Dielectric permittivity of snow measured along the route traversed in the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic expedition 2007/08

Abstract

As a joint contribution of Japan and Sweden to the International Polar Year 2007-09, a field expedition between Syowa and Wasa stations in East Antarctica was carried out in the 2007/08 austral summer season. Along the 2800km long expedition route, the dielectric permittivity of the upper 1m snow layer was measured at intervals of approximately 50km using a snow fork, a parallel-wire transmission-line resonator. More than 2000 measurements were performed under carefully calibrated conditions, mostly in the interior of Antarctica. The permittivity ε' was a function of snow density as in previous studies on dry snow, but the values were significantly smaller than those reported before. In the light of the dielectric mixture theory, the relatively smaller ε' obtained in this study can be attributed to the snow structures characteristic in the studied region. Our data suggest that the permittivity of snow in the Antarctic interior is significantly affected by weak bonding between snow grains, which is due to depth-hoar formation in the extremely low-temperature conditions.