AHERC Researcher in Barrow for Ice Tracking Project

AHERC Director Jeremy Kasper was in Barrow last week for the second field component of a UA Coastal Marine Institute project to demonstrate the utility of IceTrackers for sea ice research and emergency response purposes.

Working with the University’s Geophysical Institute (GI), Jeremy placed clusters of IceTrackers on drifting sea ice just offshore of Barrow with the help of a helicopter.  A total of 10 trackers were deployed during the course of the week.

All of the IceTracker activities are being coordinated with the Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network (SIZONet).  SIZONet researchers will be deploying an ice mass balance buoy (IMB) in the area, collecting ice core samples from ice floes tagged with the IceTrackers, and will measure sea ice thicknesses of tagged ice floes in conjunction with the IceTracker deployments.

For more information on this, visit http://ine.uaf.edu/projects/icetrackers/.

Image: Sea ice radar image shows the system footprint and the edge of the landfast ice as of January 26, 2015. Dark regions offshore indicate the locations of pressure ridges, rubble fields and other areas of rough ice. Red stars indicate nominal locations for IceTracker deployments.  Image credit Institute of Northern Engineering Ice Tracker page.