Timing of efficient snow clearance for summer operation at Syowa Station

• Main Author: Kenji Ishizawa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Institute of Polar Research 2018-03-01
• Series: Antarctic Record
• Subjects: snow clearance; Syowa Station; solar radiation; snow depth; blizzard; snow melting agent
• Online Access: http://doi.org/10.15094/00014896

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.