January, 2014 | Mallemaroking

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Mark Brandon • January 31, 2014

In the previous post I made a plot of Antarctica and compared it to the size of Europe. I made the throwaway point that it was unreasonable to imagine Antarctica as being characterized with one climatic zone. It is not all the “coldest and windiest place” on Earth.

I thought a simple example would show what I mean:

I got the mean monthly temperatures at two Antarctic Stations from the NOAA NCDC GCPS MONTHLY STATION data available from IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library.

I chose Adelaide Island and Vostok, and picked monthly data from December 1964 to December 1966.

The mean monthly temperature at Adelaide Island and Vostok station

Adelaide island is on the coast and it astonishingly beautiful. The data I used were collected at the British Antarctic Survey BASE T.

In contrast Vostok station is quite literally an icy waste in the middle of nowhere (* but see below).

This plot shows their relative locations in relation to the South Pole.

The locations of Adelaide Island, Vostok, and South Pole

You can see that at Adelaide Island – which is at sea level and coastal – the seasonal cycle is relatively narrow and only about 11°C. Temperatures are above 0°C in the summer.

At Vostok – which is on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and at an altitude of about 3700m – the seasonal cycle is vast. In the Antarctic summer the temperatures are about -30°C, whereas in winter the temperatures fall and it is scarily cold (monthly mean -71.4°C in August 1966!).

If you want to know why Adelaide Island has a relatively small seasonal cycle, whereas Vostok seems to have a squashed “U” shape temperature cycle, then you have to understand something about the basic meteorology of the Antarctic Regions. (As an aside then you would understand why this happens in winter).

In a later post I may say something about how the climate is changing across Antarctica over the last 50-60 years. The spoiler on that is at on the Antarctic Peninsula it has changed a lot  – in the range “4-5°C”,and the changes are impacting the ocean system, whereas at Vostok it has not.

* – of course Vostok isn’t really in the middle of “nowhere”. It is over the vast and hugely significant under ice Lake Vostok, and is the location of the first great Antarctic ice core – the Vostok Ice Core.

Posted in Science. Tags: antarctica, British Antarctic Survey, temperature, Vostok on January 31, 2014 by Mark Brandon. Mark Brandon • January 30, 2014

I keep seeing a map of Antarctica with an overlaid outline of the United States. I thought it would be helpful to have a picture of the continent compared with the size of Europe.

Antarctica compared with the size of Europe

This is a picture from a book I wrote half of and edited a long time ago.

It always struck me as strange that Antarctica being the “coldest and windiest place” is constantly recycled. The picture shows it is a huge place and it does not have one single climate.

On the Antarctic Peninsula it is relatively mild. It’s even referred to sometimes as being the “banana belt”. But away from the heat of the ocean, and high on the plateau it is without doubt cold almost beyond comprehension.

But one thing is for sure: there is no representative Antarctic climate.

Posted in Science. Tags: antarctica, climate, map, Science on January 30, 2014 by Mark Brandon. Mark Brandon • January 28, 2014

I don’t usually work on this sort of thing, but very recently I have been writing about hazards caused by the cryosphere. A major hazard is of course the avalanche – whether ice, snow, or a mixture.

This video was posted on You tube (with the tag line “Courtesy Vertical Solutions”), and it shows the impact of a snow and ice avalanche on the Alaskan road network on the 26 January 2014.

I tweeted it yesterday and the glaciologist Mauri Pelto replied

@icey_mark That is Richardson Highway that is flooded now, if this releases as one would expect in a torrent, the highway will fair worse.

— Mauri Pelto (@realglacier) January 27, 2014

I’ll try to remember to keep an eye online to see the outcome.

Posted in Science. Tags: Alaska, Arctic, avalanche, youtube on January 28, 2014 by Mark Brandon.