Seasonal variation of temperature, pressure, snow accumulation, winds, and their harmonic analysis are presented by using the data from Zhongshan Station and three Automatic Weather Stations deployed between the East Antarctic coast and the summit of the ice sheet at Dome A for the period 2005–07. Results show that: 1) temperature, snow accumulation and specific humidity decrease with increasing elevation and distance from the coast, with snow accumulation decreasing from 199 mm water equivalent (w.e.) yr^-1 at LGB69 (180 km from the coast) to 31 mm w.e. yr^-1 at Dome A, 2) Dome A experiences an extremely low minimum temperature of -82.5°C with the monthly mean temperature below -50°C for eight months in contrast to Zhongshan Station which does not show any monthly mean temperatures below -20°C, 3) mean surface wind speed increases from the coast to the escarpment region, and then reduces rapidly towards the interior plateau with the strongest winds occurring at katabatic sites with the greatest surface slopes, 4) temperature and pressure all shows a distinct biannual oscillation with a main minimum in spring and a secondary minimum in autumn, differing slightly from station to station, and 5) winter temperature corelessness increases as a function of elevation and distance from the coast, from 0.260 at the coastal Zhongshan Station to 0.433 at Dome A.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	East Antarctic climate, automatic weather station, katabatic wind, snow accumulation
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Atmospheric Sciences
Research Field:	Climatology (excl. Climate Change Processes)
Objective Division:	Environment
Objective Group:	Climate and Climate Change
Objective Field:	Climate and Climate Change not elsewhere classified
Author:	Allison, I (Dr Ian Allison)
ID Code:	100640
Year Published:	2010
Web of Science® Times Cited:	27
Deposited By:	CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems
Deposited On:	2015-05-22
Last Modified:	2015-09-07
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