HOW WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE ANTARCTIC ATMOSPHERE?

The Antarctic Plateau offers many benefits to astronomers, including dark and transparent infrared skies, long periods of uninterrupted observations, and very low levels of atmospheric turbulence. Efforts to quantify these benefits are ongoing. Characterizing the turbulence is particularly challenging, and requires a different approach to that commonly used at temperate sites. First, the atmosphere has two quite distinct regimes: a free atmosphere that is largely devoid of turbulence, and a thin but highly turbulent stable boundary layer. Second, if heat is used to avoid frost formation on optical surfaces, local turbulence might inadvertently be created by the instrument trying to measure it. In this paper we review the work that has been performed to date, and discuss what is required to advance our understanding of the Antarctic atmosphere.