Given the importance of understanding the distribution of snow on a glacier, many studies on this topic have been undertaken in recent years. Huang et al. (2013), Ko ¨ ng et al. (2001), and de Ruyter et al. (2002) used synthetic aperture radar data to monitor glacier zones, transient snowline and the firn line changes, and Jaenicke et al. (2006) used space- borne optical and radar data for continuous glacier mass balance monitoring in southern Iceland. However, satellite imagery is insufficient for monitoring the snow/ice dynamics of a mountainous basin at a daily or even finer & Junfeng Liu jfliu121@163.com 1 Qilian Alpine Ecology and Hydrology Research Station, Key Laboratory of Inland River Ecohydrology, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Donggang Road 320, Lanzhou 730000, China 2 Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 73000, China 123 Environ Earth Sci (2016)75:197 DOI 10.1007/s12665-015-5075-2