Igarka

Created: 2014-01-27 13:32:22
Modified: 2014-01-27 13:33:23

SITE DESCRIPTION

Igarka grid (R40) is located (67o28’56” N, 86o26’08” E) on the right bank of the Enisey River (Figure 1), 5 km north-west from Igarka city, Krasnoyarsk Region. It is situated on the high riverine terrace with discontinuous permafrost. The climate of the region is temperate continental with prolonged snowy winters and short cool summers (Tushinskiy & Davydova 1976). On average the period with negative mean daily air temperatures extends to 250 days. Mean annual air temperature is -8,3°С. Mean air temperature of the coldest month (January) is -27.6°С, of the warmest month (July) is +15.4°C. Average annual wind speed is 4,0 m/s and annual sum of precipitation is 340 mm/yr. The climatological average maximum of snow-cover thickness is 70-100 cm. Terrace surface around the site is frost-heave affected peatbog with thermokarst lakes (up to 20 m in diameter). The grid surface itself is partially covered with sparse birch forest, but is predominantly tundra landscapes. Variety of tundra landscapes is represented by moss-vegetated surfaces, elevated patterns with shrubs (Arctic birch) and overwetted thermokarst depressions.

SAMPLING DESIGN AND METHOD:

1-ha grid consists of a square array of surveyed permanent stakes separated by 10 m, yielding an 11 × 11 array of sampling nodes on each grid. Thaw depth and snow sampling was conducted twice by manual probing at each stake. The two values for each sampling point are averaged, yielding a maximum of 121 data points per grid per probing date. The active layer was not measured at locations where grid points intersect rocks or deep water.