Lee, Bang Yong;Cho, Hi Ku;Kim, Jhoon;Jung, Yeon Jin;Lee, Yun Gon
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The long-term trends of global solar irradiance, air temperature, specific humidity and cloudiness measured at King Sejong station, Antarctica, during the period of 1988-2004, have been investigated. A statistically insignificant decrease, -0.21 $Wm^{-2}yr^{-1}$ (-0.26 %$yr^{-1}$, P<0.5) in global solar irradiance was found in an analysis from the time series of the monthly mean values, except for the increasing trends only in two months of January and June. The trends in irradiance are directly and inversely associated with the cloudiness trends in annual and monthly means. The trends in surface air temperature show a slight warming, $0.03^{\circ}Cyr^{-1}$ (1.88 %$yr^{-1}$, P<0.5) on the annual average, with cooling trend in the summer months and the warming in the winter. The exact relationship, if any, between the irradiance and temperature trends is not known. No significant tendency was found in specific humidity for the same periods. Recent (1996-2004) erythermal ultraviolet irradiance shows decreasing trend in annual mean, -0.15 $mWm^{-2}yr^{-1}$ (-1.18 %$yr^{-1}$, P<0.1) which is about five times the trends of global solar irradiance. The ratio of erythermal ultraviolet to global solar irradiance shows remarkable seasonal variations with annual mean value of 0.01 % and a peak in October and November, showing the increase of ultraviolet irradiance resulting from the Antarctic ozone hole. The sensitivity of global solar irradiance to the change in cloudiness is roughly $13%oktas^{-1}$ which is about twice of the value at the South Pole due to the difference in the average surface reflectance between the two stations. Much more sensitive values of $59%oktas^{-1}$ was found for erythermal UV irradiance than for the global solar irradiance.