Precipitation measurements and snow surveys in the Pyramiden and Barentsburg areas, RiS ID 10946

The Arctic freshwater budget is driven primarily by precipitation. Accurate evaluation of precipitation is crucial for a variety of reasons, such as verification of numerical weather forecast, hydrological and climate models. Spring snow surveys and further data analysis could make possible to obtain data of annual precipitation and reconstruct long-term data series of annual precipitation in this inner part if Spitsbergen archipelago. Fieldwork is planned in Pyramiden, Barentsburg and Aldegonda glacier from the end of April to beginning of May 2018, before the snow melt period has started and the possibility of fresh snow fall is small. It is also important to install a simple portable precipitation gauge in Pyramiden, which will work in standalone mode for one year. A comparison of the data will be done. For the Barentsburg area, three sources of precipitation data will be used: results of snow surveys; station data (Tretyakov gauge); and output from the ERA Interim reanalysis. Comparison of the maximum values of snow accumulation on the glacier of Aldegonda (snow survey) with the data of the Barentsburg point (the Tretyakov gauge) will also be done. The results of this comparison will indicate to which degree precipitation estimation based on three different techniques give a realistic measure for "true precipitation" under harsh Arctic climate conditions. For Pyramiden, a comparison between snow survey results and reanalysis data will be done in the first run. A more thorough analysis will be done when the data from the standalone precipitation gauge are in after one year of measurements.