Representativeness of Arctic Weather Station Data
for the Computation of Snowmelt in a Small Area
Ming-ko Woo1, Daqing Yang2, and Kathy L. Young3
This study determines how representative the snowmelt values computed using arctic weather sta-
tion data are of the melt in the surrounding area. Simultaneous measurements of meteorological
variables were made at several sites to permit comparisons of their calculated snowmelt with the
weather station at Resolute, Northwest Territories, Canada. Like most other stations, the Resolute
site is located near the coast, at an airport and close to human settlement, making it warmer and its
snow albedo lower than its adjacent sites. Its snowmelt rates are higher than those of a flat site away
from the airport. This latter site has snowmelt conditions more typical of the rolling terrain nearby,
but its melt rates are higher than those for an inland site where the snow remains longer than at the
coastal zone. Through these simultaneous observations and systematic comparisons, this study indi-
cates that the point data from coastal, arctic stations are unlikely to be representative of their sur-
rounding areas. Thus, caution should be exercised when applying such information directly to the
computation of snowmelt for entire grid cells of macro-hydrologic models.
1
School of Geography and Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1 Canada
2
Frontier Research Program for Global Change, Frontier Research Promotion Office, Seavans Building, 7th
Floor, 1-2-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105, Japan
3 Department of Geography, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada
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