ANTARCTIC 500 HPA HEIGHTS AND SURFACE TEMPERATURES

The conservative shape of temperature profiles in the lower tropospher e above the Antarctic ice sheet makes the surface temperature, t(s), a n effective independent variable for estimating the height of the 500 hPa surface above automatic weather stations (AWS), In place of regres sion equations for the thinning of the surface/500 hPa layer (produced by negative layer mean temperatures, (t) over bar) as a dependent var iable, an alternative approach examined here uses the layer mean tempe rature itself as a dependent variable, It is shown that this eliminate s systematic differences between the regression parameters for radioso nde stations at different elevations, and should validate a single set of parameters for a wide range of AWS sites.