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Oceans & Climate
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Dr. Bernhard Lettau
Program Manager
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O-283-M/P/S
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NSF/OPP Award 03-38147
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Station:
McMurdo Station, Palmer Station
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RPSC POC:
Patricia Jackson
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Research Site(s):
Byrd Camp
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Dates in Antarctica:
Project team deploys late October to early February, data collected continuously
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Antarctic Automatic Weather Station (AWS) program 2004-2006
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Two US Coast Guard technicians approach the Sutton AWS at 67.08 degrees South 141.37 degrees East at an elevation of 871 meters near the Adelie Coast of East Antarctica. Photo courtesy of AWS Project/Gerd Wendler/Steve Blake/USCG.
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Deploying Team Members:
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Matthew A. Lazzara
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Thomas Parish
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Mark Seefeldt
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Jonathan E. Thom
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George A. Weidner
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Research Objectives:
A network of automatic weather stations (AWS) has been established on the antarctic continent and several surrounding islands. These facilities were built to measure surface wind, pressure, temperature, and humidity. Some of them also track other atmospheric variables, such as snow accumulation and incident solar radiation.
The data are transmitted via satellite to a number of ground stations and put to several uses, including operational weather forecasting, accumulation of climatological records, general research purposes, and specific support of the U.S. Antarctic Program, especially the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) program at McMurdo and Palmer stations. The AWS network has grown from a small-scale program in 1980 into a significant data retrieval system that is now extremely reliable, and has proven indispensable for both forecasting and research purposes. Project team members deploy, maintain, and augment the automatic weather stations as necessary.
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