A Comparison of Meteorological Observations from South Pole Station before and after Installation of a New Instrument Suite

The Amundsen–Scott South Pole surface meteorological instrument suite was upgraded in 2004. To ensure that the new and old instruments were recording similar information, the two suites of instruments ran simultaneously for a year. Statistical analysis of the time series of temperature, pressure, and wind was performed to determine if there were any significant differences in the observations. Significant differences were found in some of the winter months for temperature and wind speed. No differences were found for the wind direction distribution. There are also noticeable differences in wind speed between the Clean Air platform near the Clean Air facility and the platform at the approach end of the skiway. Wind speeds are lower at the skiway tower when the wind is from the northeast quadrant and at the Clean Air tower when the wind is from the southwest quadrant, reflecting the effect of increased surface roughness and flow distortion over and around the station structures. Because of a change in elevation of the pressure sensor, the pressure data were recalculated at a common station elevation (2836 m). Although the resulting differences are small (around 0.1 hPa), there is a systematic sign change between summer and winter. The results of this analysis, while revealing some significant differences, show that the new instrumentation at South Pole station is generally reporting observations that are similar to those of the old instrumentation, and most of the differences are within the accuracy of the instruments. However, the instrument placement and construction of official aviation routine weather reports (METARs) do have an impact on the usefulness of the data for research.