Time lapse imagery of the ice-on event at Lake Tarfala, Kebnekaise Mountains, northern Sweden, autumn 2022

Nina Kirchner, Annika Granebeck, Jamie Barnett, Maja Oscarsson

This dataset contains images of Lake Tarfala taken every 2 hours (irrespective of day- or nighttime) during the period from 16 September, 2022 to 31 October, 2022. During this period, the surface of Lake Tarfala transitions from being ice-free to ice-covered, an event referred to as "ice-on".

The dataset can be used to observe the ice-on event and to assign a date to it. Knowledge of lake ice phenology, i.e. seasonal formation and loss of the lacustrine ice cover, is of importance since the timing of ice-on impacts lake processes such as stratification and vertical mixing.

The pictures were acquired using a camera positioned on the mountain flank along Lake Tarfala’s north-eastern shore, at 1220 m above sea level. In total, there are 542 images. The later the season, the more pictures are dark because of the approaching of the polar night.

Image preview

Citation

Nina Kirchner, Annika Granebeck, Jamie Barnett, Maja Oscarsson (2023) Time lapse imagery of the ice-on event at Lake Tarfala, Kebnekaise Mountains, northern Sweden, autumn 2022. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/tarfala-kirchner-2023-ice-on-2022-1

References

Kirchner, N., Weckström, J., Jansen, J., Schenk, F., Barnett, J., Granebeck, A., Leppäranta, M., Korhola, A. Water temperature, mixing and ice phenology in the arctic-alpine lake Darfáljávri (Lake Tarfala), northern Sweden. In review at (2023): Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research

Data description

The dataset consists of image files (JPG) of Lake Tarfala, with the date and time (Swedish daylight saving time, UTC+2) included in each photo.

The pictures were acquired using a camera positioned on the mountain flank along Lake Tarfala’s north-eastern shore, at ~67.9° N, 18.6° E, at 1220 m above sea level.

The data were collected using a Hunter Orion Trail Camera 4G. The camera elevation is 1.8 m above ground. Each JPG file has a size of ~2.4 MB. The total size of the dataset is ~1.27 GB.

During periods, fog, snow and/or rain obscures the view of the lake. Also, due to shorter periods of daylight during autumn, the number of dark images between dusk and dawn successively increased. These are however not excluded from the dataset.