Meteorological observations at Syowa Station in 2004 by the 45th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition

• Main Authors: Toshihiro Abo, Satoshi Sasaki, Ayataka Ebita, Tatsuru Fujita, Junji Hisamitsu
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: National Institute of Polar Research 2008
• Subjects: geo; Antarctic; Syowa Station; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.15094/00009469; https://doaj.org/article/667b96e45caa4f05a9e5c41f3a4d935c

This report describes the results of meteorological observations at Syowa Station from February 1st, 2004 to January 31st, 2005, carried out by the Meteorological Observation Team of the 45th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE-45). The observation methods, instruments and statistical methods used by JARE-45 were almost the same as those used by the JARE-44 observation team.?Remarkable weather phenomena observed during the period of JARE-45 are as follows.1) The monthly mean temperatures were within the normals or above normal, except July and November in which monthly mean temperatures were below normal. Especially, the monthly minimum temperature of-7.8 degrees Celsius on February 7 sets a new maximum temperature for February; and both the monthly mean temperature of 0.2 degrees Celsius and the monthly mean daily maximum temperature of 3.3 degrees in Celsius were the highest recorded in December.2) The frequency of blizzards was the eighth lowest in history. However, in July, blizzards occurred 5.5 times beacause grown low pressure systems approached one after another, and the monthly mean sea level pressure of 980.5 hPa was the lowest recoreded in June. An A-class blizzard in October set both a new monthly maximum wind speed record of 39.5 m/s and a new monthly maximum instantaneous wind speed record of 49.3 m/s.3) The ozone hole in 2004 tended to be small in scale. Both the ozone hole area and ozone mass deficiency (depletion ozone mass) were the second lowest in the past decade.