Extended Abstract (116K)4.1
Antarctic surface temperature comparison study on satellite approximations and land-based measurements
Jesse R. Docken, Augsburg College, St. Paul, MN; and N. Petit
Since 1994, the six unmanned Automatic Geophysical Observatories (AGO) stations on the Antarctic continent have been continuously streaming live weather and climate data. Until recently, this data was unusable due to a large amount of electrical interference generated by the equipment at the stations which distorted the environmental data. For this project, an averaging-based filtration system was used to remove the arbitrary data, allowing analysis of the remaining data and use it to make observations about the general weather patterns and trends.
The satellite data used was from the Polar Pathfinder project, provided by the University of Wisconsin. The NetCDF images taken by the satellite were parsed by a program to extract the surface temperatures at the approximate locations of all six AGO stations. These were then processed by spreadsheet software to determine the accuracy of the satellite predictions and the error characteristics.
Currently there are strong indicators that the satellite was very unreliable in determining surface temperature in most seasons except in Antarctica's winter. During this period, the satellite was capable of detecting the general temperature trends, following the periods of warmth and cooling closely. However, it consistently underestimated the temperature, sometimes recording the surface at a temperature nearly 10°C cooler than what was measured at the stations.
Session 4, Atmospheric Observations for Weather and Climate-IV
Monday, 21 January 2008, 4:00 PM-5:30 PM, 204
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