Reconstruction of Air Temperature Series at Russian Station in Barentsburg (Svalbard)

Abstract

The longest instrumental meteorological observations on the Svalbard archipelago were obtained in the Russian town Barentsburg, where the first meteorological station (MS) appeared back in 1932, however, the use of these data in its original form is complicated by the interruption in observations related to World War II. In the paper a critical analysis of metadata (changing the location of meteorological observations within the town Barentsburg) was carried out, as well as checking the climatic uniformity of the series. Missing data on surface air temperature (SAT) were restored for the period 1941-1947 based on the regression analysis with the Norwegian MS “Isfjord Radio” and “Longyearbyen”. For periods when observations on the archipelago were not carried out at all (the period of World War II), the data were restored using NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20CRv3 reanalysis. Data recovery from December 1911 was carried out on the basis of measurements made at the MS “Spitsbergen Radio”. In 2013 - 14 parallel measurements were carried out by two automatic weather stations at the historical site of the weather site MS “Spitsbergen Radio” and at the modern weather site GMO “Barentsburg”, which made it possible to establish the statistical relationship between the SAT values ​​in these two points. As a result, composite series of average monthly SAT ​​have been obtained since 1911 for the MS “Barentsburg”, and it can be used for correct estimates of long-term climate changes in the region in different seasons of the year. Moreover, for the period from 1911 to 2018 the proportion of original (measured) SAT values ​​exceeds 75%, which is the maximum possible number among any other reconstruction of such series on Svalbard.

Keywords

• svalbard
• surface air temperature
• time series
• homogeneity analyses
• missing data imputation
• time series recovery