Snowfall Measurements at a Boreal Forest Site in Saskatchewan/Canada: Contribution to WMO Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (SPICE)

Abstract:

Snowfall is important to cold region climate and hydrology including Canada. Large uncertainties and biases exist in gauge-measured precipitation datasets and products. These uncertainties affect important decision-making, water resources assessments, climate change analyses, and calibrations of remote sensing algorithms and land surface models. Efforts have been made at both the national and international levels to quantity the errors/biases in precipitation measurements, such as the WMO Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (WMO-SPICE). As part of Canada’s contribution to the WMO SPICE project, a test site has been set up in the southern Canadian Boreal forest to compare the DFIR and bush gauge and test other instruments. Snowfall and meteorological data have been collected over the past 2 winters. This presentation will summarize the results of recent data analyses, evaluate the performance of various gauges for snowfall observations in the northern regions, and discuss future perspectives regarding cold/mountain region precipitation research. The methods and results of this research will improve precipitation measurements and data quality over the cold and mountain regions, directly supporting the WMO SPICE and the MOUNTerrain projects.