Last day on the ice - April 14

There are still more pictures, journal entries, and Q and A by Robert on the web. On a future date, the archived version of the webinar will be made available. Already posted is a movie about and from the ice camp (or here, "APLIS ice camp", if there are problems with the previous link).

This is the last day on the ice, with the majority of the people returning to terra firma (Prudhoe/Fairbanks).


copyright Los Angeles Times article

Updates out of Arctic

There are lots of new pictures now from the ice camp and the science around it, www.polartrec.com/gallery/sedna-ice-camp. Below are some samples. Robert posted some comments on life at the camp, and a webinar from the ice by him on Thursday is planned.


The flags set up to monitor the lead on line 3 have moved apart 2-3 meters as the lead has opened. They are also offset by 1 meter.

Deploying buoys.
Casting a transect line.

Science ramp up

In the first few days, everybody at the camp (and also those people supporting them elsewhere) has been very busy. 6 more local GPS buoys were deployed (with the help of a helicopter) across an active boundary, to give some small-scale ground truth to compare to SAR satellite imagery (synthetic aperture radar). Stress buoys were deployed. Snow measurements were initiated (six 1 km transects). The picture above is a summary of the ideal measurement configuration; the two pictures below are week-old satellite image analyses of the ice camp environments regarding leads (open cracks in the sea ice) and other similar features and dimensions. Keep in mind that two degrees of latitude corresponds to 220 km (140 mi), and two degrees of longitude are ... well, that depends on the latitude you are looking at. I would say 65 km (40 mi) at 73 degrees North.




It is curious that generally speaking, the air temperatures observed at the camp are quite balmy, more corresponding to a good old cold snap in Vermont. As the heaters inside the huts are designed for much colder temps, apparently drastic measures like vents in the roof were necessary. All right, as long as all that doesn't mean accelerated melting underneath them this Spring ...