Abstract
Abstract. Prior to the beginning of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Solid Precipitation Inter-Comparison Experiment (SPICE, 2013–2015), two precipitation measurement intercomparison sites were established in Saskatchewan to help assess the systematic bias in the automated gauge measurement of solid precipitation and the impact of wind on the undercatch of snow. Caribou Creek, located in the southern boreal forest, and Bratt's Lake, located in the southern plains, are a contribution to the international SPICE project but also to examine national and regional issues in measuring solid precipitation, including regional assessment of wind bias in precipitation gauges and windshield configurations commonly used in Canadian monitoring networks. Overlapping with WMO-SPICE, the Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) Special Observation and Analysis Period (SOAP) occurred from 2014 to 2015, involving other enhanced observations and cold regions research projects in the same geographical domain as the Saskatchewan SPICE sites. Following SPICE, the two Saskatchewan sites continued to collect core meteorological data (temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc.) as well as precipitation observations via several automated gauge configurations, including the WMO automated reference and the Meteorological Service of Canada's (MSC) network gauges. In addition, manual snow surveys to collect snow cover depth, density, and water equivalent were completed over the duration of the winter periods at the northern Caribou Creek site. Starting in the fall of 2013, the core intercomparison precipitation and ancillary data continued to be collected through the winter of 2017. Automated observations were obtained at a temporal resolution of 1 min, subjected to a rigorous quality control process, and aggregated to a resolution of 30 min. The manual snow surveys at Caribou Creek were typically performed every second week during the SPICE field program with monthly surveys following the end of the SPICE intercomparison period. The Saskatchewan SPICE data are available at https://doi.org/10.18164/63773b5b-5529-4b1e-9150-10acb84d59f0 (Smith and Yang, 2018). The data collected at the Saskatchewan SPICE sites will continue to be useful for transfer function testing, numerical weather prediction and hydrological forecasting verification, ground truth for remote-sensing applications, as well as providing reference precipitation measurements for other concurrent research applications in the cold regions.
Highlights
Cold region hydrology and climatology research and monitoring requires accurate measurements of solid precipitation, which are crucial for water resource forecasting, driving climate and hydrological models, and climate monitoring and trend analysis (Barnett et al, 2005; Gray et al, 2001; Bartlett et al, 2006; Laukkanen, 2004)
The double-fence automated reference (DFAR) configuration consists of a large octagonal double wind fence of the same specifications as used by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Double Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR; Yang et al, 1993; Goodison et al, 1998) only with the DFIR manual Tretyakov precipitation gauge replaced with either a Geonor T-200B or an OTT Pluvio2 automatic precipitation gauge (Fig. 1)
The relative performance of the DFIR can be traced back to the intercomparison between the DFIR and a bushshielded gauge at the Valdai research station in Russia (Yang et al, 1993) where the DFIR was shown to have catch efficiencies of 94 %, 92 %, and 90 % for rain, mixed, and snow respectively compared to the bush gauge
Summary
Cold region hydrology and climatology research and monitoring requires accurate measurements of solid precipitation, which are crucial for water resource forecasting, driving climate and hydrological models, and climate monitoring and trend analysis (Barnett et al, 2005; Gray et al, 2001; Bartlett et al, 2006; Laukkanen, 2004). Sevruk et al, 1991; Goodison et al, 1998) and have resulted in international intercomparison initiatives such as the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Solid Precipitation Measurement Intercomparison (Goodison et al, 1998) and the Solid Precipitation Inter-Comparison Experiment (SPICE; Rasmussen et al, 2012; Nitu et al, 2012) The objectives of these intercomparisons were to examine the relative systematic biases of a variety of instrument configurations and to provide solutions for adjusting and homogenizing solid precipitation data such as in Yang et al (1998, 2005), Sevruk et al (2009), Wolff et al (2015), and Kochendorfer et al (2017a, b, 2018). Nitu and Roulet (2016) showed that intercomparisons between the DFIR and DFAR during SPICE yielded a DFAR catch efficiency of approximately 92 % Another requirement of SPICE for sites operating a DFAR reference was the inclusion of an Alter-shielded and unshielded gauge pair, either Geonor T-200B or OTT Pluvio.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
