30 years of annually averaged temperature data
According to the World Meteorological Organization WMO climate is defined as an average over a period of 30 years. Now, after the end of 2011, the meteorological observatory of Neumayer officially fulfill this definition and 30 annually averaged air temperatures can be calculated from the 3-hourly synoptic observations, see the attached diagram.
From 87.656 possible synoptic observations within the period between 1982-2011 exactly 87.617 observation were made: A performance of 99.955%.
The average temperature within the last 30 years is -16.0°C. The measurements are performed 2 meter above the snow surface using an artificially ventilated thermometer. The thermometer is a temperature dependent resistor made out of platinum. Its stability gets frequently checked using calibration thermometers.
1996 was the warmest year at Neumayer (-14°C), while 2000 was the coldest (-17.8°C). Compared with these inter annual variability the observed overall temperature decrease is rather low. Also other Antarctic stations measure slight cooling trends. In contrast to these observations a significant warming takes place at the Antarctic Peninsula. The reason for these differences is not yet understood and source of scientific speculations. Further measurements and research work has to be performed to understand these differences.
First time temperatures below -50°C
For the first time since the beginning of the routine synoptic observation at Neumayer in 1981 the air temperature dropped below -50°C. Early on the morning of 8 July 2010 the air temperature at 2 meter above the snow surface averaged over one minute even reached -50.2°C. The ongoing calm and clear weather – which is quite rare at Neumayer – in combination with the lack of incoming solar radiation during the ongoing polar night must be taken as the reason for this extreme event.
Iceberg collides in Antarctica Febuary 2010
Fragments of the Ross Ice Shelf, which drift past the edge of the Ekstrom Ice Shelf in Antarctica, have a long trip around the Antarctic behind them. Recently an iceberg collided with the ice shelf, causing cracks. In this video you can see the drift of the iceberg B15-F (mid January) and B15-K (mid-February) at the ice shelf edge in front of the Neumayer Station III (Satellite data: ENVISAT-ASAR, European Space Agency (ESA) / Alfred Wegener Institute).
The acoustic observatory recorded the sounds of the collision. The sound can be heard on the audio stream of the collision, a 30-second excerpt of the underwater noise of the collision, recorded by the Observatory on 11 PALAOA February 2010, at 16:48. The sound is temporarily over amplified by the strong signal (upper graphic) - the observatory is primarily designed to record the much quieter sounds of whales and seals up to one hundred kilometres away. The spectrogram (lower graphic) shows the frequency components comprising the sound. It reads like a musical score, above the high notes, below the low ones. The brightness depicts the volume. Graphics: Lars Kindermann, Alfred Wegener Institute
First jacking up of Neumayer_III (2009-11-20)
For the first time Neumayer_III was jacked up to compensate the anual snow accumulation. You may watch this event on a small video taken from the pictures of Neumayers webcam. The pictureres were taken at 2009-11-20 between 9:40 and 15:20 UTC every 20 minutes.
Huge iceberg hits east part of Atka Bay
End of October 2009 a huge iceberg (20X13 nm) hits the east part of Atka Bay. According to the National Ice Center the iceberg is called C19c. It is a part of the iceberg C19 which calved from the Ross Ice Shelf on May 2002. You may have a look at a small video prepared by Dr. Angelika Humbert Uni Münster and Dr. Christine Wesche, AWI Bremerhaven.
Image Credit: esa - European Space Agency
