Published October 30, 2024 | Version v1
Dataset Open

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

  • 1. ROR icon Simon Fraser University

Description

This dataset contains North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) precipitation, downscaled/bias-corrected for the Kaskawulsh River headwaters catchment in Yukon, Canada. 

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 precip: 

NARR precipitation is downscaled following Young et al. (2021), using a regression-based approach from Guan et al. (2009) that relates NARR surface precipitation to the Easting, Northing and elevation of NARR gridcells. NARR gridcells used for downscaling are a maximum distance of 90 km from the catchment and exclude gridcells on the maritime side of the ice divide. This choice captures the southeast-northwest precipitation gradient in the raw NARR data without including coastal gridcells that represent a different precipitation regime (see Robinson, 2024).

Site-specific corrected precip:

Downscaled precipitation is partitioned into rain and snow using a prescribed temperature threshold of 1ºC. Snow accumulation is bias corrected by multiplying downscaled accumulation by an elevation-dependent correction factor based on in-situ measurements from within the Kaskawulsh River headwaters (see Robinson et al. (2024)). Rain is not corrected in this dataset.

Files

precipitation.zip

Files (33.7 GB)

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md5:9ec68b62dbdaf3b866cf902ee9bc9fcd
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Additional details

References

  • Robinson, K. M., Flowers, G. E., & Rounce, D. R. (2024). Sensitivity of modelled mass balance and runoff to representations of debris and accumulation on the Kaskawulsh Glacier, Yukon, Canada.
  • Robinson, K. (2024). Reconstructing a multi-decadal runoff record for a highly-glacierized catchment in Yukon, Canada. MSc Thesis. https://summit.sfu.ca/item/38185
  • 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.
  • Guan, H., Wilson, J. L., & Xie, H. (2009). A cluster-optimizing regression-based approach for precipitation spatial downscaling in mountainous terrain. Journal of Hydrology, 375(3-4), 578-588.