Snow cover plays a key role in the arctic ecosystems. Its presence, absence and many characteristics e.g. reflecting and insolating effect and water content, influence the majority of both abiotic and biotic processes occurring within the terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Godthåbsfjorden.

SnowModel is a spatially distributed snow-evolution modeling system which outputs a range of snow parameters; snow depth, snow density and snow cover extent as well as climate parameters (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction) and hydrological parameters e.g. run-off, distributed in time (daily/hourly) and space (30-100m). SnowModel is applied for the area covering the Godthåbsfjord area from coast to ice margin as the first part of Stine Højlund Pedersen’s PhD. studies.

The aim of the fieldwork in April 2013 is to collect validation data for SnowModel i.e. snow depth and snow density in areas representative for the fjord system:

• Kobbefjord, with pronounced topography and valley with well-established monitoring programs within GEM (BioBasis, GeoBasis, ClimateBasis and MarinBasis) observing biotic and abiotic parameters – enables interdisciplinary studies.
• N-S transect along Nordlandet (vegetated and topographically homogeneous area close to the coast)
• E-W transect across Isua (elevated area with sparse vegetation and proximity to the ice margin)

Site: Godthåbsfjorden, Nuuk, Greenland

PI: Mikkel Tamsdorf

Fieldwork summary / photo blog

Link to ARC photo blog