CryoVEx 2014: ONR/MIZ Camp 2

First thing each morning and at 1930 each evening we would call back to Sachs Harbour to let people know we were alive, to report weather and visual conditions, and to learn various plans for the day as it pertained to the different groups. 

With our successful day yesterday we were ready to move on to Camp 2 and were really hoping that the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) team was ready to move to Camp 3; our morning checkin confirmed this to us.

One of the only issues we had the day before was that our ground based electromagnetic induction sensor, the EM31 was not working.  This sensor measures the distance between itself and conductive layers underneath it, so we use it to measure the total snow plus ice thickness.  The sea ice is salty but relatively non-conductive, sea water though is very conductive and so it returns a signal to the sensor. It is a nice way to fill in the spaces between our manual drill hole measurements.

During our morning check in we asked for our backup EM31 to be flown to us. We had one sitting in its shipping box, and the empty shipping box from the one we took on the ice, guess which case we got?  The BAS Twin Otter showed up from Sachs Harbor first to drop off buoys for the BAS team while the Ken Borek Twin Otter went to Camp 2 to drop off the rest of our equipment and to pick up the BAS team.  The EM31 case on the BAS Twin Otter was the empty shipping case.  We made a few phone calls and quickly had the right box thrown onto the Ken Borek Twin Otter to be brought to Camp 3 for a quick survey.

Arrival of BAS team from Camp 2. 

Above you can see us eagerly greeting the Ken Borek Twin Otter, hoping that the EM31 was on it, and it was.  The plan we developed was to slowly offload the BAS team and then slowly load up our stuff so that Christian and Bruce would have time to quickly use the EM31 on our survey lines.  The first problem was that our EM31 was at the bottom of the gear pile from BAS, and the second problem was that everyone was WAY TOO HELPFUL and was putting gear on the plane very quickly (not something I would normally worry about).  In the end it did not matter anyways, we asked the pilot for some extra time to survey the line but as luck would have it, this EM31 did not work either!! The first unit had been for maintenance and calibration just before the survey and the second unit was a rental! What was going on?! We had no choice but to pack up and move on to Camp 2. It was another cold windy day, you could see frost nip developing on people very quickly so we were all trying to play close attention to each other's faces.

After a short flight to Camp 2 we immediately set to work.  This was to be our main camp complete with a dedicated survey grid and overflights by NASAs Operation IceBridge, our AEM system below a Ken Borek Basler (retrofitted DC-3), and the DTU Twin Otter carrying ASIRAS, an airborne version of CryoSat-2. As aircraft overflights could start immediately we set about building the radar corner reflectors we had made and shipped up.  These reflectors strongly reflect RADAR waves back to the sensor that sent them (i.e. from ASIRAS). Because it was a cold windy day we built the reflectors inside as there really is not much worse than working with small metal pieces in -20C with a strong wind.

Putting together the 1m corner reflectors inside the cooking tent. Nothing is worse than working with small metal parts in a strong wind at -20C.

We braved the elements outside to build the stands as they were rather large to fit into the cooking tent.
I was glad I had marked the wood and predrilled the holes because it was a snap to put them together.

Putting together the corner reflector stands.  I had mocked these up once in Edmonton, pre-drilling all the holes, and labelling each piece of wood so that everything would fit together nicely and quickly.

The plan that we had agreed to with various other scientists (such as though involved with the NASA IceBridge Campaign was to install the corner reflectors approximately 360m apart, within a 400m x 60m measurement grid.  The grid would be in the middle of a 2km long measurement line where we would put out buoys and visual markers to help align the aircraft over the measurement grid.

Christian's sketch of the site layout with the grid, transect, buoys, camp and runway shown.

We setup one edge of the 400m survey grid and then worked up the center line and finally the outer edge.  We often use bamboo poles as markers as they are light and very strong. The reflectors were setup and then the transect was laid out.  We could nicely use the corner reflectors and the grid markers to line up our transect. Then using a handheld GPS we placed the ends of the transects about 800m from each edge of the transect.  AS you can see in the sketch above we actually ran out of space on the eastern edge of the transect due to a large lead, but we were still 700+ meters away from the start of the grid. One of the issues with using the handheld GPS to place the ends of the transects, and one of the general issues when using GPS for sea ice work is that the sea ice may be drifting.  At Camp 2 were were drifting some 800m/hr! So one of our transect legs was about 15m shorter than we planned. Measuring the 800m with tapes or ropes would have taken much much longer than just running them out and using the GPS for measuring the distance.

Christian standing proudly by the first corner reflector.

This was basically the rest of the first day at C2 as we only arrived around 2pm or so.
We had a simple dinner, though excellent (thanks for doing most of the cooking Christopher!, I especially loved the grilled cheese sandwiches!).

Enjoying a warm beverage during a well earned break.

The next day it was time to start measuring. We started by measuring the edges of the transects that extended from our survey grid.  The main idea was that we would delay measuring in the survey grid until the NASA P3 flew overhead (and hopefully the other planes as well) or as late as possible.
We started with just 5m spacing along the transects measuring the snow surface elevation with the construction laser, the snow depth. We also did drill hole measurements of ice thickness and bulk snow density measurements every 50m.

Around 1300 local time we stopped for a quick lunch break and heard the noise of a plane...it was the NASA Operation IceBridge P3. We watched a few passes and took a few photos but then went back in for lunch so that we could continue our measurements in the afternoon.

The NASA P3!

It seems that our garbage bags work well for directing the plane, as do the buoys which the NASA team could look at until take off (and even receive positions of on their Iridium phones). It also helped that the ice was drifting in the same direction as our survey transect was set up.

A DMS image of the survey line markers and corner reflector taken from the NASA P3. Credit: Dennis Gearhardt/DMS and Michael Studinger/NASA.

In all the P3 flew 10 passes over our survey line before continuing on with the rest of the days flight mission. It was great to see the P3.

Maps of the overpasses of the P3 flight. Credit: M. Studinger/NASA.

 We finished the afternoon with the second transect leg and called it a day at around 7pm.
Well that is all for todays post.  The next post will continue with Camp 2 as there's still so much to talk about!

The Little Buoy that could.

Well my holidays are over.  Nicole left this morning bright and early and I have been working ever since I got back home at about 9:30. Luckily, my code is running and right now my dinner is in the oven cooking, so I thought I would take the time to write a quick blog post about that favourite little buoy of mine, Buoy 300234010730040.

I've written a couple blog posts about this buoy now, mostly because it has been running for so long and because it was starting to head towards me while I am here in Norway.  In the last blog post I wrote on the buoy (http://justinbeckers.blogspot.no/2013/08/buoy-300234010730040-still-going-north.html) it was heading up the coast of Norway, and I was hoping it would make it all the way up past Tromsø.

Well the buoy did keep heading north but as you can see it has moved back out into the Atlantic Ocean and away from the coast.

Well...not exactly what I had hoped for, but then I did not really expect what I hoped for to actually happen.  But now the buoy will be in an area it has not travelled before. Hopefully it provides some additional insight or useful information to someone sometime.  Otherwise it has just been cool to see this little buoy's adventures.  It's too bad it has no way to measure wave heights or something, that would be great....hmm..something to think about when tinkering with my Arduino I guess.

Okay well my dinner is done, want to eat and then write some more blog posts, stay tuned.

#IcePhoto Wednesday ColdFactsBuoy

Deploying the ColdFacts buoy on sea ice in May 2013. Ken Borek Twin Otter landed our team on the ice. A beautiful warm, partly sunny day.

In May 2013, we deployed a ColdFacts buoy for Marc Cornelissen, a Dutch arctic explorer.  You can see his blog post here http://www.marccornelissen.com/blog/details/20/weather-station-deployed.  The buoy is incredibly light, simple, and easy to deploy, I look forward to seeing and maybe analzying some data from it.

Buoy 300234010730040 Still going north!

Hello everyone,

Remember that drifting buoy I was telling you all about? You know, the one that beached on the Shetland Islands and then went back to see? If not, go to http://justinbeckers.blogspot.no/2013/07/one-of-my-buoys-beached-but-went-back.html and to http://justinbeckers.blogspot.no/2013/08/buoy-update-its-heading-north.html

OKAY, now you remember?  Well it is still heading North! It's now sitting at 63.8N, still drifting up the coast of Norway, though it seems to be turning west today (let's hope just temporarily).

I'll keep you updated as it keeps going and going.

Otherwise, things are good. Research is progressing along, having been writing lots of code and troubleshooting code.  Soon I'll try to show some of the scanner data.

Okay, take care.

Buoy Update: IT'S HEADING NORTH!!!

So remember that buoy I was telling you about (well writing actually, but you know what I mean)....anyways, it is doing what I hoped...IT IS HEADING NORTH! for now.

In the map below you can see that it is now even with the Faroe Islands, or about even with Bergen in Norway.

One of my buoys beached! BUT WENT BACK OUT TO SEA!!!

Hey Everyone,

Today's post is a bit different, I will talk a tiny little bit about my research, but don't worry it should be fun or at least interesting.
I want to tell you about a buoy, a small buoy, that has had an interesting life and has recently beached on the Shetland Islands (Scotland).

Buoy 300234010730040 is a small iSphere drifting type buoy. These buoys, developed by MetOcean are designed to be deployed in open water and track the drift of the surface water. They are very much like the MetOcean SVP, or the MetOcean Polar iSVP but are more simple (maybe I should get paid some advertising money by MetOcean??). The buoys have a normal maximum life time of about 12-18 months, at least from our experience.  They are rated for longer, but often stop working, either crushed by the ice or ??

They are used in the sea ice community as an inexpensive drift buoy for tracking the motion of sea ice, we just place them on the ice instead of in water. The buoys provide measurements of their position via GPS. You can also request other sensors such as air temperature, sea surface temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and other sensors (see the website).

Now Buoy 300234010730040 is a simple model, just has temperature and position. We deployed this buoy in the Lincoln Sea of the Arctic Ocean during the ESA CryoVEx campaign in April 2011.  The Lincoln Sea is between Greenland and northern Ellesmere Island. It is the main study region of our group because the ice drifts towards the coasts in this region producing very thick sea ice that usually survives the summer to become multi-year ice.  The Lincoln Sea sits north of Nares Strait, where sea ice can flow out of the Arctic Ocean to the warmer waters to the south and then melt.

During the CryoVEx campaign we deployed four of these buoys. We had two main research sites called North and South at 85.5 and 83.5, respectively. At each site we put out two buoys to track the location of the sites between two visits we made and for aircraft surveys over the sites.  Above each buoy we placed a corner reflector.  A corner reflector is just a bit of metal that is shaped into a corner and then point so that the bottom of the corner is down. When radar signals from the aircraft hit the corner reflector they bounce right back to the sensor. Normally, when radar hits a surface, only some of the energy goes back to the sensor, the rest is mainly reflected away.

Buoy and Corner Reflector. Photo Courtesy of Rosemary Willatt, (C) 2011.

Okay, so we used the buoys successfully during the campaign, we took down our corner reflectors on the second visit the in-situ  team made and decided to leave the buoys to track the ice.


Okay, now the interesting bit, of the four buoys that we deployed, two are still working. One of the buoys from the north site died in October of 2011, so it definitely did not make the 18 month expected lifetime.
The second buoy from the north site is still operational, and amazingly is still in the Lincoln Sea.  It has spent more than two years there now, it is a pretty interesting data record.  In 2012, we looked for it from the air, but I think it was buried. I guess this because 1) they are bright orange and can be pretty easy to spot, and 2) the temperature profile from the buoy was very smooth in 2012, which may indicate it was buried in snow as the snow would limit fluctuations in temperature.

From the South site both buoys drifted out of the Lincoln Sea  through Nares Strait in October 2011. And then their lives get interesting.  Below is a map showing the positions from Buoy 30023401070040 (i.e. the buoy that is still going).

Both buoys drifted south into Nares Strait. Both had drifted quite aways south but then a strong wind from the south sent the ice drifting back up the strait but this time on the opposite side of the channel. Pretty cool.

After this they flowed south past Baffin Island and into Hudson Strait. The buoy that is still running drifted back out, while the other one beached on shore.

Here you can see that the buoy spent a bit of time circulating in and out of Hudson Strait/ Ungava Bay.

Since then the buoy has travelled all the way to Ireland, then most of the way back to Greenland and then now up to the Shetland Islands.

Buoy 300234010730040 travelled somewhere around 22,000km (I have not gone through all the gps points to remove outliers, but did remove a couple).  22,000km is longer than all of the coastline of the U.S.A. (according to the CIA World Fact Book (here), or a little less than 4 times the distance from Edmonton to Tromso, or (last one I promise) about 5 times the distance between Edmonton, AB and the North Pole.
Compare this to the buoy (300234010735050) that has stayed in the Lincoln Sea.  In two years, it has travelled only about 1700km! That's less than 10% of Buoy 300234010730040.

Here is the temperature record from the buoy. Some interesting things, the melt in 2011, then maybe sitting in water, maybe a melt pond, or open water, then back down to freezing temperatures and then finally warming.  Can see some points big changes in temperature in May and June 2012, but it was near Hudson Strait then.

If you look at all the buoys together, there are many cool features sitting in this data, for instance, Buoy S1 and S2 were together, separated by about 460m until September 5, 2011. Then the ice floes that each one was on started drifting apart, then smashing back together, then apart, and eventually one or both of the floes was/were turning and coming closer to the/each other.


OKAY!  BACK TO THE BUOY'S DRIFTING LIFE:

Last week, the buoy was beached on a small beach near Gunnister, Shetland Islands, Scotland.
It spent a couple days on the beach, and then with a high tide ?? and maybe some wind and good fortune, it drifted back out to sea.  Who knows maybe some one pushed it back out. In any event, it can continue on its' merry way.  Below are some Google Maps Street View pictures of as close to the spot the buoy beached as you can get.

In the picture below you can see the beach where the buoy beached. Nice place for a rest.

I had hoped it would go up the coast of Norway, but hey let's just see where time takes it.  It is currently heading back out into the Atlantic towards Greenland ( though still not far from the Shetlands). I'll try to remember to post about this buoy when it finally dies, as it inevitably will. For now, the battery voltage is high (very high actually), so who knows where it will end up and when it will die, hopefully not for awhile.