DOI: 10.16904/envidat.540
title: Profile measurements of snow transport and micrometeorology at Mizuho Station in Antarctica

description: This data was collected at Mizuho Station (44.315°E, 70.71°S, 2230 m a.s.l.), East Antarctica, from **30 September to 22 November 2000** during the 41st Japanese Antarctic research expedition. Vertical profiles of the horizontal mass flux and particle number size distribution of drifting and blowing snow were measured in the lowest 10 m of the atmosphere using four **snow particle counters** (SPCs). Three 3-dimensional **ultrasonic anemometers** were deployed in the lowest 25 m of the atmosphere to record the wind velocity components and sonic temperature at a high frequency of 100 Hz. Additionally, an **automatic weather station** provided air temperature, relative humidity, air pressure, shortwave and longwave downward and upward radiation fluxes, surface temperature, snow temperatures at depths of 0.1 and 0.4 m below the surface, wind speed, and wind direction. The data is complemented by **weather observations** performed twice to eleven times per day by the Japanese Meteorological Agency.
Most of the time, the lowest SPC was situated at a height of 0.05 or 0.1 m above the snow surface. During certain periods called profile runs, the height of the lowest SPC was systematically varied between 0.02 and 0.2 m to increase the vertical resolution of the measured profiles. The other SPC's were installed at fixed heights of 1.1, 3.1, and 9.6 m. During each profile run, the lowest SPC was kept at a specific height for approximately 10 min before changing the height. If the wind speed remained approximately constant throughout a profile run, the data was used to compute the average snow-transport profile in that period. In total, 24 of such average profiles were obtained. A part of these SPC measurements are discussed in Nishimura and Nemoto (2005).
The ultrasonic anemometers were placed at heights of 0.3, 1, and 25 m. However, the height of the lowest ultrasonic anemometer was changed several times in the measurement period and ranged from 0.05 to 0.32 m. On top of that, 19 short periods (each lasting 15 to 160 min) were used to systematically vary the height of the lowest ultrasonic anemometer and thus increase the vertical resolution of the measured wind speed profile. Occasionally, drifting and blowing snow particles perturbed the ultrasonic measurement signal and electrically-charged particles caused an electric charge of the anemometers, leading to artifacts such as spikes and dropouts in the measured time series. These artifacts were largely removed and replaced by NaN, using the statistical spike removal algorithm of Mauder et al. (2013). However, the artifact removal was sometimes incomplete for the lowest anemometer because of very intense snow transport close to the surface. While temporal averages are barely affected by the artifacts, the high-frequency data of the lowest anemometer should be used carefully when computing turbulent fluxes using the eddy-covariance method. Further important explanations are provided in the file Readme.pdf in data resource '(a) Metadata'.
References
- Mauder, M., Cuntz, M., Drüe, C., Graf, A., Rebmann, C., Schmid, H.P., Schmidt, M., Steinbrecher, R. (2013). A strategy for quality and uncertainty assessment of long-term eddy-covariance measurements. Agric For Meteorol 169:122–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2012.09.006
- Nishimura, K., Nemoto M. (2005). Blowing snow at Mizuho station, Antarctica. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 363: 1647–1662. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2005.1599
description: Resource Title: (a) Metadata
 Size: 113832 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/a_Metadata.zip
 Description: General and specific metadata for all files.
description: Resource Title: (b) SPC time series
 Size: 149946368 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/b_SPC_time_series.zip
 Description: Data from the snow particle counters with 1-s intervals.
description: Resource Title: (c) SPC average profiles
 Size: 7235174 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/c_SPC_average_profiles.zip
 Description: Average vertical profiles of the horizontal snow mass flux, particle number size distribution, and mean and standard deviation of the particle diameter.
description: Resource Title: (d) Sonic data 1
 Size: 1825361101 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/d_Sonic_data_1.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 30 September to 11 October 2000.
description: Resource Title: (e) Sonic data 2
 Size: 1932735283 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/e_Sonic_data_2.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 11 to 21 October 2000.
description: Resource Title: (f) Sonic data 3
 Size: 1932735283 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/f_Sonic_data_3.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 21 to 30 October 2000.
description: Resource Title: (g) Sonic data 4
 Size: 1932735283 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/g_Sonic_data_4.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 30 October to 6 November 2000.
description: Resource Title: (h) Sonic data 5
 Size: 1825361101 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/h_Sonic_data_5.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 6 to 13 November 2000.
description: Resource Title: (i) Sonic data 6
 Size: 1503238554 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/i_Sonic_data_6.zip
 Description: Ultrasonic anemometer data in the period from 13 to 18 November 2000.
description: Resource Title: (j) Spike percentage
 Size: 831078 bytes
 Format: .csv
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/j_Spike_percentage.csv
 Description: Percentage of spikes removed from the ultrasonic anemometer data per 5-min interval.
description: Resource Title: (k) Wind speed profiles
 Size: 302490 bytes
 Format: .zip
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/k_Wind_speed_profiles.zip
 Description: Average vertical profiles of horizontal wind speed based on the ultrasonic anemometer data.
description: Resource Title: (l) AWS data
 Size: 736870 bytes
 Format: .csv
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/l_AWS_data.csv
 Description: Automatic weather station data with 10-min intervals.
description: Resource Title: (m) Weather observations
 Size: 16589 bytes
 Format: .csv
 URL: https://os.zhdk.cloud.switch.ch/envicloud/doi/envidat.540/m_Weather_observations.csv
 Description: Weather elements and phenomena observed by the Japanese Meteorological Agency.