Representativeness of arctic weather station data for the computation of snowmelt in a small area

This study determines how representative the snowmelt values computed using arctic weather station data are of the melt in its surrounding area. Simul taneous measurements of meteorological variables were made at several sites to permit comparisons of their calculated snowmelt with the weather statio n at Resolute, Northwest Territories, Canada. Like mast 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 si tes. Snowmelt rates at Resolute are higher than that of a flat site away fr om the airport. This latter site has snowmelt conditions more typical of th e rolling terrain nearby, but its melt rates are higher than those for an i nland 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 surrounding areas. Thus, caution should be exercise d when applying such information directly to the computation of snowmelt fo r entire grid cells of macro-hydrologic models. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wil ey & Sons, Ltd.