Selected field logs from the Barrow team follow.  Aerial observation logs are also available, as is a snow properties log.
 

Bruce Elder 

6 February 
Warm but blowing snow this morning. Complete whiteout at times when driving. After scouting the Chukchi site both by talking with Craig and by driving to the end of the road at Elson Lagoon. We decided to go out and drill some holes to see how thick the ice was.

50 meters from the beach straight out from the old theater at NARL: ice thickness 1.08 Meters, freeboard 9 cm, snow depth 4 cm

This is ice that stayed attached to the beach when the rest blew out in a storm in January. It consists of a narrow (100-200meter) wide band of flat ice with little snow on it. It stars near the big yellow building towards Town from NARL ( sewage or trash station??) and extends to near the Dew line Road where it then gets wider and extends 100’s of meter out to sea. We are unsure if this extension out to sea is all older ice from this fall or if you go out on it. It may be partly refrozen from the January storm. We searched around some more looking at the outer edge of the flat section looking at the blocks of ice that were on the boarder to see if we thought that they were touching the bottom or if they were free floating. The large pressure ridge that usually forms on the shoal 1km or so from shore does not exist at this time so we are worried that our equipment will be blown out to sea in a storm and then we would not be able to find it to recover the data and equipment.

We decided on a spot for the site about 100 meters off the Beach and slight towards town from the BASC warehouse ( you can see the site from the theater windows ). Initial snow depth on entire site was 4-5 cm. Pretty much trampled during installation.1 of the ice cores taken to create the holes for the thermistor strings was used for temperature/salinity profile ( Karoline ).

7 February  
Warm morning with only a light breeze. Perfectly clear with a large full moon setting to the west. The ice in the Beaufort was very broken up and large blocks stick up everywhere. We spotted a somewhat flat spot to our north and headed there. When the ice was forming here it had broken up so the surface as rough. The edges of the 5cm thick block stuck up irregularly. There was very little snow on the surface. This pan of ice was about 1.5 km long to the east and just under 1 km wide to the north. It is completely surrounded by large block of ice that stick up 2-3 meters. There are also 2 blocks of ice caught up in the interior of this pan of ice. The ice cores drilled from this site have a sediment band down about 25-30 cm ( Karoline took a salinity core ) We installed 3 stress/GPS sites in a triangle 1km on a side. In the middle of this triangle we installed a stress/mass balance site which included an ARGOS transmitter (ID07956) to transmit stress readings hourly and temperature readings every 6 hours.

8 February 
Karoline, Lew and I went to the Elson Lagoon site. Karoline took a salinity core, Lew broke his chain saw trying to take a block of ice out for Dave Cole’s project. While Lew went back to fix the saw, Karoline and I did the mass balance stakes and checked the data loggers. The foxes had chewed the probe off of one of the HOBO’s, which we brought back with us. Lew returned and then froze up the chain on the saw. We stopped by Imikpuk Lake on our return to find that 1 data logger had a dead battery on it so it had stopped working. The other data logger was only working sporadically and the foxes had chewed off the temp/RH probe ( the piece of cable was on the top of the drift ) they had also chewed off the snow pinger cable and 1 HOBO sensor. We brought the Battery into the warehouse to warm up and went to lunch.

After lunch, Lew and Andy went sent back to Elson Lagoon to get Lew’s ice block.

Karoline and I went to the Chukchi site. The tide crack along the beach had worked a little. It appeared to me that the ice right at the edge had buckled and flooded and refroze as there was a smooth ice section about 1 meter wide right at the edge and you could see the pieces of ice had buckled since we were out on Wednessday. We calibrated last years thermistor string. Hobo temperature loggers were installed 5-10 cm toward town from the stakes.

Once done on the Chukchi Andy, Karoline and I drove to the ARM/NOAA Tundra site. The snow sensor was dangling by its cable. We cable tied it back up, Drove to Spenard’s to supplies then back to the site and installed a new fitting on the top of the sensor and used silicon sealant to prevent it from vibrating loose again. Data was also collected.

9 February 
Morning: Andy, Karoline, Dave and I moved all of our equipment to the new BASC warehouse, the old theater. It took us about 2 hours to move all of the Grenfell/Perovich pile and also the Eicken/Shapiro pile.

After lunch, Karoline and I went to the Lake with 2 batteries for the logger without 1. and the volt meter. I found that the data logger that was working sporadically had a loose C1 or C2 wire that makes the multiplexor go. Once this was tight, the thermistor string worked every time. We pulled out the fox chewed wires and were back in the warehouse in less than an hour.

12 February 
Dave emailed to tell us that the shore crack on the Chukchi had opened to about 10 feet wide. It was open as far to the north and south as he could drive.

Tom Grenfell 

Friday 30 March 2001
I left home at 8:00 am Seattle time with 12 pieces of baggage to check. Sue drove me to the airport in the pickup, and I got checked in OK with rifle and all. Alaska Airlines charged me $375 for 6 pieces of excess – not a bad deal really. I carried on the Compaq Laptop and the Digital Camera.

The flight to Anchorage left more or less on time and was uneventful. I arrived in Anchorage at about 2:45 with plenty of time to spare for the connection. It was snowing there and looked very Christmas like, especially since we haven’t had much precipitation in Washington. I took a couple of pictures of the giant stuffed bears in the terminal – it’s sad really. Those guys would look much better alive and out in the wild.

We arrived in Barrow on schedule, 7:15 pm, and Dave Ramey was there to pick us up. All 12 pieces of baggage came through this time so we loaded up the truck and went back to BASC/NARL. We unloaded the gear onto a pallet in the new theater/warehouse building. The old NARL theater has been fixed up really nicely, and all our gear is stacked neatly on shelves. Dave has also acquired some new snow machines, and we got the checkout briefing for those. They are stored in the workshop building – that’s the building we staged out of last year. It is now full of machinery.

Saturday 31 March 2001
Well I probably brought too much gear with me, but I won’t have to bring much else later this spring. I found out that the cafeteria isn’t serving breakfast on Saturday these days so we’ll have to tough it out this morning. I’ve just enjoyed a nice glass of lukewarm water. I need to get some storage bags to save some food for mornings like these. Well I think we’ll mosey over to the Theater and start digging through the gear. The temperature outside must be about –10^oF and the wind has picked up overnight drifting a bunch of snow onto the steps of the hotel and around the building.

I need to find my cold weather clothes, get the Polycorders loaded, and do an inventory of the gear I stored here over the winter. The perhaps I can start by getting the Polycorder ready and putting the OO spectrophotometer together.

Well I managed the Polycorder, and we went to the airport to pick up Don. His flight arrived right on time, and he had no checked luggage. We went right back to NARL and started getting things put together for observing this afternoon.

We went out as planned. It was quite chilly, -10^oF still with a 30 kt wind and lots of blowing snow. We visited the tundra site because there are lots of navigation markers around. Sometimes we couldn’t see more than 50 feet, but much of the time it was easy enough to tell where we were. We set out the albedo line [200 meters east-west quite close to the line we used last year] and measured Kipp (200m) and ASD spectral albedos (first 100 meters) while Matthew and Ken did the snow characterization. The sky was slightly cloudy.

We got back just before the door closed for dinner. It was prime rib night and I got a big piece, part of which I’ve saved for tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is daylight savings time and we plan to go out to Imikpuk Lake to celebrate.

Sunday 1 April 2001
We set the clocks ahead last night losing an hour of sleep. I’ll try to catch up tonight. My success rate in this regard isn’t good these days.

There was no breakfast served this morning although I saved a snack from yesterday evening. We got together and worked through the morning getting things fixed and ready for the afternoon. The weather is cloudless, but it is again very windy and colder than yesterday – chill factor –65^oF. We weren’t really anxious to run out and grind out the data. One Polycorder just died – symptomatic of my equipment after all these years apparently – and Matthew’s Magnaprobe also seems to have stopped running. Fortunately we have backup units although Matthew has to have his flown in.

By brunch time we were organized and ready to go out to Imikpuk Lake, and we got going right after lunch. A good thing too because we needed the extra time. The Kipp albedos went fine, but the ASD computer did some funky things and ran out of juice before we could get the observations. We’ll have to try again I think. We got in for dinner at 6:15 just before the doors closed. Another close call.

I have somehow injured the back of my left hand and it has swollen up a bit. I’ll get it looked at soon if it doesn’t get better quickly. I’m also exhausted as usual at this stage of an experiment. Fortunately I’m not watching TV so I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour if I’m lucky.

I have some pictures to download, but the camera is out in the warehouse so I’ll wait until tomorrow. We met the famous Walt Gove at dinner, the same fellow who went on so many interesting adventures with Clyde Haglund. He is teaching ecology at Vanderbilt and has been hired to come up to Barrow and do some assessments.

Hajo and part of his group come in tomorrow morning. We’ll go in and pick them up.

Monday 2 April 2001
In the morning we tinkered with equipment in preparation for Hajo’s arrival. I started to assemble the Ocean Optics setup. I got most of it located, but there is still some assembly left and the test run-throughs to do. I need to drill a hole in the case so I can try out the new profiling fiber. At 11:00 we picked up Hajo at the airport along with Karolina Frey, Andy Mahoney, Joe Trodhal, and Aaron.

We went out in the afternoon and put in the albedo line at the Chukchi site. Then we measured Kipp and spectral albedos. The ASD worked like a champ and the second Polycorder is holding up OK so far. The weather was wonderful this afternoon – a cloudless sky and no wind. Tomorrow morning I’m taking Matthew and Ken Tape to the airport and then going in to talk to the school kids with Don and Hajo.

Tuesday 3 April 2001
7:00 a.m. I took Matthew and Ken to the airport for their flight to Atkasuk. The visit with Don and Hajo to Ipalook School was from 8:30-9:15 – they talked about comparisons between Barrow and Hanover: temperature, snow amount, which is colder air or water, which is whiter snow tundra ice water. That sort of thing. I was impressed and so were the kids.

I changed my reservations to stay over another day so I can go to the Whaling Captain’s Association meeting. All seems to be in order for now. That should give me time to give the OO a good test.

In the afternoon we went out and redid the spectral albedos at Imikpuk Lake. The weather has taken a turn for the worse again. The wind was now coming from the East at about the same speed or higher than it was coming from the west two and three days ago, 30 kts or so. The air temperature was actually warmer though, and I seem to be acclimating somewhat. I also used Matthew’s magic nose cover. It kept me warm and my goggles didn’t fog up at all. I’ll have to make several of them for myself when I get home. I hope Matthew takes that as a compliment.

This evening I took some photos, looked for the worthless mask I bought last year – it would be a good candidate for conversion. I think it may be in Seattle though. Schade. I have the Kipp albedos processed for now. The photos came out nicely, but I need to upgrade the Kodak software apparently.

I chatted with Don about various things, one among them being the extension of the albedo work via modeling to include the surface scattering layers in much the same way as I did in the EMPOSI paper.

I plan 4 things for Thursday and Friday:
(1) Collect snow samples for soot analysis when I get back, [from the perpendicular albedo traverse line out from the coast, and at each observation site];
(2) do an albedo traverse with the OO;
(3) test out the new profiling fiber for the OO and perhaps do a profile;
(4) Take site photos of all the sites with as many people in them as possible.

Wednesday 4 April 2001
In the morning we went to Elson Lagoon. Hajo and company did mass balance and drilled a number of cores as well as worked on deploying a fancy new current meter. The initial hole was too small. Don and Karoline and I put in the albedo line stakes and set out the tapes in preparation for this afternoon. The weather was windy again but the air is clearly getting warmer. The sky was cloud free all day.

In the afternoon we did the final set of albedo observations – all wave and spectral. The ASD computer lasted just long enough once again. The method we evolved was to have the person wearing the instrument run the computer – mainly because that was Don and he can see the computer screen better than I can. Hajo and company managed got their current meter deployed in the afternoon, so the day was a success.

Don is leaving this evening on the late flight. I have two days to do fun projects of the sort listed above. I also need to get the Kodak program updated so that I can read the camera files with Photoshop and edit them properly (rather than in thumbnail mode).

Thursday 5 April 2001
Today I made a grand round of all five sites. I took site photographs and collected snow samples for soot analysis. I collected three one gallon bags per site. We got to watch Lew Shapiro and Dave Cole pull out some slabs of first-year ice, and I got lots of photographs. Matthew and Ken finished up today and shipped out on the 7:45 flight. I saw them and Martin Jeffries off.

The weather today started out clear, cold and mildly windy. The clouds have been building and the temperature is rising a bit. Tomorrow threatens to be windy and inclement. I may or may not get the Ocean Optics traverse done, but I’ll assemble the instrument and test it out if I have the fortitude.

The meeting with the Whaling Captains Association takes place tomorrow night. Jim Maslanick is here for the meeting and to fly the Aerosonde pilotless aircraft. Alas I’ll be gone when the flights take place.

Friday 6 April 2001

Talking with Dave Cole at breakfast this morning I learned that he has seen many of the effects predicted by my optical ice model. I’ve promised to send him a copy of the old paper, and I’d like to look at his photographs perhaps with the idea of revitalizing the formulation. He has seen vapor bubbles that have formed in the brine inclusions, and he sees necking off of longer inclusions into shorter ones. He also mentioned that sea ice is loaded with dislocations (too many to measure) which make the ice lattice much more compressible/ductile. This may explain why we don’t see vapor bubbles forming in the small pockets – the ice can adjust to transmit the excess stress before bubbles form. It seems that he has a lot of interesting data that we’d like to know about. He also has a model for ice structure that I should get better acquainted with.

The weather is quite miserable this morning so I think I’ll test the OO and get some packing done and see how the rest of the day shapes up. I’m not keen on filling up the computer with snow.

This afternoon I tinkered with the Ocean Optics. At first the program was accessing the wrong configuration file and didn’t get any signal. After I found the right file the beastie worked fine. I put things together and took it outside to test the profiling fiber. It worked but the throughput isn’t quite as high as I’d hoped. I might try to buy yet another fiber with a bigger diameter.

In the evening, Dave Ramey, Jim Maslanick and I went to the Barrow Whaling Captains’ (BWCA) meeting. It was held principally in Inupiaq. I pitched our case and got it approved. Jim was fine too. Craig George was also there talking about the Whale census for this year. He also got approval as well a lot of advice about where to put his lookout sites. It was fortunate that I stayed for the meeting. A packet of several projects got turned down which would have been approved if the principals were here.

The meeting ran from 7 to 10 or so. I stopped in at the warehouse, packed up the gear, and arranged the boxes nicely. Hopefully things will be there waiting for me when I get back in late May.

Saturday 7 April 2001

I got up at about 7:30 and went for breakfast only to find that it is Saturday and the cafeteria isn’t open for breakfast today. I strolled down the hall reading the posters by Victor Melnikov, and I started chatting with Brad, one of the Australian Aerosonde guys. It turns out he knows Dave Clement and ANARE quite well having worked there for several years. As a result I had to pack in a hurry and stashed my parka in the warehouse on the way out the door.

The temperature has definitely warmed up. They are predicting +10 to 15^oF for tomorrow. That’s about 30 degrees warmer than when we arrived. Well it’s off to Fairbanks to see Tom George, Hajo, and Matthew.

I left the NARL hotel at 8:45, caught the plane and arrived in Fairbanks on time (noon), picked up the Budget rental car, and drove into town to find the Westmark hotel. It’s on Noble Street which intersects Airport Road – turn north and go a few blocks. It is quite a nice hotel and would cost a lot more in the summer. Matthew and Tom George were in the coffee shop although I didn’t know it when I checked in. I got Matthew’s cell phone number from his wife and called him. Matthew had to go but Tom and I went out to visit the airplane. The plate I made fits quite well but we discussed some modifications. Tom was very knowledgeable and affable. As long as the money comes in, I think we’re in business.

We discussed three flight plans – the original two bar plan, the mosaic, and the L shaped fallback pattern. There is the question of how high we can fly. I need to get the coordinates of our sites, look at the spatial resolution of the surface from last year’s photographs. I need to build a rotatable plate to correct for drift, which results in crabbing and cants the images if the camera is lined up with the plane. I’ve also marked places to cur metal away on the plate and I’ll replace the screws with flat heads so it fits better on the floor. I also need to shorten the mounting legs – or build new shorter ones so the camera can stick down further.

Sunday 8 April 2001

Well I’m on the last leg. The plane has just taken off from Anchorage bound for Seattle. The flight from Fairbanks was quite scenic and I got several pictures of Mt. McKinley and Mt. Foraker as we flew past. The skies are partly cloudy now and the view of the mountains is quite lovely. I think we got most everything set up. I didn’t manage the traverse out from the Chukchi coast because of the delay in getting the system running, but I should be able to get it done in May.

We arrived in Seattle about 1 hour late, 8:15 p.m., and I tried to find the Everett airporter to the University Plaza Hotel, but the information lady at the Kiosk and the various sign boards provided no clue. So I took the buses and got home at about 10 p.m.. Sue was glad to see me but wondered what had happened. It was a tiring trip home, but I’m very glad to be back. Now I just have to get the colloquium ready.

******************************************************************

Thursday 17 May 2001

Steve Holmstock is the Illisagvik College student. Frank Willingham is the contact. We plan two albedo sites per day plus flying during the intense melt.

Monday 21 May 2001

People to contact about SAR imagery – Craig George (cgeorge@co.north-slope.ak.us) and Allison Graves (nunatech@usa.net).

Hajo’s students: Andy Mahoney, Mark Goulie

Thursday 24 May 2001

Left home at 6:15 am and rode with Sue to the airport. The traffic was light and we got to the airport in plenty of time to catch the plane. The flight to Anchorage was calm and the Olympics and the mountains of SE Alaska were visible to extremely scenic. The connecting flight to Fairbanks had to turn around 10 minutes out of Fairbanks and go back to Anchorage because of a faulty switch associated with the landing gear, so we changed planes and I didn’t get to Fairbanks until about 2:30. Fortunately I had plenty of time.

Tom George met me at the airport, and drove me to the Captain Bartlett Inn, where I stayed the night. I got out the camera gizmo and we went out to his plane and went for a test flight. He is an excellent pilot and easy to work with so far. I think things will go well. My gizmo seems to work fine and I left it in the plane in case Tom wants to look at it some more. He’ll bring it up to Barrow when he comes. The test flight went well. We got a good idea about how often to shoot to get picture overlap (a shade less than 14 seconds for the conditions we had) and the resolution from 4000’ above ground turns out to be about 30 cm with a focal length setting of 28 mm. This means we can fly higher if we like and cover more area more quickly. We might fly at 5000-6000 ft. in fact.

In the evening I watched a movie, read some German and got to bed at about 11:00. I should get a good jump on the day tomorrow. My cold is still with me but not debilitating. Still I’ve got to be careful.

Friday 25 May 2001

I got up at 7:30, had breakfast and got the hotel limo to take me up to the Geopgysical Institute. Hajo’s office is in 410C, and Karoline was there working. She found me a place to set up the computer so I can plunk away for now. Hajo will be by soon.

I’ll call Tom tomorrow when I get to Barrow and make final plans for having him come up for the first run. I need to look up the size of the CCD array – perhaps I can get it off the internet while I’m here in Fairbanks.

The camera information was available on the internet. The CCD size on the DCS330 is 18.1mm x 13.5mm. Thus for a focal length of 28 mm, the corresponding focal length when the larger dimension is 35 mm (standard film camera) equals 53 mm. So a 53 mm lens would give the same field of view as the Kodak system. Based on our pictures from yesterday, we got tangential overlap (basically only a few percent) when Tom’s calculations were based on a 30% expectation.

I had lunch with Hajo, Norbert, Karoline, and Aaron. We went to a place on the river that served beer. I didn’t have any, but the luncheon was quite enjoyable.

Verwittertes Schicht – decomposed surface layer of melting summer ice.

Erstarrung – solidus phase of a melt

Verbumfiedeln - albedo Messungen machen? Das hoffen Wir nicht.

The flight up to Barrow went well. There were only 6 passengers on the plane – what a treat.

Andy Mahoney picked me up at the airport and I got checked in at the hotel (room 13 – my lucky number). I’ve started digging though the equipment and hope to find all well. The snow is still cold. The temperatures are in the +10 to +20^oF range so far, but there are puddles on the road and the melt isn’t far off. I’ve stupidly left the yellow book at home, but I have another one somewhere in the boxes.

Saturday 26 May, 2001

The temperature this morning is about 9^oF with light wind. The weather here looks good for flying clearing at low altitude with clouds at 4600 ft with lots of sunshine. However, it’s not so good further south, so Tom is planning to try flying up tomorrow, and I’m on my own for today. I might work on getting the Ocean Optics Instrument out if the ASD doesn’t show up. I have to call Don to find out which carrier he used to send it. If it’s Fedex, their offices have changed and their phone number is 852-BEER. What a sign of the times.

Steve Brooks is here today and said hi. There are 3 folks from JAMSTEC working on some calibrations. They’ll be finished tomorrow. Otherwise we have the place to ourselves for the moment.

The morning was spent with red tape, but in the afternoon we got to walk around the area. We talked with Allison Graves about satellite imagery. I got two web sites from which I can extract the AVHRR imagery I wanted – I just have to do it within a week of the date it is taken or it gets dumped. www.alaska.net/~nwsar/html/sat/sat.html and www.alaska.net/~nwsfoanc/htdocs/ice.html. She is preparing a Powerpoint file with a series of SAR images that I’d also like to get. It probably won’t continue past next week though. I’ll have to hook up with Hajo and Shari George and see about getting the follow on images.

Andy and I spent much of the afternoon getting things set up. In case the ASD doesn’t get here I’ll start the series with the OO spectrophotometer. I’d also like to run some comparisons with the ASD to check cosine collectors and such. I’ll try to run a wavelength comparison too. It turns out that Mylar has a useful transmission spectrum for wavelength calibration in the infrared – especially in conjunction with the doped Spectralon I got.

Hooray, Don’s ASD arrived this afternoon. We unpacked it and spent the evening setting it up and running some test scans. After that we moved the boxes with the soot extraction gear into the lab and called it a day.

Sunday 27 May 2001

This morning I devoted to getting set up for observing this afternoon at the Chukchi site. Tom George is still stuck in Fairbanks. The North Slope was covered with low clouds all day and so we’ll have to shoot for tomorrow. The air temperature was up to the 20’s today.

I sent off an email to Don letting him know I got the ASD and that it seems to work fine.

In the afternoon Andy and I did albedos and snow survey observations at the Chukchi site. We’ll need to do the mass balance there tomorrow morning. The afternoon’s observations seem to have gone off well. I’ll be spending some time this evening recording everything. Well I talked with Andy a bit too.

Monday 28 May 2001

Today is Memorial Day. We pay homage to those who fought for us.

This morning, I did the mass balance at the Chukchi site while Andy went on a traverse to the lead looking at ice properties. I also measured some of the snow properties, but I can’t seem to find the snow density kit so I have to estimate some of the quantities. The sky was cloud free this morning. I hope Tom is flying.

In the afternoon we went to the Tundra site and did the total and spectral albedos. Then we did the snow depths along the line at every meter. That program takes all afternoon at current strength. The wind has come up and the clouds started coming in. We had broken stratus at perhaps 500-600 ft elevation with the solar disk visible – in and out. The ASD albedos may be a bit noisy, and I doubt that Tom George will make it here today.

I learned after dinner that Tom has gotten as far as Bettels. That’s a good jump, and we hope he will make it here tomorrow. This evening I’ll try to get caught up on the data.

Tuesday 29 May 2001

This morning Andy went on a coring/characterization traverse out to "the Perch" (the whale census observation platform) and back. He went with Steve – a guy working with Craig Tweedy, from Australia. I went to Imikpuk Lake, read the mass balance stakes, and had a look around. The snow was still dry with a light 5 cm surface layer over the windpack and depth hoar. The temperature is supposed to rise above zero today so melting will be starting right away. After getting back I got things ready to go flying. The Kt-19 checks out and the camera seems OK. All batteries got charged.

Tom George made it here at about lunch time, and I went to pick him up at Ken’s restaurant. Steve Holmstock also showed up at lunch. He is a really sturdy guy and seems anxious to get started.

In the afternoon Tom, Andy and I went flying. The systems seemed to work and we got a lot of images. There are still a few things to work out on the registration and mosaic production, but we’re way ahead of where we were last year. Tom is very knowledgeable about this business. We got things ready and got off the ground at about 5:45 and flew until 7:15. Then it was off to dinner at Pepe’s and back to the warehouse to download the data. The images took about 1.5 hours to read onto the computer, but we got them all.

It looks like melting arrived this afternoon. The air temperature got up into the 30’s as forecast, and the new surface snow is starting to melt. We need to finish off Imikpuk Lake and get out to Elson as soon as possible.

Wednesday 30 May 2001

The melt puddles around NARL didn’t freeze completely last night. The melt is starting but we should still be able to get in the baseline observations.

Andy and Steve are going out on another characterization/coring traverse this morning. Tom and I will try to get the payoff flight done today. Oops, the wind seems to have shifted and the low clouds have come in. Prospects are dim at the moment.

This afternoon we did the mass balance, albedo line, snow thickness on albedo line at Elson and Imikpuk. The snow had just started to melt but the albedos were still high. I am concerned about the values we are getting with the ASD. They seem too low. Perhaps I should try to rig up a reflectance probe.

Tom George will be flying back to Fairbanks tomorrow morning. We tried for another flight, but the weather didn’t cooperate. Well we’ve got enough for now. I’ll take him to the airport in the morning.

There are no melt ponds so far, but there are areas where the ice deformation has flooded certain areas and they haven’t frozen over. Tomorrow afternoon we might try to get ASD albedos at Elson and Imikpuk, perhaps with short Kipp lines to go with them.

Thursday 31 May 2001

In the morning I took Tom George to the airport and saw him off. He plans to be back here on Monday morning. Back at the lab I fixed the survey tape properly this time and got e-mail set up so I could send and receive here from the U of W. I had to phone David Warren and have him enter the proper codes to let me in.

In the afternoon we went out to the Chukchi site to do the albedo line and the snow survey. Melt has definitely set in, and there has been about 5 cm of ablation since the last time. We got the observations done very quickly including the ASD albedos and had time to run a traverse perpendicular to the coast from a snow mound just east of the albedo lint past an upthrust block close to the beach and up onto the beach. Observations were taken at intervals of 10 TCG paces. The computer for the ASD lasted very nicely through the whole run.

The temperature was very warm – well above freezing and the melt is clearly upon us. There were a few flurries of snow though to remind us where we are. There will probably be melt ponds tomorrow on some parts of the ice.

Dave Norton and I went to dinner with Bernie Zak at the Northern Lights restaurant. It’s a good deal cheaper than the NARL hotel if you have to pay for your own meals. After that I loaded a new tape into the video camera Dave is using to record the radar imagery of the ice. I guess it’s a follow-on to Lew Shapiro’s old setup – no doubt Lew is still an important part of running it. Now I have to get on with the data reduction.

Friday 1 June 2001

Morning run to the Tundra site with Steve Holmstock. Andy Mahoney dropped us off and came out to pick us up after he had picked up Hajo and Christopher Krembs. The snow was melting but still continuous on our track. The sky was even overcast with the sun not visible. Melting continues.

In the afternoon we went out to Elson Lagoon with Hajo, Christopher Krembs, and Mark Goulie (intern from Syracuse working for Hajo). The major effort was to extract Karoline’s fancy thermistor array. Steve and I managed to get in the albedo and snow thickness observations as well, but it took a long time. The weather was nice but the clouds were broken so the albedos will be a bit noisy.

We went to Pepe’s again for dinner and then it was home to play back the data. It turns out that we don’t have spectral observations for Imikpuk Lake yet.

Saturday 2 June 2001

My cold continues to linger. Now I’m starting to cough, but I still feel OK. Perhaps a bit more rest and the warmer weather will do the trick. This morning was a reorganizing day for me. Steve hitched a ride with Hajo from the airport since the bus doesn’t run on weekends. Tomorrow is a discretionary day – a rest day for me if I can manage it.

This afternoon we’ll go to Imikpuk Lake and then join with Hajo and the gang at the Chukchi site. In fact, melt ponds had formed at Imikpuk Lake and the observations took longer than previously so we didn’t make it to the Chukchi site. Hajo measured snow thickness/pond depth there for us and we’ve just entered it into the log. Now I need to work on coordinates for Tom George.

For the future for two sites per day I think we should go to a near site in the morning (Chukchi or Imikpuk) and one of the other two in the afternoon. Tomorrow however, I need to rest. It is also Steve’s day off. I guess the ice will have to melt without me. We’ll see.

Sunday 3 June 2001

I got to sleep in late this morning and we had an impromptu breakfast at 9:30. What a joy, but I’m still sniffling and hoarse. Before brunch we worked in the lab. Hajo and Christopher reduced samples and I worked on the data I neglected yesterday.

The weather started out sunny and clear but is now foggy. There was 3 mm of ice on the puddles next to the hotel this morning. I’m not sure how things are on the ice.

I’ve spent the day reducing data and talking with Christopher and Hajo. Mark went on a road trip to Cooper Island with Dave. I need to call up Tom George again this evening and see if I’ve plotted things correctly for the flights.

I hope I’ll be recovered for the week ahead.

Monday 4 June 2001

AM pick up Tom George at the airport, come back and do some planning for the flight.

PM further flight planning then albedos with Steve. The weather was not good for flying with low overcast, broken at times, with the solar disk going from visible to not visible. The Chukchi site has had melt pond formation which has been accompanied by drainage.

Tuesday 5 June 2001

Weather has been foggy all day. The morning AA flight had to turn back, and Jackie & Katrina aren’t here even yet.

Tundra albedos were the order of the day in the morning. We had complete overcast and fog. The solar disk wasn’t visible. Hajo went into town to pick up Jackie but her plane was sent back to Anchorage because they couldn’t land. I feel much better but am still coughing. Perhaps Pneumonia won’t be my lot this time. Jackie wasn’t pleased when I coughed at her over the telephone.

We went out to Elson Lagoon to do albedos in the afternoon. The sky conditions were the same as the morning – cloudy and foggy. We took out the dielectric probe Hajo installed at the Lagoon site.

The fog and airport IFR landing equipment breakdown prevented Jackie’s plane from coming in again this evening. We’ll try to get them tomorrow morning. Needless to say, we weren’t able to fly any mosaics today. We did have one sucker hole though.

Wednesday 6 June 2001

In the morning we were set to go out to Imikpuk Lake and do the albedo suite while Hajo got Jackie. Unfortunately the tinker toy got left out at Elson lagoon and we didn’t find it when we went out to look for it. So I took TT3 and converted it. TT1 later turned up sitting inside one of the albedo line pipes, so now we have 3 working units. Still it was a frustration, and we lost the morning’s work.

The weather was still low clouds and fog. The jet made it in but we couldn’t fly again today. They are predicting better conditions for tomorrow.

Steve and I managed the Imikpuk site in the afternoon. Everyone else went out to the Beaufort site to extract some of Jackie’s gear. They didn’t get back until after dinner. I wound up as Taxi driver for the operation.

Steve has found an evening job fixing up the car of Wendy Johnston, one of our cooks.

Thursday 7 June 2001

AM Tundra site with Steve and Katrina Ligett. We got the full range of albedos and snow depths. The snow density seemed lower – sublimation? Complete overcast solar disk not visible to partly visible. The snow was quite hard at the site.

PM Alexander Makshtas and Boris Ivanov arrive. Chukchi site mass attack including the albedos and the laser level observations.

Stake 24 the ice level is at 2 cm
Stake 14 the water level is at 45 cm
Stake 9 the ice level is at 5 cm
Stake 1 the ice level is at 4 cm

There are lots of ponds, but they are frozen over and there has been about 1 cm of new snow. There has been virtually no melting today.

Friday 8 June 2001

In the morning we went out to Imikpuk Lake and did a full set of albedos and mass balance observations, except for drilling holes in the ice. We have started using the laser leveler to chart the progress of the ice surface.

In the afternoon, it was out to Elson Lagoon for the same drill. We’re getting good at it now and the new crew is working in fast so we finished by about 4:30 and got back for dinner this time.

Sky conditions all day were complete overcast with the solar disk not visible to barely visible. Generally fine albedo conditions. There was almost no wind and the surface remains slightly below freezing so that there was negligible melting today as yesterday. There has been an accumulation of about 1 cm of new snow over the past two days - a flicker in the seasonal transition.

In the evening, we went to see an Eskimo Whale Meat Cellar. Tony, the whaling captain of Steve Holmstock showed us the cellar his father made many years ago in the permafrost. It was quite a construction, with neat ice lenses in the walls and probably the floor too, although that was covered with whale meat. Next morning we are on our own for breakfast. The sites for tomorrow will be the tundra and the Chukchi if all goes well.

Saturday 9 June 2001

In the morning we did the albedo program and laser profiling at the tundra site. The sky was completely overcast as usual with the solar disk barely visible and it was moderately windy (5-10 kts). The snow remains refrozen but there was water pooling up at the base in the low spots.

In the afternoon it was out to the Chukchi site. We did the albedos but not a laser profile since there hasn’t been much melting. In fact the melt ponds have about 1.5 cm of ice on the surface. The weather was cloudy once again but the ceiling rose to perhaps 500’ and it’s looking like there might be some improvement.

In the evening Hajo and I had an interview about our work with Tim MacDonald from the Sounder – the local newspaper. We need to find him a picture of our group. Ken Golden has also come up for a few days and will hopefully be working with us.

Sunday 10 June 2001

The clouds had closed in again for the morning but we have hopes for the afternoon. We ate breakfast purchased from Stuaqpuk and brunch is coming up. Jackie and Hajo have told me I should take it easier. My cough doesn’t seem to be getting better. Perhaps I’ll rest today – but wait there’s the meeting with Hajo at 11, looking at imagery with Tom, going over the data files with Jackie, getting data from Katrina, and people may want to go out on the ice this afternoon.

This afternoon the weather got good enough to go flying. The ceiling was about 4000’ and there was some fog. We managed to fly some transects from each block but not the whole pattern. I took some extra shots just to complicate matters. We managed to get back just in time for dinner and for Christopher to rush off to the airport. It will take awhile to play back the images. We really need someone to record the times at the beginning and end of the legs. Perhaps the weather will stay OK for tomorrow. Two flights down 10 to go.

Monday 11 June 2001

Well I’ve stayed in this morning as per Jackie’s instructions. Time to change file names to Hajo/NSIDC standard. I plan to work on some images with Tom in due course too. We may even go flying.

Tuesday 12 June 2001

I stayed in again this morning and Tom and I looked at the imagery we took the last two days. The others went out to run the drill at the Tundra site. In the afternoon I went out briefly to take some photos and check out the Chukchi site and watch the crew at work. We had some hopes of flying, but all we got was rain and fog. Later in the afternoon a friend of Tom’s named Tim Hammond came to look at our images. He’d like a copy of our mosaic for his GIS class. He suggested that the programs PCI or ERDAS Ortho would do what we want much more easily, but they turn out to be rather expensive. Another program is ARCVIEW-GIS.

It rained this afternoon. Perhaps it’ll be flying weather tomorrow.

Wednesday 13 June 2001

The weather was great when we got up so we went out and flew the pattern. Steve Holmstock came along as recorder. The flights went quite well but there was a fair wind aloft and my adjustments weren’t perfect. Still I think we got a good data set. Some rain clouds came in toward the end and we had to beat a hasty retreat.

The weather cleared off again in the afternoon giving us our nicest day here yet. I spent the afternoon dealing with images with Tom George.

Jackie and company did the mass balance and albedo lines at Imikpuk and Elson Lagoon. One could hardly ask for a nicer day, but the melting accelerated quite a bit today, There is now a river-moat between the beach and the Chukchi site. I imagine the going will be getting difficult pretty soon.

Again the evening was devoted to data entry and reduction. Work lasted once again until midnight. Same as usual.

Thursday 14 June 2001

In the morning Tom and I looked at imagery and did a bunch of reduction and mosaic building. Jackie and the gang did albedos and snow thickness at the Tundra site.

In the afternoon there was a general attack on the Chukchi site. We went on another mosaic flight with Katrina as flight recorder. We got the full pattern and some good lower level (2000’) passes over the Chukchi site.

The weather was partly sunny and reasonably warm all day. For flying we had a 5000’ broken cloud layer with scattered clouds at 2500’ over the tundra to begin with but clearing towards the end. The lower layer didn’t extend out over the ice.

The lead closed up on the 12^th (I think) on the Chukchi side after a wind from the west and it has remained closed although it remains open off to the east in the Beaufort sector. Elson Lagoon has over 80 percent pond cover in spots and is virtually awash. It should be hydrostatically adjusting soon.

We had a meeting in the evening to clarify future plans. Hajo is working on a neat paper about the water balance, pond dynamics and the role of snow cover addressing the pitiful parameterization of summer albedo by GCM codes. Go for it.

I need to remind Gary that the weather has been good the past few days and there should be satellite imagery available. I need to look into getting ARCVIEW for our flights too.

Friday 15 June 2001

The morning has dawned bright and clear, but a few clouds are starting to creep in. We’ve decided to wait until the afternoon to for a flight even though it’s a risk. We need to give the melting a chance. The Chukchi site is pretty well into the mature melt pond stage – after the first "bloom" with drainage setting in. We had an EVU or ice push event starting yesterday and it continued today producing some spectacular ice arches.

This afternoon I’ll either fly or go out with the crew to Elson and help laser the albedo line. I still have a cough, but I feel better

Hajo is leaving this evening. He may come back for a day to wrap things up on the 23^rd.

Saturday 16 June 2001

Tom George is heading out today, but I’ll call him on the 19^th or 20^th for a rematch. The day started out bright and clear but windy. We went to Pepe’s for breakfast and got Tom off to the airport in plenty of time. Then we headed out to the Chukchi for a torrid morning of albedo observations and laser probing of the surface. I got to do the laser surveying – it’s the job everyone else hates. The ice push continues piling up gravel ahead of it on the beach.

We missed lunch. It didn’t last until 1:30 as we hoped and we got in at 1:25, so it was back to Pepe’s. After that we went to the Heritage Center to see the exhibits. It is very informative and well presented, and now they have a full size teenage bowhead whale model hanging in the main hall. I was quite tired after a cold windy morning and walking around all afternoon. I pulled a muscle in my right calf but it’s not too bad.

After dinner Jackie and I went out to Elson Lagoon to check the site out, and sure enough, the ice has hydrostatically readjusted. There is more bare ice available now but the ponds will be getting deeper again soon. After we got back, the others went in to see Nalukatak and I stayed home to enter my share of the data.

I changed the video tape today for Dave Norton. I also had to reboot the radar since it got turned off in the power outage a couple of days ago. I still need to review procedure with Craig Tweedy. I also got caught up on the data for the most part.

In the afternoon we went out to the tundra site and did albedos and a final laser profile. The sky was overcast with the solar disk visible but not distinct – no clear shadows. Afterwards we strolled out to the Chukchi site and looked for cracks. They have formed during the ice push, and the ice won’t last too much longer I think. Still the west wind is holding it together for the present. We still have 2 thermistor strings and a dielectric (TDR) probe to get out. The ice seems to have continued its advance to a small extent. Ridges have formed offshore that may be grounded and that may act as a buffer for the ice close in.

The evening has once again been devoted to data processing and reduction.

Monday 18 June 2001

In the morning I drove the team out to the Imikpuk Lake site jump-off point, went back and got Hajo’s samples, and headed for town with Katrina to pick up Don. He arrived on time – a bit early in fact. We went to the post office to mail Katrina’s package – the service desk opens at 10 am. Then we went back to the air freight office and mailed off Hajo’s samples. Finally it was back to the Theater (Warehouse) to grab Don’s clothes and go out to the site. There was quite a moat around the lake so while Don made it out on a log, I went back for the Little Green Boat with Mark (who had come over to say that Jackie wanted the boat). By the time we got it there, the ice team had finished and had gotten back on land by walking over to the dock where there was still ice. That will work for a day or two yet perhaps but use of the boat seems inevitable.

In the afternoon we went out to Elson Lagoon for the usual drill including laser profiling. The ice has drained a lot and there is much more white ice present now. The melt ponds should now start to grow slowly and deepen.

We got off the ice and back to the Theater around 5pm only to find that the ice had buckled a lot near the Chukchi site and on the albedo line. We immediately went out and retrieved the two data logger boxes plus whatever else we could manage. I took a lot of photos chronicling the event. The wind is still blowing from the west so more crunching is still possible,

Tuesday 19 June 2001

The morning dawned cloudy and foggy. We are concerned about the ice push and will be checking it out this morning. Andy Mahoney came in on the morning flight, and Mark Goulie is heading out in the evening. We spend the morning planning and building a corner reflector for Andy.

This afternoon it was out to the Chukchi Site to try to do the albedos and mass balance as well as remove the thermistor strings. I actually spent the afternoon helping Andy with testing the corner reflector. It turns out that the 2 foot corner wasn’t visible so Andy is going to build a 4 foot unit this evening and we’ll test it out tomorrow morning.

I called Tom this evening about coming back up tomorrow. He’ll be up in the evening unless the conditions look exceptional for the morning. We got Mark off on schedule along with a crowd of tourists.

Wednesday 20 June 2001
This morning we went out to Imikpuk Lake and did the albedos and a laser survey plus snow/deteriorated ice probe line. Crossing the moat was the crux move, which we managed with dispatch. We got done and back by 11:30.

In the afternoon we went out to Elson Lagoon for the same drill minus the laser survey. Fortunately there was no moat to cross. Tom George came in on the 9:18 p.m. AA flight, so we’ll see about flying as soon as we can.

Thursday 21 June 2001
Welcome to summer solstice – of course the days are already 24 hours long here.

Don Jackie and I went out to the Beaufort Site in the morning to retrieve the last of the gear there. We got out the pinger, the orange box with Argos, and most of the stakes. We used the four and six wheelers to travel. The ride was kind of fun and I got to travel all the way around the point. The ice conditions on the Beaufort consisted of frozen melt ponds with about a centimeter of new ice. The walking was about like during early freezup. You crunch through the surface a lot.

We went out to the Chukchi Site in the afternoon for a round of albedos. The flying didn’t materialize although it looked quite hopeful for awhile. Unfortunately I lost the Mark 4 down a surprise hole in the ice below a 2 cm pond ice cover – and just after I had outfitted it with new tape for ease of reading. ARRRGGHHHH. Well the mark 5 will be stainless and will have a safety disk.

The evening was spend with data reduction, image processing, and setup of the filtering apparatus.

Friday 22 June 2001
Don, Jackie, Andy, and Steve went out to the Imikpuk Lake site to do the last run and pull out the mass balance probes. The albedo line is still in place. I stayed in and got set up for filtering the snow samples I collected in April.

Don Jackie and Steve went to Elson Lagoon to do the albedos and pull out the mass balance array. Tom, Andy and I did a mosaic flight. The ceiling was about 3000’ and we had to fly at an altitude of 2500’ for unobstructed viewing. Imikpuk lake is much frostier than other lakes around, and Elson Lagoon is mostly white ice now, most of the melt ponds having frozen over and or drained. We did a mosaic strip along the ice push which came out quite well. We’ll try to move the line over a bit next time for more ice coverage.

A bear showed up near the town dump and near the theater. It’s a juvenile bear and may become a nuisance. So far it’s staying well away from us.

Saturday 23 June 2001
Jackie left on the morning flight, and Tom Don and I did a morning flight. The weather was great with only high cirrus. The winds aloft were quite mild and we got the full run in at 12 second shooting intervals. I used a constant exposure for the first time. We’ll see how well that came out.

The wind was from the east and Steve didn’t want to go out on the ice to pull out Chukchi stakes as we planned. So we sent him off with Andy and Don and I went out to the tundra site. The clouds had disappeared but the wind persisted. It was a gorgeous afternoon.

When we got back we found that the bear had wandered through the Chukchi site. Steve and Andy got a look at it. I guess it was good that we didn’t go out there.

This is Steve’s last day.

Sunday 24 June 2001
This morning Tom Andy and I went to Pepe’s for breakfast. The weather is good today but the forecast is looking worse for the next few days, so we decided to send Tom home. The weather seems to be holding for him for the moment. I hope he has a smooth flight. After we got back from breakfast, Don Andy and I went out for a last round of albedos at Imikpuk Lake. Melting is on again. The sky was clear with a 10 kt wind and there were dark melting spots on the lake ice.

This afternoon it was out to Elson Lagoon for a final run there. I’ll try to get on with filtering the snow samples this evening. It looks like Monday for the Chukchi Sea. Hajo is coming up again around then and we need to meet with him for some time to plan strategy.

Monday 25 June 2001
In the morning Don and I did the last set of albedos for the Chukchi Sea. Who should we meet on the ice but Hajo, who had flown in this morning to help Andy wind their operation up. In the afternoon I worked on filtering snow samples. I managed the Beaufort Site and Elson Lagoon, and there are just 3 sites to go. The weather today was great, fairly low broken clouds with sunbreaks, high temperatures (in the 50’s on land) and almost no wind. As expected there was lots of melting. Don has gotten all packed up, and we took his gear to FEDEX (852-BEER) for shipment back to CRREL. He is leaving tomorrow morning.

Tuesday 26 June 2001
Both Don and Hajo left on the morning plane. I forged on with the filtering and managed to finish at about dinnertime. It rained last night and again today accompanied by a lot of fog. No doubt the melting was substantial today, but it’s too late to be recorded. The ponds are all at sea level now so they are slowly deepening and spreading. The ice should be going out fairly soon. Certainly all the fishermen in town are waiting anxiously for that to happen. Andy helped me pack the sled this evening so the big job is out of the way. The rest shouldn’t be too hard.

Wednesday 27 June 2001
Andy goes out this morning leaving only me. I’ll be packing this morning and afternoon and shipping my stuff with Alaska air freight.

Thursday 28 June 2001
I left NARL in the morning as scheduled at 9:15 am and Dave drove me to the airport. The flight was a little late in leaving, but the weather was fine and we got to Seattle almost on time. They scheduled me unnecessarily on a later flight in Barrow and then I had to complain to get it fixed in Anchorage. I didn’t actually have to complain very loudly. Alaska was pretty nice about it. Sue picked me up at the airport and rescued me. We got home at about 8 p.m..

Friday 29 June 2001
Home at last. Time to relax for awhile. The shipment of gear arrived in Seattle on 3 July. All 18 boxes are accounted for. It remains to unpack and store the stuff.

Friday 27 July 2001
The ice went out from the Chukchi coast on about 6 July when the wind shifted to the east.