Dome C , also known as dôme Circe, Dome Charlie (US) or dôme Concordia, is located at Antarctica at an elevation of 3,233 metres (10,607 ft) above sea level, on one of several domes of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Dome C is located on the Antarctic Plateau, 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) inland from the French research station at Dumont D'Urville, 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) inland from the Australian Casey Station and 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) inland from the Italian Zucchelli Station at Terra Nova Bay. Russia's Vostok Station is 560 kilometres (350 mi) away. Dome C is the site of the Concordia Research Station, jointly operated by France and Italy.
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In this Dossier
Dome C in the context of Cold
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00 K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. This corresponds to −273.15 °C on the Celsius scale, −459.67 °F on the Fahrenheit scale, and 0.00 °R on the Rankine scale.
Since temperature relates to the thermal energy held by an object or a sample of matter, which is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particle constituents of matter, an object will have less thermal energy when it is colder and more when it is hotter. If it were possible to cool a system to absolute zero, all motion of the particles in a sample of matter would cease and they would be at complete rest in the classical sense. The object could be described as having zero thermal energy. Microscopically in the description of quantum mechanics, however, matter still has zero-point energy even at absolute zero, because of the uncertainty principle.
Dome C in the context of Polar Plateau
The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica that extends over a diameter of about 1,000 kilometres (620 mi), and includes the region of the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This huge continental plateau is at an average elevation of about 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).
Dome C in the context of European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica
The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is a multinational European project for deep ice core drilling in Antarctica. Its main objective is to obtain full documentation of the climatic and atmospheric record archived in Antarctic ice by drilling and analyzing two ice cores and comparing these with their Greenland counterparts (GRIP and GISP). Evaluation of these records will provide information about the natural climate variability and mechanisms of rapid climatic changes during the last glacial epoch.
Deep drilling took place at two sites in Antarctica: Concordia Station on dome C and Kohnen Station.
Dome C in the context of Concordia, Antarctica
Concordia Research Station, which opened in 2005, is a French–Italian research facility managed by l'Institut polaire français Paul-Émile Victor and Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide, that was built 3,233 m (10,607 ft) above sea level on a geographical formation known as dôme C, on the Antarctic Plateau, Antarctica. It is located 1,100 km (680 mi) inland from the French research station at Dumont D'Urville, 1,100 km (680 mi) inland from Australia's Casey Station and 1,200 km (750 mi) inland from the Italian Zucchelli Station at Terra Nova Bay. Russia's Vostok Station is 560 km (350 mi) away. The Geographic South Pole is 1,670 km (1,040 mi) away. The facility is also located within Australia's claim on Antarctica, the Australian Antarctic Territory.
Concordia Station is the third permanent, all-year research station on the Antarctic Plateau besides Vostok Station and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station (U.S.) at the Geographic South Pole. It is jointly operated by scientists from France and Italy and regularly hosts ESA scientists.