30 years of Antarctic weather station observations by the IMAU network (1995-2025)

Since 1995, the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht (IMAU) at Utrecht University has operated automatic weather stations (AWS) at 20 different locations on the Antarctic ice sheet. In cooperation with multiple institutes, AWS were installed in Dronning Maud Land, on the East Antarctic Plateau, on the remnants of the Larsen B ice shelf, and on the Larsen C and Roi Baudouin ice shelves.  Besides standard meteorological observations (wind speed, wind direction, air temperature, humidity, surface pressure), these stations also recorded the four components of net surface radiation, as well as surface height change. That allows for a reliable estimation of the surface energy balance (SEB) and surface mass balance (SMB) at hourly temporal resolution. Due to the harsh climatic conditions and limited number of maintenance visits, the data require a thorough quality control procedure and specific sensor corrections.

Here we present the corrections that were applied to the measurements, as well as the procedure that was implemented to flag suspicious samples. We give an overview of the first quantification of the long-term variability in SEB components, as well as the strong contrast between the high-melt locations near the grounding lines of ice shelves and the dry interior of the Antarctic ice sheet.  In total, 152 station-years of observations are available, of which 78% are non-flagged simultaneous observations of all meteorological and radiation parameters.

This dataset may be used for the evaluation of climate models and for the interpretation and validation of remote sensing products, but also for the quantification of climatological changes and for process understanding in general. The data are openly available at  https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.974080.