Identification

Title

Observations of near-surface wind and temperature structures and their variations with topography and latitude in East Antarctica

Abstract

The first multiyear surface meteorological observations over Dome A, the highest ice feature in the entire Antarctica continent, are analyzed to understand the surface wind, temperature, and stability climatology over Dome A and how it differs from the surface climatology at two lower-latitude/lower-elevation sites along similar longitude in East Antarctica. The climatology is also compared with that over Dome C. In contrast to the surface winds at lower sites, where moderate to strong northeasterly winds prevail with a distinct diurnal oscillation in wind speed in response to the diurnal change in katabatic forcing, summertime surface winds over Dome A are very weak, are variable in direction, and show little diurnal variation. Although both temperature and temperature gradient oscillate diurnally, the gradient over Dome A remained positive all day long, indicating a persistent surface inversion, while at the two lower sites, as well as over Dome C, sufficient insolation leads to the breakup of inversion and the development of a convective boundary layer in the afternoon. Wavelet analysis of near-surface stability revealed that besides the strong diurnal signal, the near-surface stability also exhibits annual, semiannual, and interseasonal (period ~50 days) oscillations at all locations. These oscillations in near-surface stability are linked to the same peaks in the 500-hPa geopotential height spectra and therefore are believed to be caused by variations of synoptic conditions.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79g5nvq

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-09-15T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact