Abteilung Mikrometeorologie

Recent climate warming in the Arctic requires improvements in permafrost and carbon cycle monitoring, accomplished here by setting up long-term observation sites with high-quality in situ measurements of turbulent atmospheric energy fluxes applying the eddy covariance method and/or laser scintillometry in Arctic landscapes. Accurate quantification and well-adapted parameterizations of turbulent energy fluxes, e.g., during neutral to stable stratified conditions, are a fundamental problem in soil–snow–ice–vegetation–atmosphere interaction studies. We present results from the Arctic Turbulence Experiment (ARCTEX-2006) performed on the island of Svalbard, Norway, during the winter/spring transition 2006 that focus on data correction and quality assessment, on synoptic weather conditions, as well as site-specific micrometeorological features. A quality assessment and data correction adapted to the environmental conditions of polar regions demonstrates that specific measurement errors common at a high Arctic landscape could be minimized. We discuss the role of the intermittency of the turbulent atmospheric fluctuation of momentum and scalars, the existence of a disturbed vertical temperature profile (sharp inversion layer) close to the surface, and the relevance of possible free convection events for the snow or ice melt in the Arctic spring at Svalbard. Recommendations and improvements regarding the interpretation of eddy flux data as well as the arrangement of the instrumentation under polar distinct exchange conditions and (extreme) weather situations are presented.