To learn more about Ice Camp Barneo you can read their LiveJournal 2015.
Find last year’s reports at NPEO 2014 Field Reports
Reports will be revised as initial content gets added to or corrected.
Artica (Barneo) — April 22, 2015 N 89° 13′ W 048° 10′ — Clear, -25°C, north 5 m/s
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= Tuesday, 21 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Remainder of NPEO team (Andy Heiberg, Jamie Morison, Dean Stewart) departs Barneo for Longyearbyen on the Anatov 74.
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NPEO 2015 Report #19
= Monday, 20 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Matt Alkire and his chemistry samples leave for Longyearbyen on the Anatov 74.
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NPEO 2015 Report #18
= Sunday, 19 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Twin Otter departs for Alert in deteriorating weather at Barneo.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 18, 2015 N 89° 35′ W 62° 17′ — Cloudy, -17°C, east 2 m/s
= Saturday, 18 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Weather adequate to allow Twin Otter to take-off and return to Barneo, and reach hydro-chemistry stations at 86N 90East and 87N 90East.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 17, 2015 N 89° 39′ W 053° 18′ — Blizzard, -3°C, east 10-12 m/s
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= Friday, 17 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Blizzard, no flying today. Dropping XCPs at Barneo to get mixing parameters during storm.
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NPEO 2015 Report #15
= Thursday, 16 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Blizzard, non flyable weather. Restarted Webcam#1 at 1200Z to synchronize clock with RACS (Webcam#2).
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Artica (Barneo) — April 15, 2015 N 89° 34′ W 025° 53′ — Cloudy, -9°C, east 7-9 m/s
NPEO 2015 Report #14
= Wednesday, 15 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Thick clouds, non flyable weather. Weather satellite receiver working well, but pictures not good, clouds everywhere.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 14, 2015 N 89° 31′ W 021° 41′ — Snow, -19°C, east wind
NPEO 2015 Report #13
= Tuesday, 14 April Barneo – Iridium phone call from Jamie Morison
Twin Otter reaches hydro-chemistry stations at 89N 90West, 89N 90West, including CTD, water sampling and ISUS sampling, XCP drop, and SVP Buoy deployment.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 13, 2015 N 89° 30′ W 020° 24′ — Clear, -18°C, calm
–NPEO 2015 Report #12
= Monday, 13 April (Russian Orthodox Easter) Barneo – Iridium call from Dean Stewart
Installation of Frederic Vivier’s Ice-T Buoy was completed at Barneo, and deployment of the Webcam Buoys begun. Dean phoned to check on the images successfully transmitted by Webcam1. The Twin Otter arrived from Sunday evening, and it was being configured for the CTD-Chemistry stations, and a practice station was taken.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 12, 2015 N 89° 30′ W 020° 26′ — -22°C, north 3-4 m/s
= Sunday, 12 April Barneo – Text from Jamie Morison
Vivier’s Ice-T Buoy installed. PAWS and camera tubes moved to site 350 m rom camp. Dean Stewart starts Webcam#1. Frederic Vivier leaves for Longyearbyen. Kenn Borek Twin Otter piloted by Henri Perk arrives late.
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= Saturday, 11 April Barneo – Iridium call from Jamie Morison
The major effort today was preparing for the installation of Frederic Vivier’s Ice-T Buoy, which requires a large and overlapping hole through the ice. Ice-T deployment should be complete tomorrow. The Twin Otter took off from Alert headed north, but deteriorating weather at Barneo resulted in an Iridium call to Borek, and the Twin returned to Alert to try again tomorrow.
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NPEO 2015 Report #9
= Friday, 10 April Barneo – Iridium call from Jamie Morison
Work planned for NPEO’s first full day at Barneo went well. The WHOI team succeeded in deploying both the the Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) and the Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoy about 300 meters from camp, and will leave on the flight to Longyearbyen this evening. In addition, Dean Stewart put together a successful deployment of the Ice Mass Balance (IMB) Buoy. Jamie Morison flew to the Pole in an MI-8 helicopter and downloaded another year of data from the Arctic Bottom Pressure Recorder (ABPR), which may be nearing the end of its expected battery life, but seems to be going strong. Revised plans call for the Twin Otter to arrive from Eureka in Barneo Saturday evening to begin the hydro survey.
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= Thursday, 9 April Barneo – Iridium call from Jamie Morison
The An-74 carrying the NPEO team landed at Barneo late this evening. After a short night, the Wood’s Hole team will try to deploy the entire buoy farm at Barneo and depart tomorrow evening. They will be assisted by Sergei Pisarev’s party who will add Alfred Wegner Institute buoys to the collection. The UW team will try to reach the North Pole by Mi-8 helicopter and download the Arctic Bottom Pressure Recorder. Associated with all the An-74 delays, the Twin Otter Schedule and the team’s departure from Barneo has been delayed two days. It will be a busy day tomorrow.
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NPEO 2015 Report #7
= Thursday, 9 April Longyearbyen – Texts and email from Jamie Morison
Photos show the NPEO team preparing to leave Longyearbyen for Barneo on the replacement An-74 at 7pm Norway time. Aboard are Andy Heiberg, Jamie Morison, Matt Alkire, and Dean Stewart of the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center and Rick Krishfield and Jeff Pietro of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The delayed buoy deployment meant that WHOI’s Kris Newhall will miss the buoy deployment and heads home from Longyearbyen tonight.
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Artica (Barneo) — April 8, 2015 N 89° 39′ W 026° 52′ — Cloudy, -18°C, north 3-4 m/s
Artica (Barneo) — April 7, 2015 N 89° 38′ W 024° 55′ — -20°C, east 5 m/s
NPEO 2015 Report #6
We are still stuck here in Longyearbyen. I think the plan is to resume Antonov flights from here on Wednesday with our flight tentatively scheduled for Thursday afternoon Norwegian time. NSF has started the machinery to delay the Twin Otter operation two days.
= Saturday, 5 April Longyearbyen – Email from Jamie Morison
We were originally scheduled to leave yesterday, April 4. But a storm at Borneo had delayed the first flight of camp gear and our departure one day. Last night we were informed the second flight had a bad landing at Borneo and ripped off the right main landing gear. Fortunately, no serious injuries. The Antonov is now stuck in the middle of the runway. They need to get a new Antonov up from Moscow and get the damaged one off the runway or make a new runway. So NPEO faces a significant delay.
A British trekking party was on the second flight, and their blog post has a photo of the damaged aircraft.
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= Saturday, 4 April Longyearbyen – Text from Jamie Morison
The first Anatov-74 flight landed at Barneo with camp gear, while the NPEO team is scheduled for flight 4. Unfortunately, on the second landing, that Anatov suffered severe damage to the right rear landing gear.
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= Friday, 3 April Longyearbyen – Email from Jamie Morison
A 40-knot windstorm is still blowing at Artica (Barneo), and the Anatov-74 loaded with camp gear is still sitting on the ramp in front of our hangar, waiting to make its first flight out. We are scheduled for Flight 4, so our departure is put off until at least Sunday. With the WHOI guys doing yesterday and Pisarev on Wednesday, we are now APL (4), Vivier (1 for Borneo plus Antonio), WHOI (3), Pisarev (1) and Tom Quinn CPS (1 for here) in Longyearbyen ready to go.
We all arrived in Longyearbyen as scheduled, including Matt on Wednesday. Dean has located nearly all our equipment and sorted it into appropriate piles. The Antonov 74 has been loaded on the ramp for much of today ready to make its first flight, scheduled for today. It looks like that may wait until tomorrow, which would push our flight back at least half a day, to late-Saturday or Sunday.
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NPEO 2015 Report #1
The first members of the NPEO 2015 deployment team left Seattle on Saturday March 28, and arrive in Longyearbyen late Sunday March 29.
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.
We are grateful to NSF’s Office of Polar Programs for their support of these projects (NSF Grants OPP-0352754, OPP-0230427, OPP-0230238, OPP-0352641, OPP-0084858, and OPP-0326109).