The Southern Ocean Waves Experiment. Part I: Overview and mean results

The Southern Ocean Waves Experiment (SOWEX) was an international collaborative air-sea interaction experiment in which a specially instrumented meteorological research aircraft simultaneously gathered atmospheric turbulence data in the marine boundary layer and sea surface topography data over the Southern Ocean for a wide range of wind speeds. The aim was to increase present knowledge of severe sea state air-sea interaction. This first paper presents an overview of the experiment and a detailed discussion of the methodology and mean results. A companion paper describes the findings on variability of the wind speed and wind stress and their relationship to variations in the underlying sea surface roughness.