Djankuat Glacier Station in the North Caucasus, Russia: A Database of complex glaciological, hydrological, meteorological observations and stable isotopes sampling results during 2007-2017

Abstract

Abstract. The study presents a dataset on long-term complex glaciological, hydrological, meteorological observations and isotopes sampling in an extremely underreported alpine zone of the North Caucasus. The Djankuat research basin is of 9.1 km2, situated on elevations between 2500–4000 m, by 30 % covered with glaciers. The biggest in the basin – the Djankuat glacier was chosen as representative of the central North Caucasus during the International Hydrological Decade and is one of 30 "reference" glaciers in the world that have annual mass balance series longer than 50 years (Zemp et al., 2009). The dataset covers 2007–2017 and contains the result of yearly measurements of snow thickness and density; dynamics of snow and ice melting; measurements of water runoff, conductivity, turbidity, temperature, δ18O, δ2H on the main gauging station (844 samples in sum) with a one-hour or several-hours step depending on the parameter; data on δ18O and δ2H sampling of liquid precipitation, snow, ice, firn, groundwater in different parts of the watershed regularly in time during melting season (485 samples in sum); precipitation amount, air temperature, relative humidity, shortwave incoming and reflected radiation, longwave downward and upward radiation, atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction – measured on several automatic weather stations within the basin with 15 min – one-hour step; gradient meteorological measurements to estimate turbulent fluxes of heat and moisture, measuring three components of wind speed at a frequency of 10 hertz to estimate the turbulent impulse heat fluxes over the glacier surface by the eddy covariance method. All the observations were done during ablation period (June–September) and were interrupted in winter. The dataset was published on knb.ecoinformatics.org long-term repository doi:https://doi.org/10.5063/F1H1307Q and will be further updated. The dataset can be useful for developing and verifying hydrological, glaciological and meteorological models for high elevation territories, to study impact of climate change on hydrology of mountain regions, using isotopic and hydrochemical approaches to study mountain territories. As the dataset includes the measurements of hydrometeorological and glaciological parameters during the catastrophic proglacial lake outburst in the neighboring Bashkara valley in September 2017, it is a valuable contribution to the study of this dangerous hydrological phenomena.