Precipitation at Dumont d'Urville, Adélie Land, East Antarctica: the APRES3 field campaigns dataset

Abstract

Abstract. Compared to the other continents and lands, Antarctica suffers from a severe shortage of in situ observations of precipitation. APRES3 (Antarctic Precipitation, Remote Sensing from Surface and Space) is a program dedicated to improving the observation of Antarctic precipitation, both from the surface and from space, to assess climatologies and evaluate and ameliorate meteorological and climate models. A field measurement campaign was deployed at Dumont d'Urville station at the coast of Adélie Land in Antarctica, with an intensive observation period from November 2015 to February 2016 using X-band and K-band radars, a snow gauge, snowflake cameras and a disdrometer, followed by continuous radar monitoring through 2016 and beyond. Among other results, the observations show that a significant fraction of precipitation sublimates in a dry surface katabatic layer before it reaches and accumulates at the surface, a result derived from profiling radar measurements. While the bulk of the data analyses and scientific results are published in specialized journals, this paper provides a compact description of the dataset now archived in the PANGAEA data repository (https://www.pangaea.de, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.883562) and made open to the scientific community to further its exploitation for Antarctic meteorology and climate research purposes.

Microphysics of Snowfall Over Coastal East Antarctica Simulated by Polar WRF and Observed by Radar

“…The APRES3 campaign data have been distributed on the PANGAEA data repository (https://www.pangaea.de,_https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.883562). A description of the data set is provided in Genthon et al (). C Listowski is also thanked for providing the Bedmap2 data set for Polar WRF.…”

“…org/10.1594/PANGAEA.883562). A description of the data set is provided in Genthon et al (2018). C Listowski is also thanked for providing the Bedmap2 data set for Polar WRF.…”

Identification of blowing snow particles in images from a Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera

“…The MASC was placed at 2540 m a.s.l in a double-fence intercomparison reference (DFIR; see Fig. 2a), designed to limit the adverse effect of wind on the measuring instruments in its center (Goodison et al, 1998). The MASC was about 3 m above ground.…”

“…The MASC was about 3 m above ground. The two other campaigns took place at the French Antarctic Dumont d'Urville (DDU) station, on the coast of Adélie Land, from November 2015 to February 2015 and from January to July 2017, in the framework of the Antarctic Precipitation, Remote Sensing from Surface and Space project (http://apres3.osug.fr, last access: 28 January 2020) (Grazioli et al, 2017;Genthon et al, 2018). The instrument was deployed on a rooftop at about 3 m above ground (see Fig.…”

“…Blowing snow may also contaminate precipitation observations collected by ground-based sensors, frequently in Antarctica (e.g., Nishimura and Nemoto, 2005;Gossart et al, 2017), where winds are strong and frequent, but also in snowy regions in general (Rasmussen et al, 2012;Naaim-Bouvet et al, 2014;Scaff et al, 2015). The issue of snowfall measurement is complex, and the WMO promoted intercomparison projects to evaluate various sensors and define standard setups and protocols over the last two decades, as illustrated in Goodison et al (1998) and the recent SPICE project (http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/ www/IMOP/intercomparisons/SPICE/SPICE.html, last access: 28 January 2020).…”