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ABSTRACT
A new dataset of monthly and annual mean near-surface climate data (temperature, surface and mean sea level pressure, and wind speed) for the Antarctic region has been created using historical observations [Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Reference Antarctic Data for Environmental Research (READER)]. Where possible, 6-hourly surface synoptic and automatic weather station observations were used to compute the means. The ability to quality control the data at the level of individual observations has produced a more accurate series of monthly means than was available previously. At the time of writing, the mean data are available on the Internet (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/programs-hosted.html). Data for 43 surface-staffed stations and 61 automatic weather stations are included in the database. Here, mean temperature, pressure, and wind speed data for 19 occupied stations with long records are provided.
1. Introduction
There is currently a high level of interest in climate variability and change in the Antarctic because of the marked warming that has been observed over the Antarctic Peninsula in recent decades, both near the surface and in the free atmosphere (King 1994; King and Harangozo 1998; Vaughan et al. 2001; Marshall et al. 2002), and the disintegration of a number of floating ice shelves in this area (Scambos et al. 2000). At the Faraday (now Vernadsky) station on the western side of the peninsula (see Fig. 1 for places referred to in the text), the annual mean near-surface temperature has risen by about 2.5°C since the 1950s, which is as large as any warming observed on Earth over this period (Vaughan et al. 2001). However, the region of marked warming appears to be quite limited (King and Comiso 2003), with the temperature rise at Signy, to the northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, being only about one-half of this value (Quayle et al. 2002).
For the rest of the Antarctic beyond the Antarctic Peninsula, the picture of climate change since instrumental observations began during the 1950s is less clear. However, there have been a number of investigations into the temperature trends at the occupied Antarctic stations. Jacka and Budd (1991) analyzed station data for 1956 to the late 1980s and found that the mean of the slopes of regression lines through the datasets indicated a warming...