Terrestrial atmospheric responses on Svalbard to the 20 March 2015 Arctic total solar eclipse under extreme conditions

• Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Main Authors: Pasachoff, J. M., Peñaloza-Murillo, M. A., Carter, A. L., Roman, M. T.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society Publishing 2016
• Subjects: Articles; Arctic; Svalbard
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004056/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27550756; https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0188

This article reports on the near-surface atmospheric response at the High Arctic site of Svalbard, latitude 78° N, as a result of abrupt changes in solar insolation during the 20 March 2015 equinox total solar eclipse and notifies the atmospheric science community of the availability of a rare dataset. Svalbard was central in the path of totality, and had completely clear skies. Measurements of shaded air temperature and atmospheric pressure show only weak, if any, responses to the reduced insolation. A minimum in the air temperature at 1.5 m above the ground occurred starting 2 min following the end of totality, though this drop was only slightly beyond the observed variability for the midday period. Eclipse-produced variations in surface pressure, if present, were less than 0.3 hPa.