A Comparative Study of Machine Learning and Deep Learning Models for Long-Term Snow Depth Inversion

Tingyu Lu, Rong Fan, Lijuan Zhang, Qiang Wang, Yufeng Zhao, Lei Wang, Yutao Huang

Snow depth is a critical parameter for characterizing snow dynamics and water resources, and its accurate inversion is essential for hydrological processes, climate studies, and disaster prevention in cold regions. Based on long-term daily ground meteorological observation data from the hydrological years 1961 to 2015 at two meteorological stations in Mohe and Mishan, Heilongjiang Province, China, this study integrates physical parameters of snow density and snow albedo from the ERA5-Land reanalysis data to systematically compare the performance of three machine learning and three deep learning models in retrieving daily snow depth. Four feature combination schemes were designed to evaluate the contributions of meteorological factors, lagged snow depth terms, and snow physical parameters. The results indicate that, for both machine learning and deep learning models, the first-order lagged value of snow depth is the most important variable determining prediction accuracy. In terms of model performance, machine learning methods excelled, with XGBoost performing particularly outstandingly, achieving optimal prediction accuracy and stability under the best feature combination (coefficient of determination, R2, reaching 0.989; root mean square error, RMSE, of 1.19 cm). Among deep learning methods, 1D CNN demonstrated strong local feature extraction capabilities, achieving prediction accuracy comparable to the best-performing machine learning model (R2 of 0.9878, RMSE of 1.26 cm). Notably, models specifically designed for time-series data, such as LSTM (R2 of 0.9848, RMSE of 1.41 cm), and the more complex 1D CNN-LSTM hybrid model (R2 of 0.9803, RMSE of 1.60 cm) did not show significant advantages in this study. This indicates that model complexity and predictive performance are not simply positively correlated. Through comprehensive analysis of data from both stations, this study demonstrates that a prediction framework centered on historical snow depth as the core driving factor, combined with key meteorological elements, is highly robust. Although the inclusion of ERA5-Land snow physical parameters did not significantly improve model accuracy, it provides important insights for the future development of hybrid models that integrate physical mechanisms with data-driven approaches. The findings offer an effective solution for reconstructing long-term snow depth time series and hold significant application value for simulating cryospheric hydrological processes and studying climate change.