Downscaled/bias-corrected air temperatures for the Kaskawulsh River headwaters, Yukon, Canada.

This dataset contains North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) air temperatures, downscaled/bias-corrected for the Kaskawulsh River headwaters catchment in Yukon, Canada from 1980–2022. 

There is 1 file per year, with dimensions (t, x, y) = 2920  x 230 x 329 (3-hourly timestep,  230 gridcells x 329 grid cells). Gridcells are 200m x 200m. 

Downscaled temperatures:

NARR temperatures were downscaled and bias-corrected following the approach of Young et al. (2021). Temperature downscaling involves an interpolation scheme from Jarosch et al. (2012),  in which a linear regression is used to correlate NARR air temperature and geopotential height within the lower layer of the atmosphere. The slope and intercepts of the linear regression are taken as the local lapse rate and sea-level air temperature, respectively, for each NARR grid point. These lapse rates and air temperatures are then bilinearly interpolated across the model domain at a 200 m grid spacing and used to calculate 2 m air temperature at the gridcell elevation. 

Site-specific bias corrected temperatures:

Downscaled temperatures bias-corrected with time-dependent bias correction factors from Young et al. (2021) based on air temperatures measured on or proximal to the Kaskawulsh Glacier. 

For more details, see:

Young, E. M., Flowers, G. E., Berthier, E., & Latto, R. (2021). An imbalancing act: the delayed dynamic response of the Kaskawulsh Glacier to sustained mass loss. Journal of Glaciology, 67(262), 313-330.