Soil Climate Monitoring Project in the Ross Island Region of Antarctica
Relatively little is known about soil climate in Antarctica. The purpose of our research was to describe a cooperative soil climate monitoring project in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and other ice-free areas of the Ross Island Region of Antarctica. There are seven soil climate stations that monitor air t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.488.5339 http://wwwtest.crops.org/files/publications/soil-survey-feature-summer-2009.pdf |
| Summary: | Relatively little is known about soil climate in Antarctica. The purpose of our research was to describe a cooperative soil climate monitoring project in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and other ice-free areas of the Ross Island Region of Antarctica. There are seven soil climate stations that monitor air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radi-ation, and soil moisture and temperature in which hourly measurements are recorded. The initial project objective, in 1999, was to determine the impact of fuel spills on the biological, chemical, and physical properties of Antarctic soils, which was lead by Landcare Research of New Zealand. When the initial project ended in 2002, the control sites were continued as long-term monitoring stations. At each site, soils were described and sampled for character-ization analyses. The soils are coarse textured with significant amounts and sizes of coarse fragments throughout the profile with little soil development (or horizonation). Mean annual air temperatures (MAAT) range from −17 to −24°C. The mean annual soil temperatures (MAST) range from −14.6 to −23.5°C. The average maximum thaw depth ranged from 5.5 cm to more than 85 cm. Average active layer water contents are low and tend to increase with depth. The data, soil descriptions, soil characterization data, and station records from this project are available through the National Soil Survey Center’s web page |
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