Antarctic site testing: Measurements of Low Altitude Turbulence at the South Pole

• Main Authors: Science Degree Honours, South Pole, Student Tony Travouillon
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; South Pole; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.28.3142; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mgb/Antbib/tonysthesis.pdf

For the first season at the South Pole, the SODAR's results are analysed in this thesis. Low altitude turbulence inside the boundary layer constitute the main contribution in the atmospherical seeing. The boundary layer was measured to be elevated to 300 metres using the resolution limitation of the SODAR. Also, the SODAR data was used to look for correlations between turbulence and different meteorological parameters also given by the SODAR and results showed that turbulence was highly related to the temperature gradient and wind speed gradient. An approximate calibration of the SODAR , using Marks' data [4] gives us a seeing at 20 metres of 1:21 \Sigma 0:46 arcseconds and 0:65 \Sigma 0:24 arcseconds at 110 metres. The turbulence inside the boundary layer being the effect of the strong katabatic wind, we expect Antarctic sites like Dome C and Dome A to produce the best seeing in the world as their wind conditions are better than at the South Pole. Aknowledgements Iwould liketothan.