This award is an accomplishment-based renewal of an ongoing study of the katabatic winds in East Antarctica, in cooperation with French and Australian scientists. It depends on surface meteorological data derived from two lines of automatic weather stations; one from Dome C to the antarctic coast, the other along the coast from Commonwealth Bay to Dumont d'Urville. Three new stations will be installed, which will connect this network with that maintained by the Australian Antarctic program. These new stations will have the capability of providing heat flux data in addition to the standard observations. The expanded coverage will allow an examination of the influence of synoptic weather systems on the katabatic winds, as well provide information on the spatial variability of individual wind speed maxima. Additionally, improvements in the calibration of the instrument to measure blowing snow will be introduced, and the formation and heat budget of offshore polynyas resulting from katabatic winds will be studied.
