ICE-CAMERA: a flatbed scanner to study inland Antarctic polar precipitation

Studying precipitation at very high latitudes is difficult because of the harsh environmental conditions that limit the external activity of humans and instruments, especially in the polar winter. The direct monitoring of ice crystal habits and size distribution in Antarctic precipitation is importa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Main Author: Del Guasta, Massimo
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-6521-2022
https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00063433
https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00062485/amt-15-6521-2022.pdf
https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/15/6521/2022/amt-15-6521-2022.pdf
Description
Summary:Studying precipitation at very high latitudes is difficult because of the harsh environmental conditions that limit the external activity of humans and instruments, especially in the polar winter. The direct monitoring of ice crystal habits and size distribution in Antarctic precipitation is important for the validation of the algorithms used for retrieving precipitation from ground-based and satellite-borne radar instruments and for the improvement of the climatological modelling of polar areas. This paper describes an automated device (ICE-CAMERA) specifically developed for the imaging, measurement, and classification of ice precipitation on the Antarctic high plateau. The instrument gives detailed information on precipitation on an hourly basis. The article provides a description of the device and its image processing software. Starting in 2014, the instrument has operated almost unattended all year round at Concordia station, Antarctica (75∘ S, 123∘ E, 3220 m altitude).