Name
Analysis of a long-term hydrometeorological dataset from the taiga-tundra ecotone in the western Canadian Arctic: Laurier Trail Valley Creek Research Watershed
Date & Time
Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 11:45 AM - 12:00 PM
Description
As the Arctic climate changes, there is a growing need for an increased understanding of the Arctic environment, how it is changing and how it will change in the coming decades. With a sparse observational network in the Arctic, high quality, long-term records, with datasets targeting characteristics of snow, hydrology, vegetation, sub-surface thermal properties of the permafrost, and fluxes of water and energy, are invaluable. The Laurier Trail Valley Creek (TVC) Arctic Research Station, approximately 50 km north of Inuvik (NT, Canada) in the low Arctic tundra, has a unique data set with snow, discharge and climate data that began in 1979. This data set is publicly available from the Laurier Borealis data repository and is beneficial to research communities working on Arctic tundra environments for various purposes such as the assessment of climate change impacts, and/or enhancing physics-based land surface and hydrology models.
We present a detailed statistical analysis using extreme indices on the available data to examine the collected hydrometeorological variables, snow on the ground at the end of winter, the distribution of snow over different terrain and vegetation types, and streamflow observations. Open access to this diverse dataset will help improve our understanding of integrated controlling processes in the Arctic, how the environment has changed in in the taiga-tundra ecotone, and help drive permafrost and hydrological models under future climate scenarios.
Location Name
DSU 303
Full Address
Dalhousie University
Halifax NS
Canada
Halifax NS
Canada
Session Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract ID
369
Speaker Organization
Wilfrid Laurier University
Session Name
H7 (1 of 4)
Co-authors
Rosy Tutton, Government of Yukon; Brampton Dakin, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University; Richard Essery, University of Edinburgh; Jory Griffith, McGill University; Gabriel Hould-Gosselin, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University; A Fogal, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University; Branden Walker, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University; Philip Marsh, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University; Oliver Sonnentag, Université de Montréal.
Presenting Author
Robin Thorne, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University