We examine some aspects of the performance of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office's new climate model over Antarctica. Pressure and temperature fields are presented as a basic check on the model climate. Precipitation is interesting because of its relevance to mass balance and therefore changes in sea level. We also look at the phenomena of the coreless winter and the katabatic winds which are a consequence of the intense radiative cooling. These two effects may provide a useful diagnostic of the model performance.
Keywords: GCM, climatology, mass balance, katabatic winds, coreless winter