Climate of extremes - Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent - page 119

Figure 4.16 Map of current automatic weather station

locations. (Credit: Matthew Lazzara, Antarctic
Meteorological Research Center, Space Science and
Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin - Madison)

are transmitted to polar orbiting satellites, and rebroadcast around the world in
real-time. This data is used to make forecasts of Antarctic and Southern Ocean
weather as well as being crucial for studying trends in the climate of the Antarctic
and Southern Ocean. Currently over 100 automatic weather stations are
maintained by several nations. While these weather observations are obviously
important for forecasting the weather in and around Antarctica, they are also
critical for weather forecasting across the planet. The computer models that
meteorologists use to forecast the weather must have information about the
current state of the atmosphere before they can produce a forecast of future
weather conditions. Many of these computer models cover the entire planet,
and the weather data collected in the Antarctic is used in these models.