Rescue and integration of the Polar Continental Shelf Project data set for the Canadian Arctic Archipelago

During the spring and summer seasons over the period 1974 through 1993, weather observations were gathered at research camps supported by the Polar Continental Shelf Project (PCSP), a Canadian federal government organization that provides logistical support to arctic research. These data were digitized and stored in an ad hoc fashion over the years. The data and associated station information have been assembled into a single database, reviewed for errors, and made available to the research community. The database consists of approximately 53 000 observations from 600 sites throughout the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Prevalent climatic elements include dry-bulb temperature, wind direction and speed, and total cloud cover. Other elements include cloud layer information, visibility, wet-bulb/dew-point temperature, 12-hour maximum and minimum temperatures, and radiation and pressure data.

The PCSP data set have been used in climatologies with data from Atmospheric Environment Service Canada (AES) weather stations. Results from these analyses reveal meso-scale signals, which the low-density AES network is unable to capture, and general (synoptic) spatial coherence amongst PCSP stations and stations of the AES. These data will be made available at http://aix1.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/geographie/lpcweb/.