Tuesday, 11 January 2005
McMurdo Station, Antarctica fog climatology: 1973-1998
An ongoing research project at the University of Wisconsin has been studying the polar fog events that impact the several hundred flights that are planned to and from McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The first part of project aimed to inexpensively learn about the fog events at McMurdo Station/Ross Island area of Antarctica via the collection of fog particles. With some limited success, a few droplets were indeed captured. The next phase of work includes a simple climatological review of fog events as reported at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. A database of McMurdo Station synoptic observations from 1973 to 1998 has been used as the basis for this review with some initial review of a second database of observations directly from the McMurdo Weather Office from 1999 to 2003. Results depict the fog events over the years, and shows how there are indeed fog “seasons”. Other significant relationships and observations from this climatological review are discussed. These two phases of the project lead toward a more detailed analysis of fog events from 1999 to 2003, on a case-by-case basis. Some initial highlights of these events will be introduced, as well as future work for this project outlined.
Supplementary URL: http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/fog.html