GPS water vapour project associated with global solar radiation at Scott Base station Antarctica

Abstract

The project conducted is due to the contribution of Malaysian scientist to the Antarctic research. Using ground-based GPS and surface meteorological measurements, the atmospheric precipitable water vapour (PWV) circulation from Scott Base Antarctica (77.85°S, 166.76°E) are observed. As the Sun plays a significant role in the hydrological cycle and precipitation, the association between water vapour and solar radiation has been investigated to understand the current global climate change. Our analyses from the processing of data collected from 2003 to 2008 showed that the observation between PWV and the global solar radiation was revealed a strong positive correlation with a mean correlation coefficient of 0.81, calculated at the 99% confidence level. The associations between PWV and solar radiation and its physical processes are further discussed in this paper.