A Two-Year Record of the Climate on the Greenland Crest from an Automatic Weather Station

• Main Authors: Weidner, George A., Stearns, Charles R.
• Other Authors: WISCONSIN UNIV-MADISON DEPT OF METEOROLOGY
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1992
• Subjects: Meteorology; Information Science; Unmanned Spacecraft; *METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES; *WEATHER STATIONS; *CLIMATE; *METEOROLOGICAL DATA; AIR PRESSURE; GREENLAND; HEAT FLUX; HUMIDITY; LATENT HEAT; SNOW; TEMPERATURE; TRANSITIONS; VELOCITY; WIND; WINTER; *Global climate change; Component Reports; Automatic weather stations; Eismitte; Fairbanks; Greenland; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADP007290; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADP007290

An automatic weather station (AWS) was installed on the Greenland Summit (72.30 N, 38.00 W, 3210 m) in May 1987. The AWS unit operated for two years until May 1989 when it was moved to Fresh Air Site (72.82 N, 38.82 W, 3185 m), an air sampling site, where it is still operating. The AWS data were transmitted to the ARGOS data collection system on the NOAA polar-orbiting satellites. The AWS unit measures wind speed and direction, air temperature, and the relative humidity at a nominal height of 3 m, air pressure at the height of the electronics enclosure, and the vertical air temperature difference between 3.0 and 0.5 m. The latent and sensible heat from the snow surface to the air were estimated using the wind speed, vertical air temperature difference, and the relative humidity. The data are compared with those from two earlier stations, Eismitte (70.90 N, 40.70 W, 3000 m) from September 1930 through August 1931 (Wegener's expedition) and Station Centrale (70.92 N, 40.64 W, 2993 m) from September 1949 through August 1951 (Victor's expedition). The winds observed at Cathy Site were quite similar to those observed at the two previous stations. Also, the large fluctuations in temperature observed during the winter months at the two historic stations were observed at Cathy Site. The transition from positive to negative values for the sensible and latent heat flux occurred in October. This article is from 'Proceedings of the International Conference on the Role of the Polar Regions in Global Change Held in Fairbanks, Alaska on 11-15 June 1990. Volume 1', AD-A253 027, p220-222. See also Volume 2, AD-A253 028.