Surface Cyclone Mask for the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition, Dec 2016 – Mar 2017

A surface cyclone mask records the presence of cyclones along the track of the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE). The data was created by applying a 2D cyclone identification algorithm to ECMWF operational analysis data. The dataset was authored by Iris Thurnherr of ETH Zurich and is available under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Tracking cyclone frequency and location based on the expedition's route.
• Validating atmospheric reanalysis and cyclone detection algorithms based on the applied identification method.
• Studying Southern Ocean storm activity during the austral summer period of the expedition.

Strengths

• Data is derived from operational analysis data of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
• The cyclone identification algorithm (Wernli and Schwierz, 2006; Sprenger et al., 2017) is a cited, established method.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

ETH Zurich

Collection Method

Calculated by applying a 2D cyclone identification algorithm to ECMWF global operational analysis data.

Time Range

December 2016 – March 2017

Geography

Track of the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (Southern Ocean)