Casey Station
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Casey Station is a permanent base in Antarctica managed by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
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[edit] Geography
It is located at on Vincennes Bay.
[edit] History
Casey is close to the now-abandoned Wilkes Base established by the United States of America to support science and exploration of Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957/8.
Australia took over responsibility for Wilkes after the IGY, but the buildings were already becoming unusable due to the build up of ice around them. Australia built the first Casey Base on the opposite side of the Newcombe Bay in the late 1960s. This set of buildings was a unique attempt to prevent the problem of ice build-up by elevating the building line and shaping it to encourage the wind to blow beneath as well as above. This would, it was hoped, clear the build up of snow each year. It worked for some time.
The current Casey Station headquarters (the "Big Red Shed") was built in the late 1980s as part of the Australian Government's Antarctic Re-building Program. It was prefabricated in Hobart, Tasmania by Hobart construction firm, Contas Pty Ltd, trial-erected on the wharf at Hobart, then dismantled, packaged and shipped to Antarctica. It was erected at Casey by tradesmen employed as workers on the normal summer expedition crews. It incorporates innovative design features to prevent the transfer of heat through the structure. The "Shed" is conspicuously located near the top the hill on which the old radio masts stood. It is probably the largest single structure on Antarctica and was first occupied in 1988.
One of the reasons for having a base at Casey is to study the Law Dome, a miniature version of the entire Antarctic Ice Cap.
[edit] Climate
Casey Station experiences a Polar climate:
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily maximum temperature (°C) | 2.6 | -1.3 | -7.2 | -11.8 | -13.6 | -13.6 | -15.0 | -15.6 | -14.4 | -10.0 | -2.7 | 2.1 | -8.4 | |
| Mean daily minimum temperature (°C) | -2.6 | -7.3 | -13.2 | -17.3 | -19.3 | -19.5 | -20.8 | -21.7 | -20.6 | -16.4 | -8.9 | -3.2 | -14.3 | |
| Mean daily sunshine (hours) | 8.3 | 7.7 | 5.3 | 3.8 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 5.1 | 7.5 | 8.7 | 8.9 | 5.0 | |
| Mean number of cloudy days | 16.0 | 13.3 | 13.8 | 11.9 | 10.5 | 9.6 | 10.6 | 10.9 | 11.7 | 13.2 | 14.4 | 15.7 | 151.5 | |
| Source: Bureau of Meteorology | ||||||||||||||
