Snow cover data in Arctic regions like Svalbard are scarce while interest in distribution, properties and development of Arctic snow is evident (in context of climate change, too). Contributing to that issue this work is based on comprehensive observations of physical snow parameters recorded in snow pits and using special instruments, respectively.
The data were collected in spring 2011 and at several locations in a height transect along Kongsvegen glacier. Analysis mainly concerns description of gross profile characteristics, the identification and physical understanding of major structures and their spatial and temporal characteristics. Three of them are considered in detail in which context snow hardness data are particularly important.
Analysis was supported by data from automatic weather stations operated at the sites of snow investigations. These data also served to drive a numerical snow model. Model output was compared to observations and effectively served development of a process-based interpretation and reconstruction of the history of the investigated key layers. Different depth scaling method were developed to make the snow profiles comparable because snow depth strongly depends on altitude. The layer-wise depth scaling method yielded significant improvements in correlation between neighbouring snow hardness profiles along the glacier and at local scale. Three layers characterized by clear maxima in snow hardness, high density and mostly rounded grain types could thus be traced along the major part of the glacier. Attributions were comparatively uncertain if not impossible in the lower section of the glacier due to the higher temperatures and associated melt influences. Snow profiles were significantly correlated across decameter distances.
The evolution history of the selected
