Evaluation of gridded precipitation for norway using glacier mass-balance measurements

The service seNorge ( http://senorge.no ) provides gridded temperature and precipitation for mainland Norway. The products are provided as interpolated station measurements on a 1×1 km grid. Precipitation gauges are predominantly located at lower elevations such as coastal areas and valleys. Therefo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geografiska annaler. Series A, Physical geography Physical geography, 2012-12, Vol.94 (4), p.501-509
Main Authors: ENGELHARDT, MARKUS, SCHULER, THOMAS VIKHAMAR, ANDREASSEN, LISS MARIE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altitude
Bgi / Prodig
Europe
Glacial landforms
Glacier mass balance
Glaciers
gridded precipitation
Ice caps
Mass balance
Norway
Physical geography
Precipitation
Scandinavian States. Finland
seNorge
Snow
Topographical elevation
Valley glaciers
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Summary:The service seNorge ( http://senorge.no ) provides gridded temperature and precipitation for mainland Norway. The products are provided as interpolated station measurements on a 1×1 km grid. Precipitation gauges are predominantly located at lower elevations such as coastal areas and valleys. Therefore, there are large uncertainties in extrapolating precipitation data to higher altitudes, both due to sparsity of observations as well as the large spatial variability of precipitation in mountainous regions. Using gridded temperature and precipitation data from seNorge, surface mass balance was modeled for five Norwegian glaciers of different size and climate conditions. The model accounts for melting of snow and ice by applying a degree-day approach and considers refreezing assuming a snow depth depended storage. Calculated values are compared to point measurements of glacier winter mass balance. On average for each glacier, modeled and measured surface mass-balance evolutions agree well, but results at individual stake locations show large variability. Two types of problems were identified: first, grid data were not able to capture spatial mass balance variability at smaller glaciers. Second, a significant increase in the bias between model and observations with altitude for one glacier suggested that orographic enhancement of precipitation was not appropriately captured by the gridded interpolation.
ISSN:0435-3676
1468-0459
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-0459.2012.00473.x