ANTARCTIC ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION 
By ARNOLD COURT! 
Meteorologist, U. S. Antarctic Service, 1939-1941 
INTRODUCTION 
Antarctica’s atmospheric circulation and its causes 
and effects are major gaps in current meteorological 
knowledge. Until they are filled, there can be no com- 
plete understanding of the weather processes of the 
earth as a whole, and especially of the radiative balance 
of the earth’s surface and upper atmosphere and of the 
mechanics of variations in the general circulation. Yet 
there is almost no direct information on the antarctic 
circulation, because Antarctica is a continent, covering 
one-ninth of the land area of the world, for which the 
only meteorological data apply to a dozen isolated spots 
on the periphery. 
This paper discusses previous concepts of the circu- 
lation over the interior and over the surrounding oceans, 
and of ‘‘pressure waves,” then cites the additional ob- 
servational material gained since these concepts were 
enunciated, and finally suggests a general circulation 
scheme which agrees with these newer data, especially 
concerning the upper air and the topography. 
“Antarctica” is the south polar contment, and “‘ant- 
arctic” applies only to it and its immediate offshore 
islands and seas. The open ocean surrounding the con- 
tinent, with a dozen or so islands, is ‘“‘subantarctic.”’ 
The outstanding features of the generally circular coast- 
Ime are the narrow, mountainous Palmer Peninsula 
(“Graham Land” to the British) which extends north- 
ward to within 600 miles of Cape Horn, and two deep 
embayments almost opposite each other: the Weddell 
Sea east of the Palmer Peninsula, and the Ross Sea 
south of New Zealand. 
At the head of the Weddell Sea is the Filchner Shelf 
Ice (renamed “Lassiter” by Ronne [127]), descending 
from the high interior; on the east side, and around the 
continent through almost 180°, the ice descends rather 
sharply to the ocean, with mountains in several areas 
and a few ice-free spots among them, and several ice 
sheets projecting into the open ocean or the various 
bays. More than two million square miles in the interior 
are wholly unknown; they may be a rocky desert, they 
may contain the world’s highest mountain, or they may 
in fact be a featureless snow plain averaging 10,000 ft 
above sea level, as is supposed because of conditions 
at the geographic and magnetic poles. There is also 
some evidence that this area may contain a large basin. 
This largest unknown area in the world ends at the 
massive mountain chain which borders the Ross Sea 
on the west and south, and up whose intervening glaciers 
1. Climatologist, Research and Development Branch, 
Office of The Quartermaster General. This article represents 
the personal views of the author and not necessarily those of 
the Department of Defense. 
Amundsen and Scott toiled to reach the Pole. The south- 
ern half of the Ross Sea is covered by the vast Ross 
Shelf Ice (or Ross Barrier), whose face rises 100 to 200 
ft above open water; it is generally grounded, although 
extensive portions near the edge are afloat. Hast of 
the Ross Sea are complex mountain areas, and farther 
east the coast, as outlined by United States aircraft in 
1940 [121] and 1947 [116], is quite rugged, with many 
mountains, one reaching 20,000 ft, and numerous bays 
and glaciers. The adjacent waters are so ice-filled that 
no ship has even penetrated within sight of the coast. 
The interior is an “unbroken desert of snow” about 
6000 ft high [120] with a few mountains near the base of 
the Palmer Peninsula. 
Until 1950, only three expeditions had ever wintered 
on the rocks of the continent proper; all others were 
based on small islands just offshore, on board ships 
frozen in near such islands, or on solid ice sheets 
extending out from the continent. All bases have been 
practically at sea level—at the edge of a continent 
assumed to average several thousand feet in height. 
No one has ever been more than a few miles inland 
from March through September, and even in summer 
no spot in the interior has ever been occupied for more 
than a week. All expedition bases have been on the 
shores of the Palmer Peninsula or of the Ross Sea, 
except for two on the coast facmg Australia. 
Exploration of Antarctica’s interior began with the 
“Homeric period” [125] from the first wintering on 
the Belgica in 1898-99 to Shackleton’s unsuccessful 
transcontinental attempt in 1914-16. The continent 
was first sighted in 1820 (but whether by an American 
or a Briton—or even a Russian—is argued actively) 
and circumnayigated around 1840 by American, British, 
and French expeditions, all sighting land at various 
places and the British one, under Sir James Clark Ross, 
penetrating the encircling pack ice to reach the Ross 
Sea in two successive years. 
The ‘mechanical period,” beginning with Admiral 
Byrd’s first expedition in 1928, has seen several Ameri- 
can expeditions, one British venture, and in recent 
years the large-scale occupation of the Palmer Penin- 
sula by rival British, Argentine, and Chilean weather 
stations. During 1950, these stations were augmented by 
two expeditions, French and Norwegian-British-Swed- 
ish, based respectively south of Australia and south of 
Africa, and by weather stations on several subantarctic 
islands (Table I). 
Most of the extant theories of Antarctica’s weather 
processes are based on the observations of the “Homeric 
expeditions,” generally published in detail and often 
discussed extensively. The ‘‘mechanical expeditions” 
have provided the best upper-air information, but their 
917 
