Polar mesoscale cyclones are intense vortices that form in cold, marine air
masses poleward of major jet streams and frontal zones. Synthetic aperture
radar (SAR) should be considered as a potential tool for the study of pola
r mesoscale cyclones because of its ability to remotely sense, at least qua
litatively, the high- resolution near- surface wind field independent of da
ylight and atmospheric conditions. Four case studies demonstrating this abi
lity are presented. SAR imagery from the Canadian Space Agency's RADARSAT a
re compared to corresponding infrared imagery, surface analyses, and upper-
air analyses. In three of the four case studies, it is argued that the add
ition of SAR imagery to the process of generating a manual surface analysis
would have led to a better product. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the
SAR imagery reveals a host of marine- meteorological phenomena in the vicin
ity of the polar mesoscale cyclones including atmospheric gravity waves, ro
ll vortices, and cellular convection. Because of the high- resolution attri
butes of SAR imagery, SAR shows promise to aid the forecaster and researche
r in the study of marine- meteorological phenomena such as polar mesoscale
cyclones.