UW News

September 5, 1997

Ice Station SHEBA/Fact Sheet: Establishing ice station in October

News and Information

Establishing the ice station should take about two weeks with most of the work done by Oct. 15.

The first flights from Prudhoe Bay to the ice station will be during a three- to five-day period starting Oct. 14. Reporters can catch one of the early flights out, be on site for a couple days, see the tail end of establishing the site and the science getting under way, and then catch one of the last flights back. Or, reporters could stay until the next round of flights, around Nov. 1.

Icebreakers

With the Des Groseilliers in place, the escort vessel Louis S. St. Laurent is scheduled to depart about Oct. 15.

Scientific work getting under way Oct. 15-18

( Ship-board atmospheric measurement equipment in operation will include the:

Cloud radar and lidar (comprehensive measurements of cloud geometry and physical properties; Principal Investigator Taneil Uttal, NOAA Environmental Technology Lab).

Laser ceilometer (determine cloud ceiling; DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Project).

Sky radiation measurements (cloud layers; DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Project).

( Radio Sonde with Wind Measurement balloon launchings (RAWINSONDE balloons take vertical profiles up to 10 km of temperature, humidity and wind; Principal Investigator Dick Moritz, University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory) start about Oct. 17, if things go well. Continue twice a day for duration of ice station.

( Scientists studying the structure and turbulence in the ocean beneath the ice will have most of their equipment deployed in the water, and some of it will be running (Principal Investigator Miles McPhee, McPhee Research Co.).

( There should be a few measurement stations installed in the sea ice and snow cover (measure changes in ice thickness, heat conduction and salinity of the ice; Principal Investigator Don Perovich, U.S. Army/Cold Regions Environmental Lab).

( The only flights will be aboard the twin otter, which will ferry people to and from the site and be used by scientists interested in measuring surface temperature and ice morphology from the air (Principal Investigator Ron Lindsay, University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory).

( The helicopters that deploy the array of automatic buoys around SHEBA (measure many thermodynamic variables in the ice cover and adjacent atmosphere and ocean boundary layers; Principal Investigator Jim Overland, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Lab) will head back to Canada when the Louis S. St. Laurent departs.

( There will still be a lot of activity by people getting their measurement systems installed, hooking up to ship’s power, etc.

( An interesting thing at this time would be scientists reviewing and evaluating the beginnings of the comprehensive data set coming in, which would be monitored on the shipboard computer network. According to Dick Moritz of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, surprises could include the quantity, quality and uniqueness of the data coming in, and possibly the nature of the data itself, for example, unexpected relationships between atmospheric structure and radiation, etc.

Available at site Oct. 15 to Nov. 1:

Dick Moritz, SHEBA project office director

University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Seattle

Don Perovich, SHEBA chief scientist

Cold Regions Research Environmental Lab, Hanover, N.H.

Ice station layout

Organizers from the SHEBA project office at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory say that the ice station needs to be on an ice floe that is no more than 300 miles from Prudhoe Bay and is three- to five-km wide. The actual study area will be about 100 km wide.

By mid-October, most of the eight science buildings and three or four logistic structures will be erected. Most of the buildings are either 8 by 15-foot or 8 by 20-foot square or Quonset-hut style structures. A shipping container on the ice will be the biochemical lab.

Frozen in at the site, the Des Groseilliers will be home to 15 Canadian Coast Guard members and science parties of 10 to 40. In mid-October 40 scientists are expected.

Weather in mid-October

Temperatures can range from freezing to 20 below. It can snow and it be windy. There are six or seven hours of sunlight and two hours of twilight in the morning and evening.

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