Climate and ablation observations from automatic ablation and weather stations at A. P. Olsen Ice Cap transect, NE Greenland, May 2008 through May 2022

• Main Authors: Larsen, Signe Hillerup, Binder, Daniel, Rutishauser, Anja, Hynek, Bernhard, Fausto, Robert Schjøtt, Citterio, Michele
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Greenland; Ice cap; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-444; https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2023-444/

The negative surface mass balance of glaciers and ice caps under a warming climate impacts local ecosystems, influencing the volume and timing of water flow in local catchments, while also contributing to global sea level rise. Peripheral glaciers distinct to the Greenland ice sheet respond faster to climate change than the main ice sheet. Accurate assessment of surface mass balance depends on in-situ observations of near-surface climate and ice ablation, but very few in-situ observations of near-surface climate and ice ablation are freely available for Greenland’s peripheral glaciers. The transect of three automated weather and ablation stations on the peripheral A. P. Olsen ice cap in northeast Greenland is an example of this much needed data. The transect has been monitored since 2008, and in 2022 the old weather and ablation stations were replaced by a new standardized setup. In order to ensure comparable data quality from the old and new monitoring station setups, it was necessary to re-evaluate the data collected between 2008 and 2022. This paper presents the fully reprocessed near-surface climate and ablation data from the A. P. Olsen ice cap transect from 2008 to 2022, with a focus on data quality and the usability for ice ablation process studies. The usability and some quality issues are exemplified by using the data in an energy balance melt model for two different years. We showed that the inherent uncertainties of the data resulted in an accurate reproduction of ice ablation for just one of the two years. A transect of three automatic ablation and weather stations of this length is unique for Greenland’s peripheral glaciers and it has a broad scale of usage from input to climate reanalysis to detailed surface ablation studies. The dataset can be downloaded here: https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/X9X9GN (Larsen and Citterio, 2023). Future refinements will be uploaded as new versions and the continuation of the transect time series are available via https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/IW73UU ...