Ten years of temperature and wind observation on a 45-m tower at Dome C, East Antarctic plateau

• Main Authors: Genthon, Christophe, Veron, Dana, Vignon, Etienne, Six, Delphine, Dufresne, Jean-Louis, Madeleine, Jean-Baptiste, Sultan, Emmanuelle, Forget, François
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), School of Marine Science and Policy, College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment Newark (CEOE), University of Delaware Newark -University of Delaware Newark, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP ), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Centre De Recherche et d'Enseignement sur les Systèmes Côtiers (CRESCO), Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDU.STU.ME]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Meteorology; Antarctic; East Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03853764; https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-204

International audience Abstract. Long-term, continuous in situ observations of the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer are critical for many weather and climate applications. Although there is a proliferation of surface stations globally, especially in and around populous areas, there are notably fewer tall meteorological towers with multiple instrumented levels. This is particularly true in remote and extreme environments such as the Eastern Antarctic plateau. In the article, we present and analyze 10 years of data from 6 levels of meteorological instrumentation mounted on a 42-m tower located at Dome C, East Antarctica near the Concordia research station, producing a unique climatology of the near-surface atmospheric environment (Genthon et al., 2021,a,b). Monthly temperature and wind data demonstrate the large seasonal differences in the near-surface boundary layer dynamics, depending on the presence or absence of solar surface forcing. Strong vertical temperature gradients (inversions) frequently develop in calm, winter conditions, while vertical convective mixing occurs in the summer leading to near-uniform temperatures along the tower. Seasonal variation in wind speed is much less notable at this location than the temperature variation as the winds are less influenced by the solar cycle; there are no katabatic winds as Dome C is quite flat. Harmonic analysis confirms that most of the energy in the power spectrum is at diurnal, annual and semi-annual time scales. Analysis of observational uncertainty and comparison to reanalysis data from ERA-5 indicate that wind speed is particularly difficult to measure at this location. Data are distributed on PANGAEA data repository, see data availability section.