Water vapor isotopes, Thule, Greenland, 2016

Arctic ecosystems are changing in response to Arctic warming, which is proceeding more than twice as fast as the global average. The International Tundra Experiment was established in the early 1990s to understand the effects of warming and environmental variability on tundra vegetation properties and ecosystem function. This project provides valuable data to quantify the changes in vegetation and the importance of these changes on ecosystems.
Water isotope ratios can help us understand Arctic hydrological changes. Here we present water vapor isotope ratio data collected from northern Greenland in the fall of 2016. The data set measures O-18 isotopes, 2-H isotopes, H2O concentration, and time of year. The O-18 ratio is useful for measuring the temperature of precipitation over time. The 2-H ratio is a valuable statistic of the fractionation processes in water or hydrocarbon based systems.