Kane, Hinzman, McNamara and Benson.

We are continuing to monitor the hydrology and meteorology of the nested watersheds of Imnavait Creek, Upper Kuparuk River, Putiligayuk River, and the entire Kuparuk River. We continue to operate seven major met stations (Imnavait, Upper Kuparuk, West Kuparuk, Sagwon, Franklin Bluffs, Betty Pingo and West Dock), five micro-sites in the Upper Kuparuk River, and stream gauging sites on all four drainages.

We were in the field almost continuously from mid-April (snow surveys) to late August (winterizing sites). For the second year in a row, the snowmelt breakup was quite late; this was true over the whole of the North Slope. In years prior to the last two, there was a trend of earlier breakups on the North Slope. Stone et al (2001, in press JGR-Atmospheres) reports that break-up at Barrow, Alaska has advanced about eight days since the 1960s. The water content of the snowpack was higher than average in 2001 and about average in 2000. Snowmelt runoff events were the major hydrologic event of the year; some moderately high runoff events occurred during the summer. The winter of 2000-2001 produced some major aufeis deposits along the Kuparuk River north of the Dalton Highway near Toolik Lake. This aufeis did not completely melt during the summer of 2001 (See Ken Hinkel's comment in their annual report about a snowdrift at Barrow not completely melting during the summer of 2001).

Jeff Oately, MS student at WERC, spent the spring and summer looking at sediment transport in the headwaters of the Kuparuk River. Paul Overduin, PhD student at WERC, has instrumented five sites in the foothills to look in detail at the the freeze-up of the active layer. Mette Moeller, PhD student at WERC, is studying the dynamic geomorphology of these nested watersheds. One recent tool that she has to work with is the new digital elevation data set that was obtained through NASA Scientific Data Purchase Products. On August 31, 2000, Intermap obtained X-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data for the Putiligayuk Catchment and surrounding area. For a 5 m by 5 m grid (raw data is 2.5 m by 2.5 m), we have elevation data that is better by an order of magnitude than existing data. In addition, a plot of the X-band values produces a mosaic ( 4000 square km) that is sensitive to many water-related features. It is our hope that we can get similar data for the entire Kuparuk basin.

Recent publications:

Kane, D.L., L.D. Hinzman, J.P. McNamara, Z. Zhang and C.S. Benson. 2000. An Overview of a Nested Watershed Study in Arctic Alaska. Nordic Hydrology, 31(4/5):245-266.

Oechel, W.C., G.L. Vourilitis, S.J. Hastings, R.M. Zulueta, L.D. Hinzman and D.L. Kane. 2000. Acclimation of Ecosystem CO2 Exchange in the Alaskan Arctic in Response to Decadal Climatic Warming. Nature, 406(Aug. 31):978-981.

Yang, D., D.L. Kane, L.D. Hinzman, B.E. Goodison, J.R. Metcalfe, P.Y.T. Louie, G.H. Leavesley, D.G. Emerson and C.L. Hanson. 2000. An Evaluation of the Wyoming Gauge System for Snowfall Measurement. Water Resources Research, 36(9):2665-2677.

Kane, D.L., K.M. Hinkel, D.J. Goering, L.D. Hinzman and S.I. Outcalt. 2001. Non-conductive Heat Transfer Associated with Frozen Soils. Global and Planetary Change, 29:275-292.

Zhang, Z. D.L. Kane and L.D. Hinzman, 2000. Development and Application of a Spatially Distributed Arctic Hydrologic and Thermal Process Model (ARHYTHM). Journal of Hydrological Processes, 14(6):1017-1044.

McNamara, J.P., D.L. Kane and L.D. Hinzman. 1999. An Analysis of an Arctic Channel Network Using a Digital Elevation Model. Geomorphology, 29:339-353.