Climate data acquisition - Scott base and Arrival Heights.
Daily weather readings are made by the Scott Base Technicians at 9am each day. The readings of daily maximum and minimum temperature have been made at this time every day since 1957 and is one of, if not, the longest continuous climate records of any country in Antarctica. The method used has not changed in this period. This is an incredibly important dataset for the monitoring of Global Climate Change.
In more recent times, from 1996, an automatic weather station was installed alongside the manual station to make use of better technology to provide more frequent data and additional parameters so that 10minute and hourly data are now collected for wind, temperature and solar radiation.
Scott Base is one of 5 stations managed by NZ that measure direct, diffuse and global solar radiation. The others are on mainland NZ. An automatic weather station is also operating at Arrival Heights for long term monitoring.
