Title: Mesoscale modelling of topographic flows over the Antarctic Peninsula
Supervisers: Ian Renfrew, John King (BAS), Andrew Orr (BAS)

Summary:
The Antarctic Peninsula is a region of complex and high topography, seasonal sea ice and relatively sparse meteorological observations. Furthermore its climate is changing rapidly: it has experienced the largest surface air temperature rise over the last 50 years of anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere (e.g. Vaughan et al. 2001). Recently the British Antarctic Survey has equipped one of their Twin Otter aircraft with meteorological instruments, allowing the measurement of flight-level temperature, humidity, pressure, winds and turbulence; as well as surface temperature and cloud microphysical properties. These new observational data, combined with satellite remote-sensing products and other in situ data, have the potential to help address numerous outstanding weather and climate-related questions. For example:

• How does a heterogeneous sea-ice cover affect the numerous topographic flows in the Peninsula region?
• How well are we able to simulate föhn flows over the Peninsula (i.e. extending and validating the work of Orr et al. 2008)?
• Does the Peninsula experience katabatic flows (e.g. Renfrew 2004)?
• What causes high wind-speed events at Rothera Research Station? These have, in the recent past, caused damage to aircraft.
• How does the sea-ice cover affect the barrier winds on the east side of the Peninsula (e.g. Parish 1983)?
• How do Antarctic Peninsula barrier winds compare to the barrier winds found off SE Greenland that are currently being investigated as part of the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment (e.g. Renfrew et al. 2008)?
• How are these mesoscale weather systems being affected by the shortening sea-ice season and the warmer air- and sea-temperatures?

This studentship will address some, but not all, of these questions. The studentship will involve running Numerical Weather Prediction experiments of particular case studies using the UK Met Office’s Unified Model (UM). The path of this PhD will depend, in part, on the availability of  aircraft observations made during upcoming field seasons. Indeed there may be the opportunity to participate in aircraft-based field work during the 2010/11 Antarctic field season. This project may be funded as part of the OFCAP (Orographic Flows and the Climate of the Antarctic Peninsula) AFI project.

References:
Orr, A., et al., 2008: Characteristics of summer airflow over the Antarctic Peninsula in response to recent strengthening of westerly circumpolar winds. J. Atmos. Sci., 65, 1396-1413
Parish, T. R., 1983: The Influence of the Antarctic Peninsula on the Wind-Field over the Western Weddell Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans and Atmospheres, 88, 2684-2692.
Renfrew, I. A., 2004: The dynamics of  idealized katabatic flow over a moderate slope and ice shelf, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 130, 1023-1045.
Renfrew, I. A., G. W. K. Moore, J. E. Kristjánsson, H. Ólafsson, S. L. Gray, G. N. Petersen, K. Bovis, P. R. A. Brown, I. Føre, T. Haine, C. Hay, E. A. Irvine, A. Lawrence, T. Ohigashi, S. Outten, R. S. Pickart, M. Shapiro, D. Sproson, R. Swinbank, A. Woolley, S. Zhang, 2008: The Greenland Flow Distortion experiment, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89, 1307-1324. 
Vaughan D. G., G. J. Marshall, W. M. Connolley, J. C. King, and R. Mulvaney, 2001: Science, 293, 1777-1779.