Water stable isotope, temperature and electrical conductivity dataset (snow, ice, rain, surface water, groundwater) from a high alpine catchment (2019-2021).

Data collected in the Otemma forefield in Switzerland (45°56’03”N,7°24’42”) from July 2019 to October 2021.
Data were collected by the research teams of Bettina Schaefli2 and Stuart N. Lane1.

1 Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

2 Institute of Geography (GIUB), University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

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Description of the dataset

This dataset contains water stable isotope (δ2H, δ17O, δ18O), water temperature and water electrical conductivity (EC) measurements collected from the Otemma glacier catchment.

All water isotope samples were collected directly from the source and stored in 12 mL amber glass vials with an air-tight caps. River samples were first collected with an automatic ISCO 6712 portable water sampler with 1L open plastic bottles and transferred in 12 mL vials every one to two weeks. All isotope analysis were performed using a Wavelength-Scanned Cavity Ring Down Spectrometer (Picarro 2140-I, Santa Clara, California, USA) and expressed relative to the international Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW) standards.

All EC and water temperature measurements were performed with a WTW Multi 3510 IDS logger with a IDS TetraCon® 925 probe.

The dataset contains measurements performed at various locations within the catchment. A total of approximately 1500 measurements are provided. In the dataset each point correspond to a measurement station (column "Station") which we classified in specific class of water (column "Type") as follows :

Stream : samples collected at three locations, from the glacier snout, after a small outwash plain and 2km downstream.

Tributary : 5 hillslopes tributaries originating from small seasonal overland flow or small springs at the base of the morainic hillslope. Those tributaries were monitored weekly. In addition, a few other seasonal lateral streams were sampled in various locations (Type: Other tributaries).

Bedrock : A few exfiltrations directly leaking out of the bedrock outcrop were sampled.

Ice : Ice was sampled either as surface ice (small cores 5 cm deep), as deeper cores (5 to 8m deep) or as meltwater from supraglacial gullies. All solid ice samples were melted at ambiant air temperature in air-tight plastic bags before being transferred into 12 mL vials.

Snow : The snowpack was sampled either at the surface (0 to 5cm) or at about 20 cm depth. Where possible, meltwater leaking from the snowpack was sampled. At 3 locations in 2021, we dug snowpits from which we sampled snow at different layers with depth. All solid snow samples were melted at ambiant air temperature in air-tight plastic bags before being transferred into 12 mL vials

Rain : Rainwater was mostly sampled at our camp site at 2450 m. asl. Rainwater samples represent single rain events which are identified by dry periods of at least one day long.

Groundwater : shallow (2 to 3 meters) fully-screened groundwater wells were installed in the outwash plain and water sampled monthly in the snow-free season.

- GPS coordinates are provided with each point (Swiss coordinate system CH1903+ / LV95  (EPSG: 2056)).

- Dates are provided in local timezone (GMT+1 with daylight saving time) and in UTC date format.

- Analyitcal error from the Picarro spectrometer is reported as 1 standard deviation.

More information can be accessed in the corresponding publication by Müller et al. (to be published in 2023).

Data files

Otemma_isotope_EC_T_2019_2021.csv : file containing all data with GPS coordinates

isotope_locations_Otemma.jpg : an overview of the locations of each measurement point

Otemma_Isotopes_2019-2020.html : interactive plots of all datasets (δ2H, EC, temperature), classified by Type.