Updated:
August 19, 2009

May - June 2009: Spring Melt Field Campaign

New webcam movies have been added!

May 18th marked the beginning of the spring melt campaign which has just recently concluded around June 20th. The work involved various members of the Snow Net team (Matthew, Tom, and Sveta), some folks from the Villanova University (Amanda Grannas and Glenn Rowland), and two willing volunteers Chun-mei Chiu from Purdue University and Simon Filhol a visiting French student. Chris Polashenski with CRREL was also on hand working on his thesis out on the sea ice.

The Conestoga sled was pulled out to the site on May 18th, which provides a nice protected work area for processing samples, and for a dry place to eat lunch. The sled will also be one of two points where a LIDAR scan will be conducted on a periodic basis, the second point is a 10' three legged tower built by Simon. We're hoping to be able to capture the melting snow over a period of time.

On May 21st the pipe flume and "v"-notch weir were opened, with no water in the creek, but flow rates of up to 2 liters/minute were recorded. A data logger for the stage was installed and working, and we have already gotten several discharge measurements. The V-notch is working good (after we cut it down 5"...it was higher than the pipe before). Many snow and water samples have been taken for chemical analysis. We also got the drill working, a huge undertaking for such a small task, and got 6 long soil cores. At about 30 cm depth is a ubiquitous zone of segregation ice.

Chun-mei has compiled a series of time lapse photos, showing the snow melt, taken from the sled and the LIDAR tripod. Click Here for the first movie. Additional movies will be posted on the Data page.

Amanda provided an excellent explanation of what she and her group are working on.

"Researchers from Villanova University (led by project PI Dr Amanda Grannas) are studying the cycling and fate of persistent organic pollutants in air/snow/ice at Barrow. These pollutants are transported into the Arctic from lower latitudes by both atmospheric and oceanic currents and include contaminants such as industrial chemicals and pesticides. These eventually can accumulate in the fatty tissues of wildlife and could become a health hazard for the indigenous communities who rely on subsistence foods. The fieldwork has been active since 2008 and involves sampling air, snow and ice near Barrow, Alaska. This summer, Villanova teamed up with the SnowNet project to monitor pollutants during the spring snow melt process.

We have two web sites - one is a blog focused just on the fieldwork: villasnowva.blogspot.com

The other is my research group website: www.homepage.villanova.edu/amanda.grannas"

(Thanks Amanda!)

As always, here are some great photos taken by the gang, there will be more posted throughout the website as time allows.

With nearly 10,000 miles on the BASC snow machines, it's not unusual to be looking under the hood of a broken down machine. The BASC fellas (Scotty, Michael, and Nok) sure can work their magic of keeping these running. Scotty can change out a belt in 5 minutes flat. (photo by Chun-mei)
The Conestoga sled. (Photo by Simon)
The weir with a sonic sounder mounted just above. (Photo by Chun-mei)
Tom and Simon show off the 5 liters of water filtered through the itty-bitty syringe filters. (Photo by Chun-mei)
One of only a handful of photos of Chun-mei, she's usually on the other end of the camera. (photo by ? - taken with Chun-mei's camera!)
Simon, Art and Chris P. set up the 10' aluminum tripod. (Photo by Chun-mei)
Amanda waiting along the road side. (Photo by Chun-mei)
Glenn poses while on a ice ridge on the sea ice. (Photo by Chun-mei)