Datenpaket: Historical meteorological observations from military weather stations on Svalbard, 1941-1944

During World War II, the German Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe operated between 1941 and 1945 a series of weather stations in Svalbard to obtain information on synoptic weather situations in the Arctic. These activities included also some of the first automatic weather stations. With a few exceptions, the meteorological observations from these military stations are considered as lost. Most of these observations could now be retrieved from weather maps of the German “Zentrale Wetterdienstgruppe” (ZWG) that are preserved in the archive of the Deutsche Wetterdienst. Reports of surface pressure and temperature have been digitized for the military weather stations “Bansö” in 1941/42, “Knospe” in 1941/42, “Nussbaum” in 1942/43, “Kreuzritter” in 1943/44, “Svartisen” 1943/44, as well as some automatic weather stations operated on Svalbard. This data set contains station data of surface temperature and sea level pressure in Station Exchange Format (SEF).