Application of a snow particle counter to solid precipitation measurements under Arctic conditions

Abstract

Abstract To develop a more reliable means for measuring precipitation in the Arctic, daily solid precipitation in Barrow, Alaska, was measured from October 24, 2002 to January 14, 2003 using a Double-Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR), which is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reference standard for solid precipitation measurements. Furthermore, a new approach using a snow particle counter (SPC) that outputs the number flux of snow particles without directly catching them was introduced. The correction procedures for wind, wetting, evaporation losses, and trace amounts were applied on a daily basis to the DFIR precipitation. The total corrected DFIR precipitation (61.35 mm) was found to be 1.47 times the uncorrected measurement (41.65 mm). The SPC-estimated precipitation measurements correlate well (r2 = 0.72) with the corrected DFIR measurements, suggesting that precipitation gauges that do not directly catch snow particles are effective in low-precipitation areas such as the polar regions.