The 2009 season was the second full season for the GeoBasis programme with a field season between May and late September. However, due to cooperation with other research projects, the programme continued until late October. In the previous year, the programme unfortunately ran into several unforeseen problems (e.g. catabatic winds destroying several installations, snowdrifts preventing the automatic cameras from monitoring expected areas, high levels of melt water in the snow pack with following fl ooding of data logger etc.). Most of these problems were solved during the 2009 season. A new micrometeorological station M1000 at 1000 m a.s.l. was installed in October 2009 in collaboration with ClimateBasis. The station (M1000) will serve as both a microclimate station and a data communication link to Nuuk.

Melting of snow and ice started in the beginning of May and by mid-June, all snow on the east side of the main river outlet had melted. The ice cover on the lakes in the area broke up in early to late June 2009, eleven to thirteen days later than in 2008. Due to logistical problems, only one snow survey was carried out in mid-April 2009 in cooperation with the ClimateBasis programme. Snow depth varied from 37 cm to 163 cm. The general pattern of snow distribution is mainly controlled by microclimate and small-scale topography variations resulting in very heterogeneous snow cover conditions.

The micrometeorological station at 1000 m a.s.l. (M1000) completes the installation of the climate stations along the altitudinal range represented in the study area. Normal temperature lapse rate with decreasing temperatures with altitude prevails on an annual basis in 84 % of the time. Inversion prevailed up to 33 % of the time in March due to shadows from surrounding mountains and snow cover with a subsequent radiative cooling of the valley floor.

At the three automatic soil stations in the area i.e. SoilFen, SoilEmp and SoilEmpSa, the inter-annual variations in the different parameters were documented in 2009. Due to the effect of lesser snow cover in the last quarter of 2009 soil temperatures in the upper 30 cm averaged –1.0 °C at the 0.3 °C in 2008. In 2009, thirty soil-water samples were collected from two depths at the fen site and the Empetrum site.

The temporal methane (CH4) flux pattern  in 2009 was similar to the pattern observed in 2008 with a dome-shaped peak with maximum about a month after snow melt and declining to about half of the peak maximum towards the end of the summer season (around 1 September). In the autumn, the methane flux continued to decline and it decreased consistently during September and October. The peak summer emissions in 2009 were approximately 8 mg CH4 m-2 h-1 compared to 5 mg CH4 m-2 h-1 in 2008.

The temporal variation in daily net exchange of CO2 continued until 31 October. In 2009, the period with net CO2 were initiated 15 May and continued until 31 October, which was 11 days later than in 2008. During this period the fen accumulated 42.5 g C m-2. The estimated net uptake period was approximately 57 days in 2009 and the maximum daily uptake reached 1.48 g C m-2 d-1 compared to 2.27 g C m-2 d-1 in 2008. 

In 2009, GeoBasis Nuuk has completed the installation of instruments necessary for the run of the programme. The second full year has provided valuable learning lessons that will improve the programme even further in the following years.