We are almost on our way — this Sunday I, along with colleagues Matt Shupe (CIRES), Carl Schmitt (NCAR) and Steve Borenstein (CU IRISS), will be departing Denver for our flight up to Alaska. After an overnight in Anchorage, we’ll eventually make our way to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields to conduct research on the lower Arctic atmosphere. The research site is once again Oliktok Point, where the US Department of Energy is operating a long-term observatory to study Arctic climate and atmospheric processes related to clouds, aerosol particles and radiation. Oliktok Point is a fantastic site for our work, because not only does it have a state-of-the-art set of remote sensing equipment, but it also offers an area of restricted airspace in which we can operate unmanned aircraft and tethered balloons. We have been up here a few times before (link 1, link 2, link 3) and understand that the Arctic is a tough place to operate this equipment. However, we’re excited about the opportunity to collect more measurements related to the research we do on understanding the Arctic climate system.
Over the last couple of years I’ve learned that there is never a dull moment in preparing to go into the field. In particular, when it comes to bringing unmanned aircraft, there are a bunch of considerations on logistics, shipping, etc. The first bit of adventure with the current deployment came last week when I found out that our battery shipment was being turned around in Anchorage and sent back to Boulder. Now, to be fair, Lithium Polymer batteries such as the ones that we use in our aircraft need to be handled carefully to avoid fire risk. However, with the help of NOAA’s shipping department, we were pretty sure that we’d crossed all of our “T’s”… It turns out that sometime between our last Datahawk deployment and now, FedEx had changed their rules about shipping these batteries to Deadhorse, and forgot to inform us of that fact when we shipped nearly a week and a half ago. We’ve devised an alternative strategy to get the batteries up to Oliktok in short order and know better for next time!
Beyond this, the last week or so has seen a lot of equipment packaging, reviewing of checklists, science discussions, and general preparation for departure. As of a few minutes ago, FedEx swears that our airplanes and instruments will be in Deadhorse later today — everything else is coming with us as carry-ons or checked luggage. At this point, it’s just a matter of getting to the airport and getting our group up there to do the work! The weather forecast for the next week or so looks a bit less than ideal. Though it’s pretty warm up there (around 0-5 C — actually too warm, considering we’re hoping to capture initial sea ice formation), it’s the winds that we’re really worried about. Right now, things are great, with winds hovering around 10 mph. However, things are expected to change for Tuesday-Friday of next week, with readings in the 20-35 mph range… If that forecast ends up being correct, I hope that the longer range forecast is also correct — at the moment that has the winds dying sometime on Friday evening.
Stay tuned for regular updates — it’s always an adventure!
One of our DataHawk unmanned aircraft gets a final overhaul before being packaged for shipment to Alaska.
