This project consists of setting out an array of nine data buoys on the annual ice cover of the Ross Sea in order to determine its movement, rate of deformation, strain rates, and divergence/production statistics. The buoys will be dropped from a C-141 aircraft in the course of the McMurdo mid-winter airdrop mission. Buoy sensors will measure surface air pressure and temperature, and transmit this data, as well as location data, via satellite approximately every two hours. The buoys are expected to operate for at least four months, and possibly up to ten months. The data will be used in the statistical characterization of the sea ice kinematics, the sea level pressure field, and the geostrophic wind. The strain rate and divergence data when combined with passive microwave data, can be used to assess the regional and sub-regional ice budget. The sea ice movement in response to the mean and fluctuating component of the wind field may be used to assess the relative importance of forcing by wind and currents, and of the momentum dissipation by internal ice stresses.
