But before you think he's describing your next vacation spot, know that his forecasts also include, "Low near minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit" and "Winds up to 120 miles per hour."

Lazzara forecasts for one of the planet's nastiest climates -- Antarctica. Headquartered at a much warmer locale at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lazzara oversees dozens of Antarctic weather stations immune to freezer-like conditions to gather his data. He then shares this information with other Antarctic researchers, so they can avoid frost bite, hypothermia and getting lost in blinding snowstorms.

Lazzara, an atmospheric scientist, is part of a team of university researchers working on the Automatic Weather Stations project, which was started in 1980 by Antarctica pioneer Charles Stearns and is funded by the National Science Foundation's polar research program. Each year, this group builds and repairs 10-foot tall weather stations equipped to record temperature, humidity, air pressure, and wind speed and direction. From start to finish, each station costs $15,000.

The stations can bear the brunt of Antarctic weather. Down under, temperatures can reach the world record for the coldest -- minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- and hurricane-force gusts can be clocked up to 200 miles per hour. To stand stoic against these harsh conditions, the weather stations' control centers are specially designed. Enclosed in a metal box, "the electrical components can withstand temperatures around minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit," says the project's co-principal investigator George Weidner. Pointing to a drawer-like container built into a workbench, he says, "I test them out in this cooling chamber that can store dry ice."

That's not to say stations don't take a beating -- high winds can blast off parts and even paint.

Weidner tweaks some stations for specific locations. Those mounted onto the frozen water of an iceberg or ice sheet, for example, include a global positioning device to track their migration with the ice. "The stations do move, because you're putting them into ice," says Lazzara, who notes that the official location of the South Pole seems to slide because the ice sheet covering it slides about.

Of more than 50 UW-Madison weather stations scattered throughout the Antarctic, about 70 percent have been installed and serviced (or, more likely, uncovered from snow) by the UW-Madison team. Others have been built for cooperative research programs based at British, French, German and Japanese sites. "We have so many stations and so few people who can get to them," admits Lazzara. "We share service responsibilities with those who can."

More importantly, they also share data. "The Antarctic experience involves an awful lot of collaboration between nations that you typically don't see," he says. After processing the temperature readings and barometric levels gathered by the stations, Lazzara passes on the information to international weather labs and researchers. He explains, "We've been funded to get this data and give it away."

Scientists use the information to forecast weather both now and in the distant future. "If you're on a plane heading towards Antarctica, you want to know about the weather," says Weidner, who's traveled to the frosty continent 14 times. For this reason, many of the weather stations are located where researchers land, either by ship or plane.

"You want to be able to fly scientists to where they can do their research," says Lazzara, who once boarded a plane three times before he actually landed at McMurdo Station, the main U.S. site.

The real-time data used to forecast also can be used to develop accurate forecasting models. Lazzara explains, "For getting forecasting right, you really need observations." Computer modelers plug these observations into equations and design programs to predict other climate changes, such as global warming. In many cases, the data let modelers check the accuracy of their forecasts.

Though available worldwide, these data help researchers at UW-Madison. By putting the day-to-day data into a timeline, Weidner and his colleagues have shown that El Niño -- a weather pattern leaving the tropics warmer and wetter than usual -- also affects Antarctica: Some regions are colder and snowier than ever before. Lazzara relies on the data for a different reason: "Instead of using satellite detection, I'm going to use the relative humidity, wind speed and temperature data to verify when there's fog in Antarctica," Lazzara says.

Providing this information to everyone may eliminate some researchers' need to trek to Antarctica. Weidner says, "It's a challenge to do science down there. Everything takes three times longer.And, when the weather's good, you work -- sometimes 24 hours straight." But, he admits, "Mother Nature eventually wins." - By Emily Carlson

[Contact: Charles Stearns, Matthew Lazzara, Emily Carlson ]

05-Dec-2001