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Near surface climate of the traverse route from Zhongshan Station to Dome A, East Antarctica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2010

Yongfeng Ma ,
Lingen Bian ,
Cunde Xiao ,
Ian Allison  and
Xiuji Zhou
Yongfeng Ma
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China College of Earth Science, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Lingen Bian*
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Cunde Xiao
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China Laboratory of Ice Core and Cold Regions Environment, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
Ian Allison
Affiliation:
Australian Antarctic Division and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Private Bag 80, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia
Xiuji Zhou
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
*
*corresponding author: [email protected]
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Abstract

Seasonal variation of temperature, pressure, snow accumulation, winds, and their harmonic analysis are presented by using the data from Zhongshan Station and three Automatic Weather Stations deployed between the East Antarctic coast and the summit of the ice sheet at Dome A for the period 2005–07. Results show that: 1) temperature, snow accumulation and specific humidity decrease with increasing elevation and distance from the coast, with snow accumulation decreasing from 199 mm water equivalent (w.e.) yr-1 at LGB69 (180 km from the coast) to 31 mm w.e. yr-1 at Dome A, 2) Dome A experiences an extremely low minimum temperature of -82.5°C with the monthly mean temperature below -50°C for eight months in contrast to Zhongshan Station which does not show any monthly mean temperatures below -20°C, 3) mean surface wind speed increases from the coast to the escarpment region, and then reduces rapidly towards the interior plateau with the strongest winds occurring at katabatic sites with the greatest surface slopes, 4) temperature and pressure all shows a distinct biannual oscillation with a main minimum in spring and a secondary minimum in autumn, differing slightly from station to station, and 5) winter temperature corelessness increases as a function of elevation and distance from the coast, from 0.260 at the coastal Zhongshan Station to 0.433 at Dome A.

Keywords

Antarctic climateAWScorelessnessharmonic analysiskatabaticsnow accumulation
Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , August 2010 , pp. 443 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Antarctic Science Ltd 2010

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