AWS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation


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Resource Abstract:
Abstract: The Antarctic megadune research was conducted during two field seasons, one in November 2002 and the other during the period of December 2003 through January 2004. The megadune field site is located on the East Antarctic Plateau, southeast of Vostok station. The objectives of this multi-facetted research are 1) to determine the physical characteristics of the firn across the dunes including typical climate indicators such as stable isotopes and major chemical species and 2) to install instruments to measure the time variation of near-surface wind and temperature with depth, to test and refine hypotheses for megadune formation. It is important to improve our current understanding of the megadunes because of their extreme nature, their broad extent, and their potential impact on the climate record. Megadunes are a manifestation of an extreme terrestrial climate and may provide insight on the past terrestrial climate or on processes active on other planets. Snow megadunes are undulating variations in accumulation and surface texture with wavelengths of 2 to 5 km and amplitudes up to 5 meters. The features cover 500,000 km<sup>2</sup> of the East Antarctic plateau, occurring in areas of moderate regional slope and low accumulation on the flanks of the ice sheet between 2500 and 3800 meters elevation. Landsat images and aerial photography indicate the dunes consist of alternating surfaces of glaze and rough sastrugi, with gradational boundaries. This pattern is oriented perpendicular to the mean wind direction, as modeled in katabatic wind studies. Glazed surfaces cover the leeward faces and troughs; rough sastrugi cover the windward faces and crests. The megadune pattern is crossed by smooth to eroded wind-parallel longitudinal dunes. Wind-eroded longitudinal dunes form spectacular 1-meter-high sastrugi in nearby areas. This data set contains automated weather station (AWS) data from two sites. The Mac site was oriented on the rough sastrugi-covered windward face and the Zoe site was on the glazed leeward face. The AWSs collected data throughout the year from 16 January 2004 to 17 November 2004. Investigators received data from the two field sites via the ARGOS Satellite System (http://www.argosinc.com/). Data are provided in space-delimited ASCII text format and are available via FTP.
Citation
Title  AWS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation
publication date 2006-10-05
cited responsible party - author
individual Name  Fahnestock, Mark
organisation Name  University of New Hampshire, 39 College Road, Durham, NH, 03824-3525, USA
Contact information
Postal Address:
electronic Mail Address: mark.fahnestock@unh.edu
cited responsible party - author
individual Name  Scambos, Ted
organisation Name  National Snow and Ice Data Center, CIRES, 449 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309-0449,
Contact information
Postal Address:
electronic Mail Address: scambos@nsidc.org
Linkage for online resource
URL: http://orcid.org/ORCID:0000-0003-4268-6322
protocol  ORCID
cited responsible party - author
individual Name  Haran, Terry
organisation Name  CIRES, 449 UCB, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309-0449,
No contact information provided.
cited responsible party - author
individual Name  Bauer, Rob
organisation Name  University of Colorado, CIRES 449 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA
Contact information
Postal Address:
electronic Mail Address: bauerr@kryos.colorado.edu
Linkage for online resource
URL: http://orcid.org/ORCID:0000-0002-6736-906X
protocol  ORCID
cited responsible party - publisher
organisation Name  U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Data Center
No contact information provided.
Topic Category:   climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Keywords:
Resource language:   eng
Resource progress code:   Complete
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0]
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Legal Constraints
Access Constraints   license
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0]
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Security Constraints
Classification  unclassified
Format
Format name
Format version  1
Resource extent
Extent description
East Antarctic Plateau
Geographic Extent
Geographic Bounding Box
westBoundLongitude  124.4345
eastBoundLongitude  124.52668
northBoundLatitude  -80.77546
southBoundLatitude  -80.79008
Resource extent
Temporal Extent
2004-01-16 2004-11-17
point of contact - pointOfContact
individual Name  Fahnestock, Mark
organisation Name  University of New Hampshire, 39 College Road, Durham, NH, 03824-3525, USA
No contact information provided.
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name  Landing Page
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7265/N5K935F3
protocol  WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
link function  information
Description  Link to DOI landing page or data facility landing page if no DOI is assigned.
Linkage for online resource
name  landing page
URL: http://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609283
protocol  WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
link function  information
Description  Link to a web page related to the resource.
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Metadata Information

Metadata data stamp:  2018-05-17
Resource Maintenance Information
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notes:  This metadata record was generated by an xslt transformation from a DataCite metadata record; The transform was created by Damian Ulbricht and Stephen M. Richard. 2017-11-15 these records include new IEDA keywords for geoportal facets Run on 2018-06-21T19:05:27-07:00
Metadata contact - pointOfContact
organisation Name  Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance
Contact information
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electronic Mail Address: web@usap-dc.org
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URL: http://www.usap-dc.org/static/imgs/header/usaplogo.png
link function  browseGraphic
Metadata scope code  dataset
Metadata hierarchy level name:  Dataset
Metadata language   eng
Metadata character set encoding:   utf8
Metadata standard for this record:  ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata - Implementation Specification
standard version:  2007
Metadata record identifier:  urn:ieda:metadataabout:10.7265-N5K935F3
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