ANTARCTICA — China’s 35th Antarctic expedition team on Feb 7 set up a new automatic meteorological station, some 100 km away from the Zhongshan Station, a Chinese research base in Antarctica.

The devices will be used to collect information on temperature, relative humidity as well as wind direction and speed in Antarctica.

The newly installed station will fill up the blank research area for meteorological observation along the Panda transect and improve China’s observation capability in the area, said Meng Shang, a member of the expedition team.

The Panda transect refers to a research route from Prydz Bay to the Amery Ice Shelf and then to Dome Argus (Dome A).

China has set up several meteorological stations at Kunlun Station and Taishan Station on the Antarctic ice sheet. It is expected to install more meteorological stations along the Panda transect to collect substantial data to improve China’s weather forecasting and research on the continent.