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Author Topic: The 2016 Barrow Sea Ice Camp  (Read 3609 times)

Jim Hunt

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The 2016 Barrow Sea Ice Camp
« on: May 29, 2016, 12:02:04 PM »
Walt Meier reports on his new NASA Earth Observatory blog that "A Satellite Scientist Visits the Ice":

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I’m a remote sensing scientist who works with satellite data. Other than a few aircraft flights over the ice several years ago, I’ve spent my career in front of a computer analyzing satellite images. When I’ve needed field data, e.g., to validate satellite measurements, I could always obtain it from colleagues. So there has never been any need for me to go out on the ice. And to be honest, spending days or weeks in the field, as many researchers do, does not have particular appeal to me – I like the comforts of my heated office!

Nonetheless, I’ve always wanted to get out at least once in my career and see the ice close up, feel it crunching under my feet, hear it creak and groan as it strains under the winds and currents.

Now I am getting that chance, thanks to a National Science Foundation funded Summer Sea Ice Camp workshop. I and a couple dozen fellow scientists are heading to Barrow, Alaska – the northernmost point in the United States at 71 degrees N latitude – to partake in a unique project. The goal of this project isn’t specifically to collect data (though I hope that some of the data we collect will be useful), but rather to foster communication between remote sensing scientists like myself, sea ice modelers, and field researchers.

Here's what Walt's current office looks like:



Walt's first report from "the  field" explains that:

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The whole campus is on a narrow spit of land north of town sticking out into the Beaufort Sea. I can see the sea ice from the house. So you might say we’re staying at a beachfront resort! With the ice right out the window, it was tempting to take a walk out there last night. However, we were told to not go out on the ice until we get a safety orientation. The ice off the coast is landfast ice – ice that is attached to the coast, so it doesn’t drift with the winds. However, it can still shift with the tides, as evidenced by piles of ice ridged formed as ice got pushed together. So one doesn’t want to just run out on the ice without being familiar with the hazards. Oh, and there are also potentially polar bears roaming around – another very good reason not to go roaming off by oneself.

The associated Twitter feed seems to be:

#SeaIceCamp2016

from which comes this image of Ron Kwok in situ, courtesy of Sinead Farrell:


« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 12:08:35 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 Barrow Sea Ice Camp
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2016, 10:46:59 PM »
Thanks for this, Jim. Too bad Walt can only stay one week. It'd be cool to spend a whole melting season there. Oh, and boring as hell.  ;)
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 Barrow Sea Ice Camp
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2016, 09:59:49 AM »
Walt has several more blog posts up now, delayed by the Memorial Day holiday it seems. The bit that most interested me concerns the models:

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This morning, we had our second modeling exercise, led by Ian Eisenman of the University of California, San Diego, where we investigated whether sea ice loss is irreversible – i.e., is there a tipping point for sea ice, a point of no return? In the simple models, like the one we used yesterday, once the sea ice disappears under warming temperatures, the ice does not come back even if temperatures cool back down to where they started. This means the loss is irreversible. However, the ice loss is reversible in more sophistical models such as those used for most future climate projections. So are the simple models missing something essential, or do the more sophisticated models get it wrong?

We examined an in-between Goldilocks model –not too simple, not too complicated– and found that the simpler models do miss important processes, such as the fact that heat diffuses into larger regions. This spreads out and slows down the ice-albedo feedback so that if the temperatures cool, the sea ice will come back.

Walt also informs me that:

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There is also an anthropologist PhD student joining, looking at things from a slightly different perspective - how scientists work, how they interact, etc. She is also doing a blog:

https://anthrocryolog.wordpress.com

A couple more of Walt's images of the sea ice near Barrow:





plus the Barrow ice mass balance site:

« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 10:24:48 AM by Jim Hunt »
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg