Glaciological, hydrological, meteorological observations and isotopes sampling results during 2007-2017 at Djankuat Glacier Station in the North Caucasus, Russia

The study presents a dataset on the 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 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 (774 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 the 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. The observations were held during ablation period June-October and were interrupted in winter. The dataset 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. […]

本研究呈现了一个关于北高加索一个极为未被充分报道的极端高山区的长期复杂冰川学、水文学、气象学观测以及同位素样品的数据库。Djankuat研究流域面积为9.1平方公里，位于2500至4000米的海拔之间，其中30%被冰川覆盖。该流域中最大的Djankuat冰川被选作代表北高加索中部的典型冰川，在联合国国际水文十年期间，它成为全球30个具有超过50年年度质量平衡序列的‘参考’冰川之一（Zemp et al., 2009）。该数据库涵盖了2007年至2017年的数据，包括对雪厚度和密度的年度测量结果；雪和冰的融化动态；在主测站（总计774个样本）进行的年度径流、电导率、浑浊度、温度、δ18O和δ2H的测量，根据参数的不同，以每小时或数小时为步长；在融化季节内，对流域不同部分的液态降水、雪、冰、冰川雪、地下水的δ18O和δ2H进行定期采样（总计485个样本）；降水量、气温、相对湿度、短波入射和反射辐射、长波向下和向上辐射、大气压力、风速和风向——在流域内的多个自动气象站上以15分钟至一小时的步长进行测量；进行梯度气象测量以估算热量和水分的湍流通量，以10赫兹的频率测量风速的三要素，通过涡度相关法估算冰川表面的湍流热通量。观测活动在消融期（6月至10月）进行，并在冬季中断。该数据库将得到进一步更新。该数据库对于开发与验证高原地区的水文学、冰川学和气象学模型，研究气候变化对山区水文学的影响，以及采用同位素和水化学方法研究山区具有潜在价值。