Fifteen Years of Continuous Climate Data Collection in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve: Lessons Learned and Emerging Trends.

Ken Hill and Pam Sousanes, National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program has maintained five continuous automatic weather stations within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve for the past fifteen years. Observations include air temperature, summer rainfall, relative humidity, snow depth, wind speed, wind direction, and soil temperatures. Stations range in elevation from 1,880 feet to 5,240 feet and represent distinct climate regimes including the Chugach Mountains, the Kennicott Glacier complex, the Wrangell Mountain foothills, and the eastern Alaska Range. Real-time data are available online along with quality controlled datasets archived and available through the National Park Service. The challenging mountain environments and continuous, year-round observations make these datasets both unique and valuable for understanding projected environmental changes. In addition to the mountain weather stations, two snow telemetry (SNOTEL) stations provide a decade of year-round precipitation and snow water equivalent observations at May Creek and Chisana. These are the only continuous records of snowpack and winter precipitation in the upper Copper River Basin. Emerging trends and climate extremes from these stations will be presented and put into context by comparing the relatively short weather records with data analyzed from long term sites in Gulkana and Yakutat.