Meteorological Regime of the Elbrus High-Mountain Zone during the Accumulation Period

Unique automated meteorological observations were carried out on the southern slope of Elbrus, near Pastukhova Rocks, at 4700 m a.s.l., during the 2021–2022 accumulation season. Data were obtained on air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, snowdrift and radiation fluxes with a temporal resolution of 1 minute or less. Analysis of the data series showed that the representative winter air temperature at this altitude on the southern slope of Elbrus is –10°C, and the minimum is –36.4°C; the partial pressure of water vapor does not exceed 3.5 hPa. At the same time, the average daily maximum of wind speed amounted 13.1 m/s with the absolute maximum of 54.1 m/s. Snowstorms with a snow transport intensity of more 0.1 kg/m2 s are quite common phenomenon in winter, while the maximum average value of the transport reaches 0.87 kg/m2 s. An empirical relationship was established between the average hourly wind speed and the maximum gust speed for the same period, and it was shown that for these conditions the wind gust exceeds the average hourly wind speed by 1.8 times, while the representative value of the standard deviation of wind speed is 5.8 m/s. This information may be useful not only for the glaciologic problems and modeling, but also for construction and engineering surveys, which are relevant in view of the present-day active development of the mountain ski infrastructure on the southern macro-slope of the Elbrus. In addition, the obtained series of instrumental observations were used to assess the quality of reanalysis data for high mountain regions taking as an example the ERA5. The ERA5 reanalysis was demonstrated to reproduce rather successfully the air temperature, wind speed and humidity in high mountain conditions, but extreme values for all these parameters are underestimated. Thus, the minimum temperature in winter turned out to be overestimated by 2°C, and the maximum was underestimated by 4°C, while the wind speed, according to the ERA5 reanalysis, never exceeded 40 m/s during the observation period. It is also shown that the FlowCapt4 acoustic snowdrift sensor (driftometer) can be used to estimate average wind speeds since it is less sensitive to severe high-altitude conditions compared to acoustic and cup anemometers. Unique automated meteorological observations covering the entire accumulation season of 2021/22 were carried out in the high-altitude zone of the Elbrus glacier Garabashi. Detailed data on temperature, humidity, wind, blizzard and radiation conditions at an altitude of more than 4700 m a.s.l. were obtained. These data allowed us to show that the ERA5 reanalysis successfully reproduces the main characteristics of the meteorological regime in high-altitude conditions, and the ISAW FC4 acoustic driftometer can be used to estimate average wind speeds.