Timing of efficient snow clearance for summer operation at Syowa Station

Some construction and outworks are conducted at Syowa Station during the period between the middle of December and middle of February every season. Before the outworks, main roads for cargo transportation and new outwork sites need to be cleared of snow by the wintering members. The clearance work o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kenji Ishizawa
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: National Institute of Polar Research 2018-03-01
Series:Antarctic Record
Subjects:
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.15094/00014896
Description
Summary:Some construction and outworks are conducted at Syowa Station during the period between the middle of December and middle of February every season. Before the outworks, main roads for cargo transportation and new outwork sites need to be cleared of snow by the wintering members. The clearance work of snow is carried out depending on the respective plans by each wintering parties because there are not any manuals referring to the timing of the operation and the method. Therefore, some clearance works were not efficient because they started the work too early without plenty of solar radiation or they suffered from blizzards after completing the snow removal. To work out the best moment of the operation, meteorological data such as air temperature, snow depth, solar radiation and blizzard over previous years at Syowa Station were analyzed. As a result, it was found that the snow-removal operation including treatment of snow melting agent should start from the middle of November.
ISSN:0085-7289
2432-079X