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

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 East Antarctic plateau. In the article, we present and analyze 10 years of data from six levels of meteorological instrumentation mounted on a 42m 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., 2021a, 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 nearuniform 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 timescales. Analysis of observational uncertainty and comparison to reanalysis data from the latest generation of ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) reanalyses (ERA5) indicate that wind speed is particularly difficult to measure at this location. Data are distributed on the PANGAEA data repository at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932512 (Genthon et al., 2021a) and https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932513 (Genthon et al., 2021b).

Automated summary

In this study, 10 years of data from a 42m tower with six levels of meteorological instrumentation near Dome C, East Antarctica, were analyzed to create a unique climatology of the near-surface atmospheric environment. The research found that seasonal differences in the near-surface boundary layer dynamics, depending on the presence or absence of solar surface forcing, play a crucial role in temperature and wind variations at the location. Additionally, observational uncertainty and comparison to ECMWF's latest reanalysis data (ERA5) highlighted the challenges in measuring wind speed accurately in remote and extreme environments such as Dome C.