WECC Observatory: Western Canadian Arctic Trail Valley Creek & Havikpak Creek Philip Marsh

Transcription

1 WECC Observatory: Western Canadian Arctic Trail Valley Creek & Havikpak Creek Philip Marsh Wilfrid Laurier University (& Environment Canada) + Numerous collaborators: Bill Quinton, Jenn Baltzer, Daqing Yang, Chris Derksen, John Pomeroy, Aaron Berg, Stephano Endrizzi, Oliver Sonnentag, Torsten Sachs, Phi Wookey, Trevor Lantz

2 1. WECC Location Most northerly CCRN study sites MRB SRB TVC Inuvik Aklavik HPC TVC Trail Valley Ck Ft. McPherson Tsigehtchic

3 2. Regional Characterization Permafrost: ground with a temperature below 0C for more than two years Study Region Continuous ice rich Permafrost % ice content >20 <20 <10 Continuous Discontinuous Sporadic Isolated Subsea

4 Example of ice rich permafrost Vertical air photo of ice wedges Ice wedge Tabular ice 10 m Typically very high volumes of ground ice. Average is greater than 20% by volume in upper m.

5 TVC vegetation cover Tundra (<0.5 m): 83.4% Low Shrub (<1.25 m): 10.8% High Shrub (<3.0 m): 5.4% Trees (>3.0 m): 0.4% Basin is 55 km 2 NWRI (TMM) and MSC station WSC TVC discharge TUP Lake Tundra station Lake basin discharge Shrub station (vegetation height from high resolution LiDAR data)

6 Trail Valley Creek topography NWRI (TMM) and MSC station WSC TVC discharge TUP Lake Tundra station Shrub station

7 3. Data Collection TVC: 21+ year data set includes At 2 sites with tundra vegetation and tall shrub site soil temperature soil moisture (TDR) air temperature & RH wind speed & direction Incoming/outgoing short and long wave radiation weighing precipitation gauges eddy covariance for key periods (sensible, latent, carbon) Oliver Sonnentag has taken over these sites, this year and is carrying out full calibration on site and/or in Inuvik Basin wide Lidar + satellite images + repeat aerial photography end of winter snow surveys (terrain based) Satellite and air photos during melt period for SCA aircraft based eddy correlations (melt and summer) Aircraft passive microwave est. of end of winter snow continuous streamflow measurements TVC MSC Weather station at TVC WSC streamflow Havikpak Creek 1 met tower at a forested site with similar observations as at TVC MSC weather station and upper air station at HPC WSC streamflow

8 Tundra Main Met and MSC station Trail Valley Creek Shrub SPICE Site Siksik Creek WSC TVC discharge Tundra station SPICE Site Shrub Forest Drift

9 Siksik Creek sub basin 1 km 2 sub basin of Trail Valley Creek 1 met station integrated process studies to date (hillslope runoff studies, snow, radiation, turbulent fluxes) Detailed carbon flux studies (Phil Wookey (UK), Oliver Sonnetag (UQM)

10 Field observations May 23 SCA Snow surveys Flux measurements, Soil temp + moisture TVC Tundra (TMM) TVC Tundra (TMM) May % TVC Shrub (TTS) TVC Shrub (TTS) May % May % NRC Twin Otter flux aircraft 20.2%

11 Snow Surveys End of winter vegetation and terrain based snow surveys were conducted at: Trail Valley Creek over many years coordinated with additional drift, tundra, and aircraft microwave surveys in 2008 by Chris Dirksen of Env. Canada during IPY, and aircraft radar observations in 2012/13 Currently working to combine the two detailed data sets for a complete of end of winter snow distribution.

12 Digital Snow Pillow for use in shallow snowpacks Wind, Temp/RH Snowfall (GEONOR) Cosmic Ray SPICE Site Joint IPY project with Matthew Sturm at USA CRREL, Fairbanks

13 Snow accumulation and soil temperature Tundra - tundra site - shrub tundra site - drift site Slope drift location South-east facing slope 1 yr of data, followed by 2 years of 6m+ snow that destroyed all of the towers and sensors. Decided to change methods.

14 Ground Based Lidar to better estimate drift snow

15 Airborne X and Ku Band SAR PI Chris Dersken, Env. Canada; J. King, A. Coccia, M. Sturm, and others

16 Cosmic Ray observations of Soil Moisture and Snow Water Equivalent Provides average SM or SWE over: Radius of 350 m Depth of 50+ cm 4 sites installed in TVC/HPC

17 Currently conducting a soil moisture campaign at both TVC and HPC Collecting Radarsat images Soil moisture from Cosmic Ray sensors and GPS multipath observations Intensive field observations of soil moisture (2 cm and 20 cm integrated observations; soil samples for gravimetric analysis) Will provide data to calibrate Cosmic Ray Sensors as well as comparison to Radarsat

18 Cosmic Ray Snow Water Equivalent at a point Buried at the snow soil interface Provides SWE above the sensor over a small footprint

19 Cosmic Ray systems installed in April 2013 Havikpak Creek Forested site (main met station) Trail Valley Creek Tundra short shrub site (main met station) Open forest site Tundra site (upper plateau)

20 Towers Upgrade all towers at TVC and HPC For flux observations of water, energy and carbon Sites to be (hopefully) upgraded soon via funds from EC and CFI. HPC 15 m tower at Main Met Site TVC 10 m tower at Main Met tundra + shrub mixed site 15 m tower at High Shrub Site 5 m tower at Upper Plateau tundra site Towers will likely be installed with 15 m deep well casings which will allow installation of thermistors, or other sensors, for monitoring permafrost conditions.

21 May 14 May 26 June 2 SPOT and air photographs (2008) May % May % June % 4% Change in Snow Covered Area (SC) May 23 May % 81.2% 20.8% 20.2% May 27 May % 3.0% June 4 June 11 Fraction of area May 2008 SPOT Air photos 54.3% 10.0% 1% - next step we will do a similar analysis for smaller, say 1x1km areas of the basin

22 Mackenzie GEWEX Study (MAGS) NRC Twin Otter Flux Aircraft Parameters - Air temperature - Incident short wave - Reflected short wave - Infrared surface temp - Calculated net rad. - Sensible heat flux - Latent heat flux aircraft observations TVC Tower

23 Spatially variable fluxes MAGS Aircraft Flux data Sensible heat (W/m 2 ): 3km x 3km grids from aircraft flux measurements May 27, 1999 Potentially new aircraft flux data from Torsten Sachs, Germany using Polar 5 aircraft. There is considerable opportunity for future collaboration with Torsten Sachs in future years. We also have surface temperature data from the aircraft and are comparing this to model estimates

24 Peat thickness Siksik Creek sub basin Peat thickness is extremely important as it is highly permeable in the upper layers, with the hydraulic conductivity decreasing with depth by 2 orders of magnitude over a 20 cm depth, and it overlies less permeable mineral soil. position of the frost table, and its change over the summer, is important as it is the major control on hillslope drainage. there is a need for improved peat thickness mapping over Siksik Creek and TVC/HPC

25 Shrub properties vs. latitude Latitude TVC Proportion of study plot Mean Patch size (m 2 ) Lantz, 2008

26 Increase in shrub growth Sites to the East Side of the Mackenzie Delta from Inuvik to the Beaufort Sea Lantz However, shrub expansion is not uniform across the landscape Mostly alder

27 TVC Patchy shrub vegetation Used as an example of what the entire basin will be like in the future Tundra Typical of patchy shrub as the region transitions from tundra to full shrub tundra 200 m 1000 m Shrub patch Initiated by tundra fire Shrub patches Smaller patches are more common, and are typical across the research region Contolled by various complex processes of soil moisture and nutrients for example, and dependent to some degree on topographic location

28 Shrub patch and thermokarst initiation Note Vertical Exaggeration 55 m 80 m 0 m 0 m Results in increased active layer depth, melting of ground ice, surface slumping, increased water storage in the active layer, and potential fill and spill type subsurface topography across the landscape

29 Targeted CCRN Studies Maintain high quality data collection Snow accumulation: focus will be in large drifts and snow patches Target soil moisture content studies in key vegetation types Consider integrated effects of vegetation snow energy balance active layer depth thermokarst soil water storage runoff

30 Challenges Funding one more year of EC/PERD funing (ie 2013/14), and still building a program at Laurier. Cost of remote site with helicopter only access CFI funding (if ORF is approved) will contribute additional instrumentation over next year or two. Data archiving Currently a major limitation No previous funding to put the TVC/HPC data (met, discharge, remote sensing) into an integrated data base Want to work with CCRN and Env. Canada to ensure data is widely available. Potential collaboration with 3 different NASA funded projects (ABOVE, + two others)