Hydrometeorological data from Marmot Creek Research Basin, Canadian Rockies

Abstract

Abstract. Meteorological, snow survey, streamflow, and groundwater data are presented from Marmot Creek Research Basin, Alberta, Canada. The basin is a 9.4 km2, alpine-montane forest headwater catchment of the Saskatchewan River Basin that provides vital water supplies to the Prairie Provinces of Canada. It was heavily instrumented, experimented upon and operated by several federal government agencies between 1962 and 1986, during which time its main and sub-basin streams were gauged, automated meteorological stations at multiple elevations were installed, groundwater observation wells were dug and automated, and frequent manual measurements of snow accumulation and ablation and other weather and water variables were made. Over this period, mature evergreen forests were harvested in two sub-basins, leaving large clear-cuts in one basin and a "honeycomb" of small forest clearings in another basin. Whilst meteorological measurements and sub-basin streamflow discharge weirs in the basin were removed in the late 1980s, the federal government maintained the outlet streamflow discharge measurements and a nearby high elevation meteorological station, and the Alberta provincial government maintained observation wells and a nearby fire weather station. Marmot Creek Research Basin was intensively re-instrumented with 12 automated meteorological stations, four sub-basin hydrometric sites and seven snow survey transects starting in 2004 by the University of Saskatchewan Centre for Hydrology. The observations provide detailed information on meteorology, precipitation, soil moisture, snowpack, streamflow, and groundwater during the historical period from 1962 to 1987 and the modern period from 2005 to the present time. These data are ideal for monitoring climate change, developing hydrological process understanding, evaluating process algorithms and hydrological, cryospheric or atmospheric models, and examining the response of basin hydrological cycling to changes in climate, extreme weather, and land cover through hydrological modelling and statistical analyses. The data presented are publicly available from Federated Research Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.20383/101.09).

Characterizing Maritime Snow Canopy Interception in Forested Mountains

“…The second site is the MCRB located in the Canadian Rockies (Figure 1). The maritime environment of the Oregon Cascades is contrasted with the intermountain snow regime in the MCRB (Fang et al, 2018;Trujillo & Molotch, 2014). Both site locations are well instrumented, have extensive snow monitoring data sets that cover a broad range of snow accumulation and ablation values and extremes, and a well characterized forest making these two locations ideal for snow-forest process evaluation.…”

“…The MCRB was created in 1960 to investigate relationships between forest, soil, climate, and water and the effects of forest management practices on water quantity and quality (Fang et al, 2018). It is located on the eastern slope of the Canadian Rockies and is the headwaters of the Bow River Basin, a major tributary to the Saskatchewan River (Figure 1).…”

Multi-scale snowdrift-permitting modelling of mountain snowpack

“…Short shrubs and low vegetation are present near treeline whereas exposed rock surfaces, talus and grasses are found in the highest alpine elevations. The Kananaskis Valley hosts several meteorological stations that are part of the University of Saskatchewan's Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory (CRHO; https://research-groups.usask.ca/hydrology/science/research-facilities/crho.php) and is active for research in snow hydrology (e.g., MacDonald et al, 2010;Musselman et al, 2015;Pomeroy et al, 2012;Fang et al, 2019;Fang and Pomeroy, 2020). More details about these meteorological stations are given in Sect.…”

“…Hourly meteorological data collected at CRHO stations were used to evaluate the precipitation and wind fields driving CHM (Table 3). These stations include those in Marmot Creek Research Basin (Fang et al, 2019) and Fortress Mountain Snow…”

“…In this study, TPI was defined as in Winstral et al (2017) and consists of the difference between each station's elevation on a 50-m raster minus the mean of all pixel elevations located within a 2km radius from the station. Hourly meteorological data were obtained from quality-controlled 15-min observations using the same method as in Fang et al (2019). In particular, solid precipitation data were corrected from wind-induced undercatch using the method proposed by Smith (2007).…”