Abstract:
This package contains monthly-mean surface temperature and station or
sea-level pressure data for 29 meteorological stations on Antarctica.
Of these 29 stations, 18 are considered to be primary stations. At
four of the stations in the Antarctic Peninsula region (Faraday,
Bellinghausen, Esperenza, and Rothera Point), data records from
neighboring sites with records of
... short duration were merged into
single station records. The first version of this database was
compiled at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of University of East
Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. The database extended through 1988
and was made available in 1989 by the Carbon Dioxide Information
Analysis Center (CDIAC) as a Numeric Data Package (NDP), NDP-032. This
update of the database includes data through early 1999 for most
stations (through 2000 for a few), and also includes all available
mean monthly maximum and minimum temperature data. For many stations
this means that over 40 years of data are now available, enough for
many of the trends associated with recent warming to be more
thoroughly examined.
These temperature and pressure data were assembled primarily from the
World Weather Records (WWR) and Monthly Climatic Data for the World
(MCDW) volumes for 1951-1960 and 1961-1970. Data records from these
sources were supplemented with data from additional sources described
in the package. All the assembled data were checked for quality and
long-term homogeneity using inter-station comparison techniques. The
assessment of the long-term homogeneity of the records was done by
comparing the records of two or three neighboring stations. Due to
the distances between the stations, this assessment could only be
adequately done for stations in the Antarctic Peninsula region and
along the main coast of the continental area. Those stations outside
these regions were checked only for major errors. Greater details
about the inter-station comparison technique are provided in Jones and
Limbert (1987).
All CDIAC numerical data packages include copies of pertinent
literature discussing the data, summaries discussing the background,
source and scope of the data, as well as applications limitations and
restrictions of the data.
More information on this data set can be found at:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ndp032/ndp032.html 
