Remote and Autonomous Measurements of Precipitation for the Northwest Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

The Antarctic Precipitation System project deployed and maintained four sites across the northwest Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica from November 2017 to November 2019. The goals for the project included the collection of in situ observations of precipitation in Antarctica spanning a duration of two years, an improvement in the understanding of precipitation events across the Ross Ice Shelf, and the ability to validate precipitation data from atmospheric numerical models.

At each of the four sites the precipitation was measured with an OTT Pluvio2 precipitation gauge. Additionally, snow accumulation at the site was measured with a sonic ranging sensor and using GPS-Interferometry Reflectivity. Supplemental observations of temperature, wind speed, particle count, particle size and speed, and images and video from a camera, were collected to provide context to the precipitation measurements.

The collected dataset represents some of the first year-round observations of precipitation in Antarctic at remote locations using an autonomous measurement system. The acquired observations have been quality controlled, post-processed, and are available for retrieval through the United States Antarctic Program Data Center (Seefeldt, 2021; doi.org/10.15784/601441).