Abstract:
The Canadian Daily Snow Depth Database consists of daily ruler measurements of
snow depth taken by Meteorological Service of Canada observers and archived as
daily element 013 in the National Climate Data Archive. The depth data also
include a substantial number of daily and weekly snow depth observations
... rescued from paper records as part of a CRYSYS-sponsored data rescue project.
The depth data extend from the late 1800's to early 1996 in the database,
although most of the data are in the period after 1950. A detailed quality
control procedure was applied to flag suspicious values and fill missing data.
The data were written in a direct access database which includes all the data
available at the time the project was completed in 1997 (data from some
stations go to the end of April 1996, but most data end in December 1995).
Daily snow depth data from the National Climate Data Archive have been included
on the CD-ROM for the 1996-1999 period to provide users with the capability of
updating information to the end of the 1998/1999 snow season. These additional
data have only been subject to MSC standard quality control checks. The
Canadian Snow Water Equivalent Database contains snow water equivalent (SWE)
and snow depth measurements from snow surveys taken by more than twenty
agencies at weekly, biweekly or monthly frequencies. It also contains biweekly
SWE estimates at Meteorological Service of Canada snow depth observing
stations. The data cover the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s, with a
pronounced peak in the 1976-1985 decade. After 1985 there was a steep decline
in the amount of data due to closure of snow courses and an erosion of contacts
between MSC and other data collection agencies. At peak levels in the early
1980s, there were over 1700 snow course observations per year in the database.
This number declined to around 800 per year in the early 1990s. In many cases,
updates to the snow course data contained in this CD-ROM can can be readily
obtained from the various provincial agencies involved in taking snow surveys.
Links to these organizations are provided in the contract report for the Snow
Water Equivalent Database. The CD-ROM is mainly intended as a data archive and
extensive data extraction and analysis tools are not provided. The CD-ROM does
contains some sample FORTRAN 77 software for data summary and extraction. All
software is provided uncompiled and may have to be modified to operate on
different platforms. The code was originally written for a PC-DOS system using
a Microsoft FORTRAN Powerstation 4.0 compiler. Complete CD-ROM documentation
including descriptions of data sources, data-modeling techniques, quality
control, sample products, filenames, file locations and file formats is located
in contract reports prepared by Robert Braaten for MSC.
There are currently no plans to provide regular updates to this CD-ROM. This
CD-ROM is dedicated to the field staff who participated in the collection of
these data, and to the managers who understood the importance of sharing data.
Hopefully this data compilation will do justice to these individuals and will
prove to be useful in furthering understanding of snow cover in Canada.This
CD-ROM was created by the Climate Processes and Earth Observation Division,
Climate Research Branch, Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) with the
objective of making Canadian snow data more readily available to the user
community. The CD-ROM contains the Canadian Daily Snow Depth Database and the
Canadian Snow Water Equivalent Database, as well as a bonus publication "A
Guide for Ground Based Measurement of the Arctic Snow Cover"
(http://ccin.uwaterloo.ca/htdocs/snowcover/DOCUMNTS/WOO.PDF) by Dr. Ming-ko Woo
(November, 1997).
Spatial Data Organization Information -
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Links
