British Antarctic Survey Antarctic activities Steve Colwell British Antarctic Survey

Overview AntON and GCOS monitoring. Contribution to YOPP-SH and GCW. Antarctic PRCC Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) New instrumentation. Thank the secretariat for this half day sessions at the start of EC-PHORS and would like to continue this into the future.

AntON AntON is the Antarctic Observing Network It is a list of the staffed and automatic weather stations that are currently in operation in Antarctica. A subset of AntON makes up the Antarctic GSN. New stations that have been added but are not yet part of AntON are. 89011 Soerasen 71°12’S 10°00’W 89047 Filchner 80°30’S 42°30’W 89776 Bharati 69°25’S 76°11’E

AntON

AntON

AntON recommendations Request that new Antarctic stations (south of 60S) that are allocated a WMO number automatically become AntON stations. Add GCW indication to the AntON list. Work with the secretariat to take ownership of the AntON list, it should be possible to extract it automatically from OSCAR/surface. Request that members update OSCAR/surface with metadata about stations. Investigate what meteorological information can be collected from aircraft over Antarctica.

14

Monitoring sensor performance

Issues and updates that have occurred since EC-PHORS-6 Marion Island (68994) restarted routine radio-sonde ascents in April 2016.  There has been an improvement in radio-sondes at McMurdo station (89664) reaching an altitude of 100hPa during winter (June, July and August). With the closure of Halley (89022) during the Antarctic winter the radiosonde ascents stopped on the 13th February 2017, it is hoped that they will restart during November 2017. The synoptic observations will continue from an AWS that has been setup at the site. There was a gap in the radiosonde ascents at Mawson (89564) between the 8th September and the 15th October 2016 while the balloon shed door was repaired. At the start of September 2016 synoptic observations at the main synoptic hours of 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC stopping going out onto the GTS for the Chilean Antarctic stations 89056 and 89059 (some intermediate hours still appeared on the GTS). This issue was resolved in January 2017. Synoptic observations stopped appearing on the GTS on the 29th December 2016 from the Uruguayan station Dinamet (89054).

Palmer AIS (Automatic Identification System)

Palmer AIS (Automatic Identification System)

Antarctic contribution to YOPP-SH http://polarmet.osu.edu/YOPP-SH/

Commitments for YOPP-SH Special Observing Period Nov. 16, 2018 - Feb Commitments for YOPP-SH Special Observing Period Nov. 16, 2018 - Feb. 15, 2019 – Actual or Planned Australia At Casey, Davis, and Macquarie Island stations, two radiosondes per day are deployed on a regular basis while there is one radiosonde per day launched at Mawson station. Plans during YOPP are to conduct additional radiosondes at those stations. On the Australian research icebreaker RV Aurora Australis, 4 radiosondes per day can potentially be deployed. Other considerations involve the improvement of radiosonde launches from GUAN (Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Upper Air Network) to GRUAN (GCOS Reference Upper Air Network) standards at the Macquarie Island and Davis stations. Germany 3 additional radiosondes each day from Neumayer and the icebreaker Polarstern. 2 AWS: 71S, 10W (south of Neumayer) and 80S, 44W (Filchner Ice Shelf) Buoy network in the Weddell Sea may extend through the start of the SOP. South Africa – Should start with ozone soundings as from Nov 2017 from the SA Agulhas II on route to Antarctica as well as at the Antarctica shelf upon arrival and the same on departure. Additional radio-sondes from the ship during the SOP.

Commitments for YOPP-SH Special Observing Period Nov. 16, 2018 - Feb Commitments for YOPP-SH Special Observing Period Nov. 16, 2018 - Feb. 15, 2019 – Actual or Planned China Expect to release more radiosondes. Details to come. Italy and Korea Are discussing additional radiosondes from Mario Zucchelli and Jang Bogo stations in Terra Nova Bay. Also from Concordia Station in the East Antarctic interior. Japan Possibly 3 - 4 radiosondes per day from Syowa Station. Korea Radiosonde ascents planned from King Sejong Station on King George Island (near Antarctic Peninsula). United Kingdom Halley: Increase radiosondes from once a day to twice per day from 12Z to 00 and 12Z. Rothera: Increase radiosondes from 4 times/week to once per day.

Contributions to GCW Of the 32 approved croyonet stations and sites Concordia station is the only one in Antarctica

Contributions to GCW There are 14 croyonet stations and 7 contributing stations in Antarctica that have been proposed for being considered for inclusion in GCW

Antarctic PRCC moving forward Identify stakeholders Research community, national operators, IAATO, SCAR, ATCM etc Identify what is already been done that would count as mandatory functions of the PRCC. See how things go with the development and the Arctic PRCC. Look at the survey that was carried out for the Arctic PRCC and see if it needs to be modified to be applicable to the Antarctic. ATT can provide members who can participate but require secretarial support to move forward. Forecast skills Some national operators provide additional Antarctic specific training to forecasts before they are allowed to go to Antarctica. This should be encouraged with other national operators.

Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE)

Weather observations from the Akademik Tryoshnikov on the GTS

Weather stations under construction in Cambridge

Deployed in the Weddell Sea

Questions