9413879 Wendler This project is an internationally collaborative (U.S.-French- Australian) study of katabatic winds along the coast of East Antarctica, based on two lines of automatic weather stations, one from the French station inland to Dome C, the other along the coast. The coastal array includes stations at Cape Denison and Port Martin, which have recorded the highest average surface wind speeds on the globe. These winds drive the sea ice offshore, and are responsible for extremely high heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere. Satellite-based active microwave imagery (Synthetic Aperture Radar) will be combined with the observed meteorological data to analyze the formation persistence and size of offshore polynyas as a function of wind speed. The coastal array of weather stations will be augmented by three additional instruments, and the University of Alaska receiving station for Synthetic Aperture Radar data will be utilized to downlink images of East Antarctica. These images will be supplemented with images from the Australian receiving station in Hobart, and, when it becomes operational, from the Radarsat receiving station at McMurdo. ***
