Staff return to Summit Station's Big House during a spring storm. Photo: Katrine Gorham

Due to high winds and low visibility on the ice sheet, a scheduled flight to Summit Station, Greenland, has been cancelled today. The flight would have brought additional personnel and supplies to the outpost to prepare for the busy summer research period. An advance team arrived on Thursday and has begun turnover with the staff of five who have been maintaining ongoing experiments since early November.

Saturday’s forecast calls for improving conditions, though continued high winds may keep the staff grounded in Kangerlussuaq for another day. Stay tuned.

Comments (0) Feb 03 2012

A sumptuous feast, including Beef Wellington, marks the end of Phase II and the beginning of Phase III winter operations at Summit. Clockwise from front left: Katrine Gorham, Tracy Sheeley, Ben Castellani, Lance Roth (in the knit cap), Phil Austin, Christy Schultz, Tommy Cox (or Tommy's hair anyway), Ben Buchwald, and Shannon Coykendall. Photo: Ben Toth

A Norland Air Twin Otter plane on skis landed at Summit Station today, delivering staff, materials, and fresh fruit and vegetables. A staff of five, isolated at the station since early November, welcomed the advance team to the remote research outpost on Greenland’s icesheet.  It’s “a full Big House,” commented station manager Ben Toth, referring to Summit Station’s iconic main building. “It’s nice to have some new faces around.”

Let the transition begin! This Norland Air Twin Otter brought Summit staff (and freshies!) to the station. Photo: Ben Toth

The Twin Otter paused only long enough to deliver passengers and cargo before flying on to Kangerlussuaq on Greenland’s west coast. Additional CPS staff are waiting there to assist with Summit’s transition and/or staff the station until it opens for the summer research period in April. Weather permitting, the Twin Otter will fly this team to Summit tomorrow before flying back to Iceland.

Summit Station is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation in cooperation with the Government of Greenland. It is managed by CH2M HILL Polar Services.–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Feb 02 2012

What light through yonder window breaks?

Dawn breaks at Summit Station for the first time in 2012. From left, in the distance, the Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory, Swiss Tower (on which instruments are mounted), Science and Operations Barn, the Green House, and the Big House. January 31, 2012. Photo: Ben Toth

Our friends at Summit Station welcomed the sun yesterday. “I could almost even feel its warmth on my face…. almost,” wrote station manager Ben Toth.

The sun is returning, and so is a small plane, which should approach the station via Iceland tomorrow. It will drop off fresh veggies and an advance team of staff, then fly to Kangerlussuaq to pick up the remaining staff waiting to get in to Summit.  It’s time for a fresh crew to prepare for the busy research season ahead.

So far, the forecast is favorable, so cross your fingers. Meanwhile, here’s another picture of the dawn.

The Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory blocks the sun, which helps reveal the Yukimarimo (snow doodles) in the foreground. Photo: Ben Toth

Comments (0) Feb 01 2012

Yukimarimo. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

A late December bedecking of Yukimarimo around Summit Station seemed like “a present befitting the season,” wrote Ben Toth, whose team is keeping the NSF-funded research station and its ongoing experiments running through mid-winter.

“These little snowballs occur when fine frost layers form on the snow surface at cold air temperatures,” Ben explained. “These balls form due to weak wind conditions and become mobile, like little tumbleweeds across the surface, collecting in pockets sculpted by drift or in footprints.”

Ben says the team of five “finished off the year with a productive week sandwiched between the two holidays. Christmas Sunday was celebrated with the requisite Christmas tunes, a lit tree, decorations, and a Kiwi-style meal of “good tucker.” Rack of lamb and pavlova was on the menu as was roasted squash (the very last) and amazing maple syrup pies.

“New Year’s Eve was celebrated [with] a plethora of appetizers. . . . The tapas-themed meal segued into a comfortable evening counting down to 2012. All hands made it to midnight but retired shortly thereafter, rising somewhat later than usual on New Year’s Day to spectacular light and clear weather bringing in the new year.”

For more on Yukimarimo, visit http://homepage3.nifty.com/takaokameda/index.html)

Tumbled snow or Yukimarimo at Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

Comments (1) Jan 02 2012

 Frosty Freeze

The walk back from the atmospheric watch building seems a bit longer on cold winter days. From this point of view, Summit Station's science and operations building nudges the iconic Big House, with its roof-perched radome and welcoming porch light. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

We were glad to read that cold north winds, which for several weeks had been dominating the weather reports from Summit Station, subsided last week. A welcome relief to deep freeze conditions reported earlier. “We hit a wind chill of -107F earlier today and the ambient temperature is around -67F…it doesn’t take much wind to make it bite!”, wrote Shannon Coykendall on 30 November.

The moon rises over a winter storage berm at Summit Station. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

In addition to bringing the cold, north winds can blow exhaust from station generators into the pristine sampling zone. Ongoing atmospheric and snow chemistry measurements are impacted when the station’s emissions mix into the signal. So, during periods when the winds blow from the north, station personnel avoid activities that create exhaust.

Twice during late November and early December, the staff had to fire heavy equipment to collect snow to resupply the station’s water supply during north wind conditions. Each time, the science technicians followed protocol and notified the research community.

Heavy equipment stored outside at Summit Station in Greenland gets a nice layer of frost. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

Finally, last week, “Summit crawled out from underneath the north winds that have dominated the past few weeks. Bringing clouds and warmer weather, the southerlies created an opportune chance to catch up on making water and for the science techs to perform their non-north wind tasking,” wrote station manager Ben Toth. “The winds also gained strength this week, reaching sustained speeds of 15.5 knots. Temperatures this week ranged from a low of -60 C on Tuesday to a high of a balmy -34 C on Saturday.”–Kip Rithner

Comments (4) Dec 15 2011

Dangerous ice conditions in Davis Slough off the Tanana River in early December. Ice conditions like this make traveling along rural Alaska’s icy lakes and rivers hazardous. Photos courtesy Knut Kielland

Each winter as the temperatures in Alaska dip well below zero, the frozen rivers and lakes become highways and byways for many rural Alaskans. Just a short distance outside Fairbanks, one of Alaska’s largest cities, the lack of traditional roads and bridges reminds one just how rural and rugged a large part of Alaska is. With few traditional roads, many rural Alaskans navigate the seemingly frozen bodies of water on snowmobiles and dog sleds.  And all too often they come in contact with dangerous ice.

This is something ecologists Knut Kielland and his colleague Bill Schneider, an oral historian, know all too well. Kielland and Schneider, both avid dog mushers and researchers at University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF), have been criss-crossing the Alaska countryside along the Tanana River outside of Fairbanks for nearly 25 years. During that time the two have certainly run into their fair share of dangerous ice, but there were several unusual phenomena associated with dangerous ice that piqued their interest.

Knut Kielland came up with the idea to study the phenomena behind dangerous ice while dog mushing. Here he is guiding his team through overflow on the Anaktuvuk River on Alaska’s North Slope.

Degrading Ice

At 584-miles long, the Tanana River is a natural force that cuts through the landscape of central Alaska. During the winter the Tanana River exhibits a wide variety of dangerous ice conditions, ranging from overflow (water on top of the ice surface covered by dry snow) to shell ice (ice with air pockets underneath). “The most insidious ice condition is degrading ice,” Kielland said. “This condition refers to ice that forms normally during freeze-up and represents a safe travel surface in early winter. However, as the name implies, degrading ice exhibits dangerous thinning during mid-winter even at very cold (-30°C) air temperatures. The physical mechanisms behind this phenomenon and the distribution of such ice conditions are a major focus of our project.”

With support from the National Science Foundation, Kielland, Schneider and a multidisciplinary team of researchers set out to study and map the physical conditions behind winter dangerous ice conditions, as well as document local knowledge and observations across a 200-mile study area near the Tanana River. The data from the project will help scientists understand the forces behind dangerous ice, and give rural Alaskans tools that may improve public safety.

A Complex Issue Needs a Complex Approach

Kielland wanted to study dangerous ice from multiple angles, including human interactions with this natural force. To do that, Kielland paired teams of natural scientists with oral historians and ethnographers to take a holistic approach.

“In terms of the multidisciplinary approach, we’re talking about climatology, hydrology and the physics of snow and ice—that’s the natural science part. In terms of the social science, it’s both the science of going about how to collect oral histories and learning about how residents view and experience their environment, and more directly in terms of how they experience the changing winter conditions, particularly in regard to snow and ice conditions,” Kielland explained.

Sam Demientieff of Fairbanks inspects ice degradation in Moe Slough, February, 2010.

Community Involvement

Involving local communities in the study area has been a key part of the dangerous ice project.  Many of the villagers and townspeople have traveled the frozen rivers and lakes for decades and have valuable knowledge and insight that machines and computers simply can’t duplicate.

To gather data on how locals call upon years of experience and training to frame their descriptions and evaluate ice conditions, Kielland looked to his longtime friend and oral historian Bill Schneider to record interviews with locals. Having lived and worked in Alaska for decades, it was relatively easy to tap the wealth of knowledge about rural Alaska’s frozen highways.

Residents of Manley Hot Springs meet to discuss the ice conditions along the river trail between Manley and the village of Tanana. LPictured from left oto right: are, John Dart, Espen Jervsjö, and Frank Gurtler (Manley), and Charlie Wright (Tanana).

“Because we’ve lived here for a while, we have friends and acquaintances—and acquaintances of acquaintances—in a variety of communities. We were very fortunate that we could pretty much come into a community and establish a rapport with them,” Kielland said.

Ice Interviews

The team worked with communities in Fairbanks, Manley and the village of Tanana to gather their observations on the distribution and abundance of dangerous ice phenomena and how they impact  subsistence activities and travel throughout the winter. With help from Karen Brewster, a research associate for the Oral History Program at UAF, the team has hosted several workshops and interviews in the field with river travelers, the results of which are now being posted online.

Research associate Karen Brewster films interviews with Sam Demientieff (left) and Wally Carlo (right) on the Tanana River, March 2011.

“We  do semi-direct interview [s], take a lot of photographs and videotap[e]ing of areas and interviews,” Kielland said.  Interviews and photos from the dangerous ice project are made publicly available through the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Project Jukebox.

The combination of physical data and recorded oral histories has started to crack some of the mysteries of dangerous ice, shedding new light on the phenomena and how rural Alaskans deal with it.

Cracking the Ice

Some of the initial findings are a bit of a surprise to Kielland and his colleagues. Initially, he hypothesized that dangerous ice occurrences were tied to shallower (< 1 m) portions of the river more susceptible to melting from below due to ground water upwelling. However, that’s not always the case. The team has observed cases of dangerous ice in deeper waters (> 3 m).

Kielland has also documented very localized instances of dangerous ice where, “it’s almost like somebody sat down at the bottom [of the river or lake] with a laser and shot a hole in the ice. Hydrologists on the project are still working to understand the physics behind such localized events.

“We’re learning about the phenomena, about how wide- spread it is, and we’re learning about how people deal with it—though mostly they just want to stay far away from it,” Kielland said. “We don’t know much about how it has changed through time yet, but we hope our conversations with local residents can shed further light on that.”

Although winters in Alaska are getting warmer on the whole, dangerous ice phenomena aren’t necessarily a direct consequence of climate change.

“Winters in Alaska are getting warmer and climate predictions call for more snow. Both of those factors will probably exacerbate the situation, if anything, but we don’t consider this a direct consequence of warming. As I mentioned, we see the phenomenon even when it’s very cold out,” he said.

Lessons Learned

With the second year of the dangerous ice project now coming to a close, Kielland and Schneider hope to extend it for one more year to continue unraveling the mysteries behind dangerous ice.

The lessons learned from this project will not only tell us where dangerous ice is located and it’s potential causes, they will also help rural Alaskans avoid a wintertime problem that claims lives every year.

“We hope that at the end of the day, there will be an improved understanding from both our and their [rural Alaskans’] point of view about the nature of the phenomenon and how it’s distributed along the length of the Tanana that many of them travel,” Kielland said. For more information about the Dangerous Ice project (still under construction), visit: http://jukebox.uaf.edu/dangerice/start.htm. –Alicia Clarke

Comments (1) Dec 05 2011

A Polaris Ranger outfitted with tracks helps stretch fiber optics cable across the tundra near Toolik Station. All photos: Rorik Peterson

Many rural Alaskan towns remain without reliable communications infrastructure, particularly when it comes to the Internet. Rorik Peterson, a mechanical  engineer  from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, hopes to change that by stringing fiber optics cable across the Alaskan tundra.

Peterson, whose research includes modeling the seasonal freezing and thawing of soils, began a NSF-funded study during the 2011 spring that focuses on the durability of fiber optics cable in the harsh arctic climate. In April he and colleagues traveled to Toolik Station to set up their two-year experiment.

Routing cable from Toolik.

“It was a bit of a headache setting up our study at Toolik because of the many science groups that use the facility and study the ecosystems around the facility. But we worked together to find a time when we would not impact other science projects.  Seven station staff and I spent an entire day spooling out cable across several environments to see how the cable will fare over a couple of years. Not only is weather a consideration, animals are as well,” explains Peterson.

Fiber optics cables are currently operational between Anchorage and Fairbanks and along the Dalton Highway (the “Haul Road”) between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, but burying cables is impractical given the remote setting of many Alaskan villages.

“We set our cable on top of the snow and tundra using a Polaris Ranger retrofitted with tracks. We had a 5km spool of cable trailered on the station pad that unspooled as we drove. We wanted to make a loop for easier testing, but it was challenging to do given that the cable, although somewhat flexible, is still pretty rigid and we didn’t want any kinks. We used a 1km section and made certain to drape cable across bedrock, a wet and swampy stream environment, and a bushy section of tundra.  In snowy sections, the cable will sink into the snow a bit as the days warm and the black cable melts into the snow and soil,” Peterson says. “The next step is a lot of sit and wait.”

FIber optics cable must be tough to serve Alaska's bush villages. Peterson spooled fiber optics cable across a number of harsh environments.

Peterson will revisit the site periodically to see whether animals disturb the cable. A real-time camera will take snapshots of the weather that Peterson will use in his assessment of how cold temperatures (often more than -40C) might affect the cable’s physical properties as well as data transmission.

“If the cables stand the test of time, a lot of Alaska’s interior may someday see significant improvement in their Internet communication. Communications companies will be able to easily characterize line performance and send teams out via helicopter for repairs when needed,” explains Peterson. “Now, even places like Barrow rely on satellites for communications. Most scientists that have worked out of there will tell you that it’s easier to make a DVD of their data and send it to colleagues via air rather than to try to upload or download data in real time. Fiber optics technology would change that.”—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Nov 28 2011

Halloween 2011 at Summit Station, Greenland

On the floor, from left: Sonja Wolter, Ben Toth, and Brad Halter. Next level up on the couches from the left: Christina Hammock, Tommy Cox, Lance Roth, Ken Keenan, Russ Howes, Ed Stockard, Katrine Gorham and Tracy Sheeley. Standing from the left: Shannon Coykendall and Ben Buchwald.

The team halted turnover activities temporarily last night at Summit Station to celebrate Halloween, and as the pictures attest, folks were clearly in the mood for a costume party. “We dined on a lovely Halloween themed-meal, complete with pumpkin ghoulash and mashed potatoes with sculpted ghosts,” wrote Tracy Sheeley, Summit manager of operations.  “Quite a celebration!”

Those who’ve enjoyed reports of optical phenomenon at Summit during the early winter phase might note that CPS science technician Christina Hammock (far left) is dressed up as a sun dog.

“Everything is going smoothly for turnover,” Tracy wrote. “We got in one day late due to weather, but are moving through everything steadily.  Temps are chilly (-55F/-48C, windchill – 93F/-69C, as I type) with 16kt winds. Great group of people for both phases.”

CH2M HILL Polar Services operates Summit Station, near the highest point on Greenland’s ice sheet, for the U.S. National Science Foundation, which manages the station in cooperation with the Government of Greenland. Summit houses instruments that provide year-round, long-term measurements for monitoring and investigations of the Arctic environment.  The station is open by invitation to visiting scientists during the summer, and is accessible via ski-equipped airplane and tracked vehicle. During the winter period, which lasts from September through early April, the station is closed; but a team of five maintains the station and its ongoing experiments. CPS breaks this winter period into three, roughly 10-week phases, and conducts resupply and intense training activities during staff turnover between each period.

“If all goes to plan, we will send Phase I out on Saturday and Russ (Howes, CPS’ Greenland maintenance manager) and I out on Sunday.” wrote Tracy. Good luck to the incoming Phase II team, and thanks and warm wishes–literally–to the outgoing Phase I team.–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Nov 01 2011

NSF Awards Arctic Research Support and Logistics Contract to CH2M HILL Polar Services

We are as thrilled and energized as this Greenlandic Husky pup! Photo: Ed Stockard

CH2M HILL Polar Services (CPS) is quite pleased to announce that the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a contract to CH2M HILL Constructors, Inc., of Englewood, Colorado on 28 September 2011 to provide research support and logistics services for NSF-sponsored research in the Arctic.

Since 1999 CH2M HILL has teamed with subcontractors Polar Field Services and SRI International to form CH2M HILL Polar Services, or CPS.  A new partner—Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation’s UMIAQ—will join the CPS team for the contract period beginning in October 2011.

CPS will deliver pre-proposal field work estimates, risk assessments, logistics and operational plans, transportation, communications, safety training, telemedicine, engineering, design and construction, maintenance, field camp operations and personnel to groups working in the Arctic.

New team member UMIAQ is a subsidiary of Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC), the Barrow village corporation established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. UMIAQ will provide local support to researchers working in Barrow, Alaska and surrounding communities, including operation of UIC-owned facilities and the Barrow Environmental Observatory. UMIAQ understands the politics, culture, land use, regulations, and engineering and design conditions in arctic and subarctic Alaska and provides reliable local knowledge and expertise.

Visit the CPS website (http://www.polar.ch2m.com/ ) for more information about the company’s services.

For more information about the NSF arctic research program, visit http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=ARC.

Contact:

Mike McKibben, CH2M HILL Polar Services

303.885.4644, mike.mckibben@ch2m.com

CPS Program Manager

Comments (0) Oct 14 2011

Green Sky Over Greenland

September 27, 2011: Aurora and star trails over Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Ed Stockard. Originally published on Spaceweather.com

Several folks sent a link to Spaceweather.com today because another image by Ed Stockard (long-time colleague and frequent field notes contributor) was featured on the site. Ed shot the image, republished above, earlier this week at Summit Station during a period of intense solar wind activity.

This image got me to thinking about the man behind the curtain. How’d he do that?

Ed says he used a Photoshop program that digitally “stacked” a group of photos into one image. He tinkered with the results, adjusting “contrast, levels, size, sharpening,” and so on.

“It did turn out pretty good,” Ed writes from Summit Station. “It was 133 photos of several hundred in a time-lapse I made that night. The time-lapse is really cool (in my opinion) but it is so large I can’t share that over the Internet. . . . I’ve done a few time-lapse, one last night at -40, the camera and timer survived but I’ve also been working on that aspect too—little tricks to keep batteries alive and equipment warm, etc. Fun stuff that keeps me out of trouble!”

Ed and four others are currently at Summit Station, up on the Greenland ice sheet, ushering the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded research station into the winter period.

Spaceweather.com says that Earth’s magnetic field (which responds to the charged particles emitted by the sun) will remain “unsettled” for the next few days. Keep that camera warm, Ed!—Kip Rithner

Comments (1) Sep 30 2011