On the surface fluxes characteristics and roughness lengths at Zhongshan station, Antarctica

ABSTRACT

Over Antarctica, surface fluxes play an important role in the local atmospheric dynamical processes. To reveal the surface fluxes characteristics and aerodynamic and thermal roughness lengths over Zhongshan station, Antarctica, this paper analyzes the data observed at the station during 3 March 2008 through 15 February 2009. It is found that easterlies dominated this site throughout the whole year, with a maximum (average) speed of 25 (5.6) m s⁻¹ at 3.9 m height, and the annual maximum (minimum) surface temperature reached 291.05 (230.05) K, while the annual maximum (minimum) air-specific humidity was 4.1 (0.05) g/kg at 3.9 m height. The maximum (minimum) values of seasonal mean temperature, humidity, each radiation components, sensible and latent heat flux occurred in summer (winter), while for the seasonal averaged wind speed and τ the minimums (maximums) appeared in summer (autumn). After comparing with a partially linear regression method for aerodynamic roughness length and four previous equations that derive thermal roughness length from surface Reynolds number, constant values of aerodynamic roughness length as 3.6 × 10⁻³m and thermal roughness length as 1.2 × 10⁻⁴m at this site were validated by using the other three level observations and suggested for future studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Antarctica
• Zhongshan station
• turbulent momentum flux
• sensible heat flux
• aerodynamic roughness length
• thermal roughness length

Acknowledgements

We thank the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration and Polar Research Institute of China for the logistic support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41376005 and 41505004), the National Key Projects of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2016YFA0602100), the Chinese Polar Environmental Comprehensive Investigation and Assessment Program, and the Open Project Program (KLME1508) of the Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.