Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau
Long-term, continuous in situ observations of the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer are critical for many weather and climate applications. Although there is a proliferation of surface stations globally, especially in and around populous areas, there are notably fewer tall meteorological tower...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:essdd95480 2023-05-15T14:02:17+02:00 Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau Genthon, Christophe Veron, Dana E. Vignon, Etienne Six, Delphine Dufresne, Jean-Louis Madeleine, Jean-Baptiste Sultan, Emmanuelle Forget, François 2021-06-28 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-204 https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-204/ eng eng doi:10.5194/essd-2021-204 https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-204/ eISSN: 1866-3516 Text 2021 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-204 2021-07-05T16:22:17Z Long-term, continuous in situ observations of the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer are critical for many weather and climate applications. Although there is a proliferation of surface stations globally, especially in and around populous areas, there are notably fewer tall meteorological towers with multiple instrumented levels. This is particularly true in remote and extreme environments such as the Eastern Antarctic plateau. In the article, we present and analyze 10 years of data from 6 levels of meteorological instrumentation mounted on a 42-m tower located at Dome C, East Antarctica near the Concordia research station, producing a unique climatology of the near-surface atmospheric environment (Genthon et al., 2021,a,b). Monthly temperature and wind data demonstrate the large seasonal differences in the near-surface boundary layer dynamics, depending on the presence or absence of solar surface forcing. Strong vertical temperature gradients (inversions) frequently develop in calm, winter conditions, while vertical convective mixing occurs in the summer leading to near-uniform temperatures along the tower. Seasonal variation in wind speed is much less notable at this location than the temperature variation as the winds are less influenced by the solar cycle; there are no katabatic winds as Dome C is quite flat. Harmonic analysis confirms that most of the energy in the power spectrum is at diurnal, annual and semi-annual time scales. Analysis of observational uncertainty and comparison to reanalysis data from ERA-5 indicate that wind speed is particularly difficult to measure at this location. Data are distributed on PANGAEA data repository, see data availability section. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Antarctic East Antarctica |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
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English |
description |
Long-term, continuous in situ observations of the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer are critical for many weather and climate applications. Although there is a proliferation of surface stations globally, especially in and around populous areas, there are notably fewer tall meteorological towers with multiple instrumented levels. This is particularly true in remote and extreme environments such as the Eastern Antarctic plateau. In the article, we present and analyze 10 years of data from 6 levels of meteorological instrumentation mounted on a 42-m tower located at Dome C, East Antarctica near the Concordia research station, producing a unique climatology of the near-surface atmospheric environment (Genthon et al., 2021,a,b). Monthly temperature and wind data demonstrate the large seasonal differences in the near-surface boundary layer dynamics, depending on the presence or absence of solar surface forcing. Strong vertical temperature gradients (inversions) frequently develop in calm, winter conditions, while vertical convective mixing occurs in the summer leading to near-uniform temperatures along the tower. Seasonal variation in wind speed is much less notable at this location than the temperature variation as the winds are less influenced by the solar cycle; there are no katabatic winds as Dome C is quite flat. Harmonic analysis confirms that most of the energy in the power spectrum is at diurnal, annual and semi-annual time scales. Analysis of observational uncertainty and comparison to reanalysis data from ERA-5 indicate that wind speed is particularly difficult to measure at this location. Data are distributed on PANGAEA data repository, see data availability section. |
format |
Text |
author |
Genthon, Christophe Veron, Dana E. Vignon, Etienne Six, Delphine Dufresne, Jean-Louis Madeleine, Jean-Baptiste Sultan, Emmanuelle Forget, François |
spellingShingle |
Genthon, Christophe Veron, Dana E. Vignon, Etienne Six, Delphine Dufresne, Jean-Louis Madeleine, Jean-Baptiste Sultan, Emmanuelle Forget, François Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
author_facet |
Genthon, Christophe Veron, Dana E. Vignon, Etienne Six, Delphine Dufresne, Jean-Louis Madeleine, Jean-Baptiste Sultan, Emmanuelle Forget, François |
author_sort |
Genthon, Christophe |
title |
Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
title_short |
Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
title_full |
Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
title_fullStr |
Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau |
title_sort |
ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at dome c, east antarctic plateau |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-204 https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-204/ |
geographic |
Antarctic East Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic East Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica |
op_source |
eISSN: 1866-3516 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/essd-2021-204 https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-204/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-204 |
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1766272448639008768 |