The Chinese Antarctic Expedition Team, in its 21^st trip to the South Pole, installed on January 17, 2005 an automatic weather station on the Dome A, the highest point in the continent at 4,093m above the sea level. The automatic weather station, physically located at 80.3672oS and 77.5392oE, has been working smoothly and sent data back to the ground station via satellite. Data show that the area is of a surface temperature at –32.4 ????relative humidity 17%??a southerly wind speed 1.9m/s, and an air pressure 581.8 hpa.

The station, 603 meters higher than Russia?痵 oriental station in the same continent, makes the highest weather observation station in the Antarctic. In glacier studies, snow temperature at a depth of 10m is usually taken to represent the local mean annual temperature. The station registers a 10-m deep snow temperature of –58.5??, which is lower than the one recorded at Russia?痵 oriental station. It is therefore concluded that the area, where the station is physically located, may record a new lowest surface temperature in the world.