The climate of Macquarie Island and its role in atmospheric monitoring

Abstract

In general, the climate is typical of a higher mid-latitude oceanic island, and its features are compared with others in the circumpolar Southern Ocean. The island occupies a unique geographic site in the higher southern mid-latitudes. Despite the advent of new observational techniques the observations from Macquarie Island continue to constitute essential calibration data for space-derived measurements and provide the long-term continuity only possible at a fixed baseline station. The measurement of ozone, carbon dioxide and other atmospheric trace constituents are becoming increasingly recognised as significant in studies of long-term climatic change. -from Author