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Antarctic Meteo-Climatological Observatory

Snow Temperature at different depth
IFAC-CNR

GoogleMap
WMO The station is part of the WMO-GCW
- Cryonet station -
Latitude 75° 6′ 0″ S
Longitude 123° 24′ 0″ E
Altitude 3230 m
Installed on7 December 2012

Dome C

Location

Dome C is an ice dome rising to more than 3200 m in the featureless snow plateau of Wilkes Land, East Antarctica. Called "Dome C" the feature was the site of ice core drilling by field teams of several nations in the 1970's. Simultaneously, it was called Dome Charlie (communications code word for letter C) by U.S. Naval Support Force, Antarctica which provided logistical support to the field teams. In deciding the name, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) considered Dome Charlie to be superior to the informal name, "Dome C" and that it has precedence over "Dome Circe" a name suggested from Greek mythology by members of the SPRI airborne radio echo sounding team in 1982. Dome C was chosen as drilling site for the European Project for Ice Coring in Antartica (EPICA) during the period 1996-2005.

(From https://geonames.usgs.gov)

Technical Specification:

Data-logger:
LSI LASTEM E-LOG model: ELO105-ELO305

Sensors:
PT100 probes placed at the following depth (in cm):
5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800, 1000.

The probes in the first meter are inserted into the snow at the nominal depth while the deepest probes are placed in a bore hole, closed on the surface. The hole is placed close to the fist meter probes.

Data acquired by the data logger are remotely downloaded once per month and transmitted in Italy

Data Storage:
Measured temperature at each depth is represented as mean and standard deviation hourly vale
UTC time is used
Not available data are indicated as NaN NaN (Not a Number)

Power Supply:
Network (220V)

Connectivity:
LAN

Probes' Maintenance and accumulation measurements

Because of the snow accumulation, the nominal position of the probes changes in time.

Once per year, during the austral summer, the probes in the first meter are re-positioned at theirs nominal value. The annual accumulation is also measured.

The position of the probes placed in the borehole are not modified but the snow accumulation is measured once per year.

Dates of probes' displacement and snow accumulation values are contained in the following table:

date accumulation
0-1 m (cm)
accumulation
1-10 m (cm)
07/12/2012 0 55
08/12/2013 20 70
2014 No No
04/12/2015 22.5 95
29/11/2016 32 121
29/01/2018 15.5 137
28/11/2018 13 150
26/11/2019 0 151
29/12/2020 6 158

Curiosities ...

Minimum temperature: -78.25°C on 22/06/2017

Maximum temperature: -19.82°C on 06/01/2016

At 10 meters deep the temperature is almost stable in time. Its standard deviation over 4 years is 0.19 °C