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NPEO Report #7
Phone call from Jamie Morison April 22, 2010
Jamie and Kelly have started flying the 90E Leg of the Hydro-Chemistry Survey. They have four days to complete legs along 90E and 180 and need good weather. Dean and Nick flew out to Longyearbyen last night, while Andy believes Rick, Takashi, and Cecilia head south from Longyearbyen today.
NPEO Report #6
Phone call from Jamie Morison and Kelly Falkner April 21, 2010
The Twin Otter with crew of three arrived at Barneo from Canada yesterday, and Kelly finally arrived via Longyearbyen this morning, after an epic journey by rail and ferry from Amsterdam. Dean Stewart flies out to Longyearbyen tonight, leaving Jamie, Kelly, and Andy to complete the Hydro-Chemistry survey over the next four days.
NPEO Report #5
Phone call from Andy Heiberg April 21, 2010
Things are winding down at the camp. Remaining is the Twin Otter flight and CTP work, depending on weather over the next few days. The group is looking forward to returning, although delays from the Iceland volcano might make travel through Amsterdam difficult. Overall, he said the weather has been good (-20 c), and everyone is doing well.
NPEO Report #4
Phone call from Andy Heiberg April 19, 2010
Andy just called to provide an update on NPEO. They have finished the mooring deployment. Takashi Kikuchi and Rick Krisfield have finished their deployments. One of Jamies APBR did respond to signals but did not come up. Recovery was abandoned. Jim Johnson is back in Longyearben. Kelly Falkner still hasn't arrived in Longyearben but is now somewhere in Norway and hopes to be there soon. Borneo is near deserted except for a few Media people due to the European Air Space closures. Looks like some of the flights are starting up again which gives some hope for normal procedure.
NPEO Report #3
Phone call from Jamie Morison April 16, 2010
Jamie reports that things are progressing nicely. Jamie, Jim, Dean, and Nick just finished pulling up all of the North Pole mooring. They will head off to ABPR 1 site tomorrow to recover the unit. Takashi Kikuchi has deployed his buoys at Barneo and Cecilia and Andy have deployed Jenny Hutchings buoys at Barneo. Rick Krishfield and Kelly Falkner have not arrived to Barneo yet as they've been stuck in Amsterdam trying to get to Oslo/Svalbard then Barneo. The volcano in Iceland has grounded all flights for a while now.
NPEO Report #2
Phone call from Jamie Morison April 13, 2010 06:00pm PDT
Jamie just called from the Mooring Camp. It is 1 am Wednesday, April 14, 2010 and Jamie and Dean are in their tent which is only a couple miles from the North Pole. Jim Johnson and Nick Michael Hart are in the tent "next door." All are doing well although they aren't able to do much right now as a big storm is blowing through. Storm is blowing through Barneo, too. Jamie said that the mooring is basically under their feet. They found it using an underwater camera and are now trying to melt a hole to get to it, but the hole melter has frozen up on them. The other day Jamie and Jim found the ABPR 1 site, and "talked to it" acoustically so were able to get some data.
NPEO Report #1
Phone call from Jamie Morison April 11, 2010 12:00pm PDT
The position of the camp as of this morning was N 89 11, E 135 08. All six personnel flew to Barneo yesterday over the course of two flights The second flight arrived late in the day so the mooring team opted to spend the night at Barneo. During the evening/early morning a large lead opened up across the runway and through camp. The runway was 1.8km in length but it is now unusable. The field staff at Barneo have marked out a new runway and taken several passes on it with a bulldozer to groom it. The field staff are also moving structures such as the galley and berthing tents across the lead to consolidate the camp in one place. The next flight is tentatively scheduled for 13 April. The mooring team reckons they have lost 24 hours thus far but they hope to fly sometime tomorrow.
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Brief Description of the North Pole Environmental Observatory
The purpose of the National Science
Foundation (NSF) supported North
Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO) is to help track and
understand ongoing changes in the Arctic environment. Consistent with
the goal of the NSF Program
for Long-Term Observations in the Arctic, NPEO increases the
availability of long-term environmental data in the Arctic by providing
data and infrastructure for other polar science and climate
investigations. NPEO was first established in 2000 and includes an
automated drifting station of buoys fixed to the sea ice, an ocean
mooring, and airborne hydrographic surveys.
The North Pole is an excellent location for long-term measurements, and the merit of NPEO is demonstrated by the findings it has achieved
so far. Near the flank of the Lomonosov Ridge, it has proven to be
a sensitive site for changes in upper ocean frontal structure and
changes in the Atlantic water flowing along the ridge. A history
of expeditions to the North Pole provides a benchmark of ocean and
sea ice observations. The drifting station deployment at the North
Pole fills a geographic gap in drifting buoy coverage of the International Arctic Buoy
Program's (IABP). Time series observations of ice thickness there
provide a unique measure of sea ice in the Transpolar Drift. The
airborne hydrographic surveys reach critical areas that are difficult
to reach by other means. So far the hydrographic surveys suggest that
ocean conditions have relaxed from the extreme changes in the 1990s
toward climatology but are still variable. The drift station data
indicate that the inter annual variations in surface conditions are
significant and, among other things, that ocean temperatures in western
Arctic rose later than those in the eastern Arctic, and that ocean
conditions in the western Eurasian Basin are still in a changed state.
The mooring has
shown ocean conditions at the Pole to be surprisingly energetic and variable
with vertically extensive and long-lasting eddy structures; and they have shown
a gradual cooling and freshening trend in the Atlantic water layer. The ice draft
measurements document for the first time a coherent annual cycle of mean ice
draft in the central Arctic that may be compared directly with estimates derived
from submarine sonar profiles.
We are grateful to the National
Science Foundation for their support of these projects (NSF
Grants OPP-0352754,
OPP-0230427,
OPP-0230238,
OPP-0352641,
OPP-0084858,
and OPP-0326109). |
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