Katrine Gorham, the Polar Field Services science project manager at Greenland’s Summit Station, has been keeping busy participating in PolarTREC’s Polar Connect, helping wrap up the summer field season and usher in the fall crew, and documenting the experience. Recently she sent some images our way.

Phase I and Summer Science Techs: Adam Maerz, Matt Okraszewski, Katrine Gorham, Brad Halter, Elizabeth Morton, and Andy Clarke (left to right). The three on the left are the incoming phase I techs and the three on the right are the outgoing summer techs. This was taken right before the last Herc out of Summit for 2010. All photos: Katrine Gorham

The Summit population is five folks now, all of whom are settling into a routine, reports Ed Stockard, Summit Station Manager. Last week temperatures ranged between -7C and -30C, with winds from the NE averaging about 10 knots. Reports Ed: “Much of the week seemed unusually warm for this time of year.”

Matt Okraszewski peeks out of a drill site about three miles from Summit camp. The crew was digging pits in search of a buried borehole casing.

Katrine Gorham, Elizabeth Morton, and Adam Maerz (front to back) collect surface snow samples for researchers at the Desert Research Institute.

The Summit crew has daily tasks that include keeping the year-round science experiments and the station infrastructure running, making water, conducting work and safety meetings, recording weather, maintaining equipment, and more.

Adam Maerz brushes snow off of one of the Swiss solar instruments.

Comments (0) Sep 03 2010

A statue of Hans Egede keeps watch over Nuuk, Greenland's capital. The Scandanavian missionary brought modern colonization to Greenland in the 1720s--for good and ill (literally). Photo: Jason Buenning

As the U.S. summer research support program in Greenland came to an end last week, agency representatives assembled in Greenland’s picturesque capital of Nuuk for two days of meetings. The goal: to further coordinate U.S. research activities on the island, especially focused on changes resulting from Greenland’s increased self-governance effective in June of 2009 (an island in the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has gained increasing autonomy since voting for self-rule in 1979).

Leaders from several Greenlandic agencies met with program managers from the National Science Foundation’s arctic division, officers from the New York Air National Guard’s 109^th Airlift Wing, and CH2M HILL Polar Services staff to discuss Greenland’s permitting policies, safety, field travel, and environmental regulations.

From left: Aviaja Marsilie Neumann Andersen, Dept. of Spatial Planning; Naja Holm, Section of Nature; Thomas Nielsen, Section of Nature; Brad Stefano, CPS safety; Maj. Paul Bernasconi, ANG; Mike McKibben, CPS head; Talea Weissang, Section of Nature; Sandy Starkweather, CPS Greenland management (outgoing); Stan Wisneski, CPS Greenland management (incoming); Elmer Topp-Jørgensen, Section of Nature - Special Advisor; Jason Buenning, CPS Greenland science planning. Photo: Brad Stefano

Though it’s home to only about 15,000 people, Nuuk is a thriving metropolis compared to other Greenland communities, more than doubling the population of the next-largest community.  “Nuuk is pretty crazy compared to anywhere else I’ve been in Greenland,” Jason Buenning wrote.  “Kanger it ain’t.  Even Ilulissat doesn’t really compare when it comes to amount of traffic and larger buildings…!   All the food we had was quite good, ($90USD dinner anyone?) and generally we drank beer that was brewed there in town (besides the random Carlsberg or Tuborg) and it was tasty and expensive.”

Jason Buenning captured this photo of fog burning off Stor Melina, the only time the sun appeared during the trip. "Within an hour, though, we were socked in again."

The quick trip afforded little time for sight-seeing, but Jason was able to squeeze in a quick peek at Santa's mailbox, located next to the hotel. Postmarks from 1996 are clearly visible in the window. Photo: Brad Stefano

–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Sep 02 2010

An artist's rendering of the ICESat satellite. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation satellite (ICESat), which for seven years gathered data about ice sheets and sea ice at Earth’s poles, was guided out of orbit and plunged into the Barents Sea on Aug. 30, the agency reported.

NASA launched ICESat in January 2003 as the first mission dedicated to specifically studying the polar regions using a space-based laser altimeter. It was intended to transmit data for only five years.  However, ICESat’s lasers lasted until February. Flight controllers started lowering its orbit in June until it reached 200 km (125 miles) above the Earth. At that point, its orbit naturally lowered until it mostly burned up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere with the few remaining chunks landing in the Barents Sea.

The satellite has helped scientists better measure changes in the mass of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, sea ice thickness at both poles, vegetation height and the height of clouds and aerosols. In the Arctic, for example, researchers used ICESat to watch as thin, seasonal sea ice replaced thick, older sea ice. In Antarctica, scientists were able to identify the network of lakes underneath the ice sheet that actively drain or fill.

“ICESat has been a tremendous scientific success,” said Jay Zwally, ICESat’s project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement on NASA’s website.  “It has provided detailed information on how the Earth’s polar ice masses are changing with climate warming, as needed for government policy decisions.”

NASA has begun designing ICESat-2, which it intends to launch in late 2015. In the meantime, the agency’s Operation Ice Bridge has been underway since last year to bridge the gap in polar data in between ICESat missions. Operation Ice Bridge uses NASA aircraft to target areas of rapid change at either pole to get 3-D views of ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. It’s the largest ever aircraft-based survey of Earth’s polar ice.

– Emily Stone

Comments (0) Sep 01 2010

Last week Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the tiny town of Cambridge Bay along the Northwest Passage will be home to Canada’s new High Arctic Research Station. Prime Minister Harper said it will be, “a world-class station that can be the hub for research in the high Arctic,” and will draw the best scientists from across Canada and the rest of the world.

Cambridge Bay is situated on the southeast coast of Victoria Island, where Atlantic and Pacific waters meet. Its location puts scientists close to the Beaufort Sea and Bathurst Inlet.

Cambridge Bay will be home to Canada's new Arctic Research Station. Photo: Google – Imagery / DigitalGlobe / GeoEye / Map data / Google

The station will operate year-round and will afford scientists from around the world the opportunity and resources to study Arctic issues, including climate change and natural resources. In addition, conference facilities and laboratories for research on marine biology and geophysics will be built into the station.

“It’s a very exciting and long-awaited announcement,” says Warwick Vincent in an article in Nature News, director of the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec City, who was part of the committee consulted by the government during the selection process.

The government will invest Can$18 million over five years in the pre-construction design phase of the station, which will include studies of green building options and of how the station will coexist with the community. Reports estimate the station will be completed around 2017 at a cost of about Can$200 million.

Comments (0) Aug 31 2010

Build bridges between your science, K-12 students, teachers, and the public 

Members of the Lake El’gygytgyn research project have some fun while laying over in Pevek, Russia on the way to the field site. Photo courtesy ARCUS

PolarTREC – Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating is seeking applications from researchers who are interested in hosting a teacher on their polar research project during the 2011 summer and 2011-2012 winter field seasons. 

Galvan takes a break from sampling to pose with two tranquilized polar bears. Galvan worked with researchers Merav Ben-David, Henry Harlow, and John Whiteman studying the behaviors of in land and ice-bound polar bears. Photo courtesy ARCUS

Why host a teacher on your polar research project? By incorporating a teacher in your field work, you gain an enthusiastic team member that assists with research and camp activities, helps get the word out about your research project to students and public audiences, and isn’t afraid of an adventure out in the cold or with numerous mosquitoes!Most importantly, PolarTREC helps you share your excitement for science and important knowledge about the polar regions with the next generation of scientists and citizens.
  

Background Information 

A program of the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) and funded by the National Science Foundation from 2010-2013, PolarTREC is currently beginning its fifth year of matching teachers with researchers for 2-6 week teacher research experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. PolarTREC teachers and researchers are matched based on similar science interests. 

Selection Process

Selected researchers will interview top applicants and choose which teacher will join their team. While in the field, teachers and researchers communicate extensively with their colleagues, communities, and students of all ages across the globe, using a variety of interactive tools, which are part of the online PolarTREC Virtual Base Camp. 

PolarTREC Teacher, Cristina Galvan from California, gives two enthusiastic thumbs up while on board the US Coast Guard Icebreaker Polar Sea in October 2009. Photo courtesy ARCUS

More Information:  

A one-hour informational webinar (web seminar) will be held specifically for researchers interested in hosting a PolarTREC teacher on their polar research project on Tuesday, 31 August 2010 at 10:00 am AKDT (11:00 am PDT, 12:00 pm MDT, 1:00 pm CDT, 2:00 pm EDT). Please register for the event at: http://www.polartrec.com/about/researcher-webinar by Monday, 30 August 2010. 

Apply Online: http://www.polartrec.com/researchers/application 

PolarTREC researchers must be at U.S. Institutions. Applications from researchers on NSF-funded projects will receive priority in the selection process. Researchers should have secured funding for their research project prior to applying; if funding is pending and you would still like to host a teacher or if you are unable to meet this deadline, but would like to participate, please contact PolarTREC at info@polartrec.com or 907-474-1600 to discuss your situation. Researcher Application Deadline: Friday, 1 October 2010 

–Kristin Timm, ARCUS

Comments (0) Aug 30 2010

On the banks of Dimple Lake, a shelter awaits use by researchers working at the site of a massive tundra fire. Photo: Annalisa Neely

Per the above note, it sounds as if the shelter fit the bill. In fact, the “maiden voyage of the SS Mountain Hardware” sounds downright festive.

The Anaktuvuk River fire of 2007 created a field research opportunity for scientists looking at the environmental impacts of climate change. Read Emily Stone’s article on the NSF-funded work going on at the Anaktuvuk burn site here. –Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Aug 29 2010

Note: We were doing a little housekeeping and came on this update on the Arctic Circle Traverse written back in June. It holds up as a nice view into what it takes researchers to “collect data,” so here you go. We hope to hear more from Box when he returns from Greenland after retrieving data from his time-lapse cameras observing the Petermann Glacier.

Even the best planned plans can go awry. So it went in April and May, when a series of mishaps beyond their control kept the five-person team led by Jason Box from heading out to the field for their Arctic Circle Traverse (ACT), a National Science Foundation-supported study of snow accumulation on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

While awaiting a break in conditions, the team assembled their gear in Kangerlussuaq. All photos courtesy of Jason Box

Snow storms, the eruption of the  Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland,which prevented airplane flying, and aircraft problems grounded the crew and originally dashed their hopes of getting out on the ice.

“Our biggest challenge was getting into the field,” says Box. “We learned that the traverse, while labor-intensive, is more likely to succeed than depending on flights, especially in east Greenland.”

Just when things were looking their grimmest, the team got a window of clear weather and set out for 13 days.

Home away from home: camping on the ice sheet.

Sleeping under “turbulent” Aurora Borealis at night and blazing trails during the day, they successfully traversed roughly 700 kilometers. Over the journey, the team gathered the necessary information to map snowfall rates across the ice sheet, Box said.

Posse, Greenland style. Getting ready to ride.

They measured snow depth using radar, and took ice cores as well. Isotopes in the cores allow scientists to identify annual snow accumulation; radar and coring used in conjunction provide more specificity than either technique would alone.

As they traversed, a NASA P-3 airplane flew over their line and collected radar data that measured the layering structure of the snow, providing “virtual ice cores.”

Every successful coring operation warrants a celebratory drink. Jason Box prepares to open the bottle.

“It’s nice to have the P-3 data, as it will cover a much larger area,” says Box. However, the airborne radar doesn’t replace actual ice cores, he says.

“So far there is no way to efficiently remotely sense the vertical profiles of density,” says Box. “Cores remain necessary in-situ observational data.”

The research aims to provide an accurate analysis of snowfall on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Box and his collaborators, Rick Forster (PI on a related NSF grant that seeks to fill holes in the snow accumulation data), Evan Burgess, and Clément Miège (University of Utah) are measuring annual snow fall to better understand how much of the ice sheet volume change and, in turn global sea level, is due to changes in snowfall or due to changing melt rates.

“We know that melt rates have increased in recent years,” the group writes on their blog. “Yet, we also know that as climate warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture and consequently, more snow is delivered to the ice sheets. Our project will help better understand the effect on the mass budget of changing mass input from snow accumulation variations in the past 30-60 years. We’re like auditors, with really thick parkas on.”

Those parkas kept the crew warm as they worked and camped in temperatures as low as -35 C (-31 F) at night and up to -5 (23 F) to – 25 C (-13F) during the day.

Now that they’re home, they’ve hung the parkas in the closet and begun the long task of analyzing the data, says Box.

“The core just made it off the ice sheet, and it needs to be put into the core melter to get the isotope and other chemistry data,” he says. “A graduate student, Clement Miege, will spend much of the summer identifying layers in the ground radar data.”

The team will present preliminary results at the AGU meeting in San Francisco this December.  —Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Aug 27 2010

Sometimes thinking outside the box means thinking inside the sphere.

At least that’s what the designers at New York City’s Studio les bêtes did in coming up with the concept for the Arctic Drifter, an enormous inflatable ball that can hold a crew inside and roll around the Arctic collecting data.

The Arctic Drifter’s exterior would be made of inflatable Hypalon airbags — a material similar to that used in rugged inflatable boats — so it could roam across ice, water or flat land in all sorts of weather. When fully inflated, the contraption would be 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter. An inner sphere that remains permanently upright would house a crew, electronics and, as the company’s website notes, a composting toilet.

The outside of the ball would be decked out with a network of visual sensors that would project the external environment onto the inner sphere’s walls in real time for the crew to see and navigate.

There’s no word on when, or if, the idea will become a reality. But if it seems too off-the-wall to be plausible, remember that NASA tested its Tumbleweed Rover, a 2-meter (6.5-foot) rolling, unmanned data collector, at Summit Station in 2003 in hopes that it will someday tumble over the surface of Mars.  —Emily Stone

Comments (0) Aug 26 2010

Testing Snow Strength

Two expeditions and thousands of miles on the Greenland ice sheet have provided valuable information to CH2M HILL Polar Services logisticians and engineers as they work to optimize an overland traverse to access NEEM and Summit stations by ground instead of air. During the most recent traverse (completed this spring), the traverse team tested the snow strength along the way, collecting data that will help the team understand why the Greenland Inland Traverse (GrIT) is not achieving the same performance from the traverse equipment that traverse teams in Antarctica do, said Allen Cornelison, GrIT manager for Polar Field Services (a partner in Ch2M HILL Polar Services).

Members of the 2010 Greenland Inland Traverse (GrIT) conduct Ramsonde tests to measure the snow strength along the way from Thule Air Base to Summit Station. Poor snow strength can slow the traverse's progress because the equipment sinks into the snow. All photos: Robin Davies

“The tests will also help us to understand what aspects of our equipment we need to improve to get better performance out of our tractors and the sleds,” Cornelison said.

Lightening the Load, Reducing Resistance

In addition, this year’s traverse team tested sled and load configurations that improved towing performance. Specifically, they discovered that longer sleds—as opposed to wider ones—pull better. The extra length allows the snow/sled interface to warm up slightly more to create a thin film of water, reducing friction and resulting in less pulling resistance.

Using longer sleds created more friction between the sled and snow and improved towing performance compared to the GrIT 2008.

“This is a huge ordeal (pulling resistance) we are trying to overcome,” said Cornelison. “The [Antarctic traverse] can pull more than we can—by 25 percent. This is because the Greenlandic ice sheet gets a lot more snow, and that snow is stratified and not as solid and ‘work hardened’ (by the wind and time) as the snow in Antarctica.”

To overcome this problem, the GrIT either needs to invest in expensive larger tractors, haul lighter loads (which would be inefficient), or figure out how to get the lowest pulling forces with the highest weighted loads.

New Sleds Improve Towing

This year the team also used a product called Durabase as a cargo sled to haul solid equipment The Durabase replaced the HMW plastic fuel bladder sleds used in 2008 that “tacoed” when the cargo traps were tightened. This contributed to towing problems and the team determined the fuel bladder sleds are too compliant for solid cargo.

However, the Durabase “worked out really well in that it is made of HMW plastic, so it is slippery, but it is also semi-rigid,” said Cornelison.

“This rigidity allowed us to secure hard items to the Durabase nicely,” he said. “But the challenge with the Durabase is that it is quite heavy, and we are constantly trying to reduce weight and make sleds more slippery.”

Advantages of a Traverse

CH2M HILL Polar Services (CPS) has completed two traverses, and anticipates integrating an overland traverse into annual operations. Traveling by ground can save money and result in fewer emissions and can complement air deliveries to the remote stations CPS supports.

The team has identified the ideal route for the traverse, though the first 70 miles may alter each year depending on where crevasses open, said Cornelison. And, given the melt rate of the ice sheet, the route may require reevaluation at some point “if our ice ramp turns into mountains and canyons,” Cornelison said.

Looking Ahead

To prepare for future traverses, PFS has purchased three new tractors and will haul more fuel and cargo in spring 2011 to NEEM and Summit. The team is also working with the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) on concept air cargo sleds that will be provided to the Antarctic traverse to test this year.

This is the last time these tractors will see so much green! Destined for Greenland and integral to future Greenland traverses, the three Case tractors will serve as primary traverse vehicles.

“Looking to the future, I see the traverse supporting many more operations on the Greenland ice sheet,” said Cornelison. “I am guessing as well that science groups will recognize a benefit to the new route and road that has opened up the ice sheet. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, to see more drilling camps, more environmental, and more glacial research happening in the future once we get the GrIT more established and mitigate some of our challenges.”  —Rachel Walker

The Greenland Inland Traverse is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). CH2M HILL Polar Services and Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratories are working together with the NSF to develop the traverse infrastructure and route. For more field notes coverage of GrIT, click here. 

Comments (0) Aug 25 2010

Modeling climate’s complexity: This image, taken from a larger simulation of 20th century climate, depicts several aspects of Earth’s climate system. Sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are shown by the two color scales. The figure also captures sea level pressure and low-level winds, including warmer air moving north on the eastern side of low-pressure regions and colder air moving south on the western side of the lows. Such simulations, produced by the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, can also depict additional features of the climate system, such as precipitation. Companion software, recently released as the Community Earth System Model, will enable scientists to study the climate system in even greater complexity. Image courtesy UCAR

The latest version of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model (CESM) includes for the first time ever the capability to project how climate change will affect the ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland. The model, released August 17, will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It replaces a version of the same model released in 2004.

Specifically, the new model’s advanced capabilities will help scientists better understand some of the critical mysteries of global climate change, including:

• What impact will warming temperatures have on the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica?

• How will patterns in the ocean and atmosphere affect regional climate in coming decades?

• How will climate change influence the severity and frequency of tropical cyclones, including hurricanes?

• What are the effects of tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, on clouds and temperatures?

Available On The Web

The CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The CESM and its predecessors are unique among these models; a broad community of scientists developed them. The model is free to researchers worldwide and can be downloaded here.

“With the Community Earth System Model, we can pursue scientific questions that we could not address previously,” says NCAR scientist James Hurrell, chair of the scientific steering committee that developed the model. “Thanks to its improved physics and expanded biogeochemistry, it gives us a better representation of the real world.”

How Models Work

Climate models, like weather models, rely on a three-dimensional mesh that reaches high into the atmosphere and into the oceans. At regularly spaced intervals, or grid points, the models use laws of physics to compute atmospheric and environmental variables, simulating the exchanges among gases, particles, and energy across the atmosphere.

Because climate models cover far longer periods than weather models, they cannot include as much detail. Thus, climate projections appear on regional to global scales rather than local scales. This approach enables researchers to simulate global climate over years, decades, or millennia. To verify a model’s accuracy, scientists typically simulate past conditions and then compare the model results to actual observations.

Improved Forecasts

Using the CESM, Hurrell and other scientists hope to learn more about ocean-atmosphere patterns such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which affect sea surface temperatures as well as atmospheric conditions. Such knowledge, Hurrell says, can eventually lead to forecasts spanning several years of potential weather impacts, such as a particular region facing a high probability of drought, or another region likely facing several years of cold and wet conditions.  —Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Aug 25 2010