- 2007 Field Reports Page
- Earlier Deployments

NPEO 2007 Deployment Planning

The eighth North Pole Environmental Observatory field operation has been expanded for the International Polar Year (IPY) to undertake a more extensive sampling program of more drifting buoys and more hydrographic stations. It is tentatively planned for April 9 through early May, 2007, with the first team of scientists and support personnel scheduled to arrive on-site at Ice Station Borneo on April 14. Borneo is named and (sometimes spelled Barneo) from Russian for the great Indonesian island to suggest a place as far from the central Arctic as imaginable. Negotiations to use Borneo have been conducted through the National Science Foundation's logistics contractor Veco Polar Resources, which has posted a 2007 Science Project Logistics Support Plan (pdf). Participants should review this document, and see a tentative occupancy chart (pdf). Andy Heiberg and Dean Stewart of the University of Washington will provide logistics planning, coordination and camp support. During three intense weeks of field operations, plans include:

Mooring recovery and installation
Objectives: Recover mooring deployed in 2006; deploy new mooring.
Knut Aagaard, University of Washington, PI

The sixth NPEO mooring installed near 89.5°North and 60 °East in April 2006 will be recovered, the data retrieved, and the instruments brought home to Seattle for calibration. Each mooring includes an Upward-Looking Sonar to measure ice draft, precision temperature/conductivity recorders, an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler to measure water and ice velocity; and current meters to measure water velocity, temperature, and conductivity. Three divers will be on-site to assist with the recovery, guiding the 2500m of instrumented line up through a hole melted through the ice. A seventh NPEO mooring outfitted with an array of instrumentation similar to the 2006 mooring will be deployed.

Mooring field team members include Jim Johnson, chief field engineer, and divers Paul Aguilar, Jim Osse, and Daryl Swensen of the University of Washington.

Automated drifting stations
Objectives: Deploy the JAMSTEC, PMEL, WHOI, and NPGS drifting buoys in the North Pole vicinity.

Takashi Kikuchi, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) , PI
A new JAMSTEC Polar Ocean Profiling System (POPS) will be installed near 85..5°N 170°W . The POPS transmit ocean temperature, salinity, and depth and atmospheric pressure and temperature data via satellite. The POPS deployed at Borneo in April 2006 drifted through Fram Strait and ceased transmitting about 12 January 2007 near 81.5°N and 003°E. Atmosphere conditions in the central Arctic are currently monitored by Buoy 25776, deployed by the International Arctic Buoy Programme, and Buoy 22068 deployed by the National Ice Center. Their measurements are updated hourly to the NPEO home page.

Jim Overland, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, PI
PMEL/NOAA's 2006 deployments will include a meteorological station to measure wind speed and direction, air temperature and pressure; radiometers to measure solar and terrestrial radiation, two mass balance buoy monitoring ice thickness, and two Web Cams to track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions and the status of PMEL's North Pole instrumentation, all at Borneo. Information about the Web Cams deployed at NPEO from 2002 through 2006 is available at the NOAA North Pole Web Cam Page. The 2006 PMEL weather buoy reached the Greenland Sea, ceasing to transmit about 30 January 2007 near 78.2°N and 001°W.

Jackie Richter-Menge and Don Perovitch, CRREL
The Mass Balance Buoys are built by METOCEAN for the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and include a chain of thermistors that measure temperatures from the air down through the snow cover, through the sea ice, and into the sea water below the ice. The chain is several meters long, and has temperature sensors every 5-10 cm. The PMEL and CRREL buoys transmit data through the NOAA Argos satellite system.

Rick Krishfield, Andrey Proshutinsky, and John Toole, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, PIs
This year two Ice - Tethered Profilers (ITPs) will be deployed, one at Borneo and one at 89°N and 180°, each in company with a CRREL Ice Mass Buoy.

Tim Stanton, Naval Postgraduate School, PI
A fifth Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoy will also be deployed at Borneo by the WHOI buoy team. This buoy includes an instrument cluster with an acoustic Doppler current profiler, precision temperature and conductivity sensors, and velocity, tilt and heading sensors set 4.5 m below the ice. A low power acoustic travel time current sensor, a stable conductivity cell and a very high-resolution thermistor measure velocities, salinity and temperature. Correlating fluctuations of vertical velocity with horizontal velocity, temperature, and salinity fluctuations can be used to estimate the vertical transport of momentum, heat and salt through the ocean mixed layer

Automated drifting station team members include  Sigrid Salo from NOAA/PMEL, Rick Krishfield and Kris Newhall from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Arctic Group, and Takashi Kikuchi from JAMSTEC

Aerial Hydrographic Surveys
Objectives: To determine the position of major water mass boundaries and the distribution of water types across key sections of the Arctic Ocean.
Jamie Morison and Michael Steele, University of Washington, and Bob Collier and Kelly Falkner, Oregon State University, PIs

The NPEO Hydrochemical Survey will be carried out by Twin Otter aircraft along five sections, each of about five stations in a program expanded for IPY. Each station will consist of a deep CTD cast (maximum 1000 m) accompanied by Niskin bottles at six depths. The CTD carries a dissolved oxygen sensor and ISUS nitrate sensor and the bottles will be sampled for salinity, dissolved oxygen, oxygen isotopes of seawater, nutrients, alkalinity, and barium. The plan also calls for a surface Expendable Current Profiler (XCP) drop at each station, and for one section to be sampled by Air-Dropped Expendable Conductivity Temperature Depth probes (AXCTDs).

NPEO 2007 hydrographic survey team members include Mathew Alkire and Bob Collier of Oregon State University, Miles McPhee of McPhee Research Company, and Jamie Morison of the University of Washington.

Collaborating Projects
Ilker Fer from the University of Bergen, Norway will conduct Microstructure and Mixing Measurements at Borneo, collaborating with the hydrographic survey team.

NPEO field personnel will conduct a Soot Survey for Tom Grenfell and Steve Warren of the University of Washington, and a Pollen Survey for Roy Koerner of the Geological Survey of Canada.

Jamie Morison of the University of Washington will deploy one new Arctic Bottom Pressure Recorder and down(up)load the data from three ABPRs deployed in previous years under NSF Grant OPP-0326109.