News from Tarfala

We are building a new ‘staff’ house at Tarfala Research Station. It includes 7 bedrooms, an office, bathroom and drying-room and will hopefully be ready by mid-July. It is a sturdy construction which is necessary to withstand the hurricane force winds that most often occur during winter. However, this year we were exposed to winds up to 40m/s and snowdrift at the end of June, which is unusual and not very pleasant! For the glaciers it meant an extra snow contribution to the mass balance.
Photografer: Gunhild Rosqvist.

First measurement round on the upper part of Storglaciären 9th July. Here we monitor the successive snow and ice melt during the summer. Photografer:Tom Kirkpatrick

Checking the automatic weather station located at 1350 m a sl on Storglaciären. The Sonic Ranger (SR50) instrument is in focus which measures the distance to the snow surface. Photografer:Tom Kirkpatrick

SITES Water
Calibration for discharge measurements in the Tarfala-river. Pressure transducers and a sonar-instrument are used to measure water-pressure and distance to the water surface in the Tarfala-river. Calibration using fluorescein provides data on water discharge out from the Tarfala valley. Four glaciers contribute with meltwater to the river.

SITES Spectral
NDVI sensors are now mounted in Laevasvagge. The valley is located 20 km northeast of Tarfala and is important for reindeer grazing during spring and autumn. Here an automatic weather station records several meteorological parameters including snow depth.