01961nas a2200217 4500008004100000245010100041210006900142260001200211300001200223490000700235520124400242653003001486653001101516653002401527653001501551653002101566100002001587700002101607700002201628856009301650 2022 eng d00aValley-floor snowfall in Taylor Valley, Antarctica, from 1995 to 2017: Spring, summer and autumn0 aValleyfloor snowfall in Taylor Valley Antarctica from 1995 to 20 c08/2022 a325-3350 v343 a

We present an analysis of the 20 year snowfall dataset in Taylor Valley and the results of a new snow cover monitoring study. Snowfall has been measured at four sites in Taylor Valley from 1995 to 2017. We focus on valley-floor snowfall when wind does not exceed 5 m s-1, and we exclude winter from our analysis due to poor data quality. Snowfall averaged 11 mm water equivalent (w.e.) from 1995 to 2017 across all stations and ranged from 1 to 58 mm w.e. Standard deviations ranged from 3 to 17 mm w.e., highlighting the strong interannual variability of snowfall in Taylor Valley. During spring and autumn there is a spatial gradient in snowfall such that the coast received twice as much snowfall as more central and inland stations. We identified a changepoint in 2007 from increasing snowfall (3 mm w.e. yr-1) to decreasing snowfall (1 mm w.e. yr-1), which coincides with a shift from decreasing temperature to no detectable temperature trend. Daily camera imagery from 2007 to 2017 augments the snowfall measurements. The camera imagery revealed a near tripling of the average number of days with snow cover from 37 days between 2006 and 2012 to 106 days with snow cover between 2012 and 2017.

10aautomated weather station10acamera10aMcMurdo Dry Valleys10asnow cover10asnow persistence1 aMyers, Madeline1 aDoran, Peter, T.1 aMyers, Krista, F. uhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0954102022000256/type/journal_article03551nas a2200217 4500008004100000245009000041210006900131260001200200300001400212490000800226520282700234653001103061100002103072700002703093700001903120700002003139700002403159700002203183700001703205856011103222 2002 eng d00aValley floor climate observations from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, 1986-20000 aValley floor climate observations from the McMurdo Dry Valleys A c12/2002 a4772-47840 v1073 a

Climate observations from the McMurdo dry valleys, East Antarctica are presented from a network of seven valley floor automatic meteorological stations during the period 1986 to 2000. Mean annual temperatures ranged from −14.8°C to −30.0°C, depending on the site and period of measurement. Mean annual relative humidity is generally highest near the coast. Mean annual wind speed increases with proximity to the polar plateau. Site-to-site variation in mean annual solar flux and PAR is due to exposure of each station and changes over time are likely related to changes in cloudiness. During the nonsummer months, strong katabatic winds are frequent at some sites and infrequent at others, creating large variation in mean annual temperature owing to the warming effect of the winds. Katabatic wind exposure appears to be controlled to a large degree by the presence of colder air in the region that collects at low points and keeps the warm less dense katabatic flow from the ground. The strong influence of katabatic winds makes prediction of relative mean annual temperature based on geographical position (elevation and distance from the coast) alone, not possible. During the summer months, onshore winds dominate and warm as they progress through the valleys creating a strong linear relationship (r2 = 0.992) of increasing potential temperature with distance from the coast (0.09°C km−1). In contrast to mean annual temperature, summer temperature lends itself quite well to model predictions, and is used to construct a statistical model for predicting summer dry valley temperatures at unmonitored sites.

10aBiggie1 aDoran, Peter, T.1 aMcKay, Christopher, P.1 aClow, Gary, D.1 aDana, Gayle, L.1 aFountain, Andrew, G1 aNylen, Thomas, H.1 aLyons, Berry uhttps://mcm.lternet.edu/content/valley-floor-climate-observations-mcmurdo-dry-valleys-antarctica-1986-2000