Nordicana D86 / DOI : 10.5885/45693CE-02685A5200DD4C38

Meteorological, snow and soil data from Bylot Island, Canadian High Arctic, for driving and testing snow and land surface models

Florent Domine^1,2, Georg Lackner³, Denis Sarrazin², Mathilde Poirier⁴, Maria Belke-Brea¹
¹Takuvik Joint International Laboratory, Université Laval (Canada) & CNRS-INSU (France), Québec, QC G1V 016, Canada
²Centre d’Études Nordiques, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
³Département de génie civil et de génie des eaux, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
⁴Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

Abstract

These data were obtained in an ice-wedge polygonal site in the Canadian high Arctic, in Qarlikturvik valley on Bylot Island at 73.15°N. The site is on herb tundra with no erect vegetation. One important intended use for these data is to drive and test snow physics models and land surface models under high Arctic conditions. Driving data are comprised of air temperature and relative and specific humidity, wind speed, short wave and long wave downwelling radiation, atmospheric pressure and precipitation. Validation data include time series of snow depth, shortwave upwelling radiation, surface temperature, snow temperature profiles, soil temperature and water content profiles, snow thermal conductivity at three heights and soil thermal conductivity at 10 cm depth. Field campaigns in mid-May provided vertical profiles of snow density and specific surface area in the polygon of interest and at other spots in the valley, named Wet0, TUNDRA, Pit3, PLaine 1&2 and Bombe, with coordinates in the associated ESSD paper. These data sets were first uploaded in February 2021 and included monitoring data from 11 July 2013 to 25 June 2019, i.e. 6 years of data. Field data were obtained in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Data files will be updated as more years of data become available.

Data citation

Domine F., Lackner G., Sarrazin D., Poirier M., Belke-Brea M. 2021. Meteorological, snow and soil data from Bylot Island, Canadian High Arctic, for driving and testing snow and land surface models, v. 1.1 (2013-2019). Nordicana D86, doi: 10.5885/45693CE-02685A5200DD4C38.

Location map

Key references

Domine, F., Lackner, G., Sarrazin, D., Poirier, M., and Belke-Brea, M.: Meteorological, snow and soil data (2013–2019) from a herb tundra permafrost site at Bylot Island, Canadian high Arctic, for driving and testing snow and land surface models, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4331–4348, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4331-2021, 2021. DOI: 10.5194/essd-13-4331-2021.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Grant and Northern Research supplement programs), the BNP-Paribas foundation (APT project) and the European Commission (INTAROS project). Logistical support was provided by the Polar Continental Shelf Program and by Sirmilik National Park. We are grateful to Gilles Gauthier and Marie-Christine Cadieux for their decades-long efforts to build and maintain the research base of the Centre d’Etudes Nordiques at Bylot Island. Assistance with field work by Mathieu Barrère, Mikael Gagnon and Marianne Valcourt is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Richard Essery and Cécile Ménard (U. Edinburgh) for expressing interest in this work and encouraging its completion.