AWS measurements at the Belgian Antarctic station Princess Elisabeth, in Dronning Maud Land, for precipitation and surface mass balance studies

Abstract

The Antarctic mass balance and the hydrological cycle of the entire planet are tightly linked together. Evaporation from the ocean surface in the tropical and middle latitudes, poleward moisture and energy transport, changes in the midlatitude atmospheric dynamics, cloud formation microphysics - all these processes determine the amount of precipitation in Antarctica. The main objective of our project is to improve the understanding of the atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle of Antarctica covering the chain from evaporation/sublimation at the surface via cloud formation to snowfall. As there is a lack of data on the clouds and precipitation processes in the Antarctic, the first goal is to establish a new database that can be used for local process studies and large-scale model evaluation. The base for our measurements is the new Belgian Antarctic station Princess Elisabeth (PE) built on the Utsteinen Ridge in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica (71 57’ S and 23 20’ E, 1400masl, 180km inland). Princess Elisabeth station is located in a nearly thousand kilometer wide "data gap", where no long-term measurements of the surface mass balance have been done up to date and where regional climate models show large differences in snow accumulation estimates.