The SCAR READER Project: Toward a high-quality database of mean Antarctic meteorological observations

• Main Authors: Turner, John, Colwell, Steve R., Marshall, Gareth J., Lachlan-Cope, Tom A., Carleton, Andrew M., Jones, Phil D., Lagun, Victor, Reid, Phil A., Iagovkina, Svetlana
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; SCAR; Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
• Online Access: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/34079/; https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<2890:TSRPTA>2.0.CO;2

A new dataset of monthly and annual mean near-surface climate data (temperature, surface and mean sea level pressure, and wind speed) for the Antarctic region has been created using historical observations [Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Reference Antarctic Data for Environmental Research (READER)]. Where possible, 6-hourly surface synoptic and automatic weather station observations were used to compute the means. The ability to quality control the data at the level of individual observations has produced a more accurate series of monthly means than was available previously. At the time of writing, the mean data are available on the Internet (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/programs-hosted.html). Data for 43 surface-staffed stations and 61 automatic weather stations are included in the database. Here, mean temperature, pressure, and wind speed data for 19 occupied stations with long records are provided.