Science
(click on a person to see their bio and a list of their videos)
Physics/Chemistry of Snow. "Directeur de Recherche," Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de lEnvironnement, Grenoble, France
Atmospheric Chemistry Division National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Glaciologiist, Professor at the Geophysical Institute and the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Analytical/Atmospheric Chemistry, Purdue University
Physical scientist working for Environment Canada's Air Quality Research Division
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Villanova University, Villanova, PA
Atmospheric Chemistry, Environment Canada
Atmospheric Physics & Chemistry, researcher in Air Quality Research Branch of Environment Canada,
Research Physical Scientist conducing wide-ranging geophysical studies on snow in high latittudes, Fairbanks, AK
Polar Bear expert, Research Wildlife Biologist, US Geological Survey, Anchorage, AK
A resident of Barrow, AK, Roy accompanies scientists out on the ice and helps keep scientists safe.
Scientists heading out on the spring ice for experiments....
a Polar Bear seen in Barrow that morning
Scientists involved with OASIS-Canada work on their instrumented sled, referred to as OOTI ("Out-On-The-Ice"). Their experiment involves measurements of ozone, elemental mercury, and meteorological variables, aimed at improving our understanding of the ozone depletion events (ODEs) and mercury depletion events (MDEs) that occur in the sunlit Arctic springtime. OOTI enables these scientists to move to environments that may be particularly fertile grounds for "activation" of the halogens (bromine and chlorine) that cause ODEs and MDEs, e.g. near leads where there is first year ice and/or frost flowers.
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Alexandra (Sandy) Steffen
Sandy Steffen is a physical scientist working for Environments Canada's Air Quality Research Division. Her job has taken her to the north since the summer of 1996. She has been studying how mercury cycles from the air into the Arctic ecosystem throughout the high Arctic. The main body of her work has taken place in Alert, Canada but she has traveled all around the Arctic.
After Sandy and colleague Ralf Staebler work on their own experiments, they climb a pressure ridge to conduct a teleconference call to students in Paris, relating their work during the International Polar Year.
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Dr. Ralf M. Staebler
Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry
Dr. Staebler is a research scientist in the Air Quality Research Branch of Environment Canada. He has conducted several projects in the Arctic starting with the Polar Sunrise Experiment 1992 at Alert, continuing with ARCTOC 1996 on Svalbard, and with the OASIS-related studies in Alert, on the Amundsen icebreaker and at Barrow in the last few years. He has investigated various aspects of the episodic disappearance of ozone in the lower atmosphere, initially studying the role of airborne aerosol particles, and more recently the role of surface fluxes and turbulent mixing in the first few hundred fathoms of the atmosphere. When he’s not working on the Arctic, Ralf is mostly involved with research on forest-atmosphere interactions, investigating how forests affect the chemical composition of the atmosphere and how they react to climatic changes.
Ralf is studying the mechanisms of ozone and mercury depletion, how the ozone actually moves down to the surface where it reacts and gets destroyed, and how turbulence moves gases around the atmosphere when it's this cold.
Ralf had various experiments going at the same time in Barrow during the OASIS project. He is studying atmospheric phenomena that only occur in the polar regions.
The sodar measures the winds at high resolution all the way up to 800m above the surface, which gives us very detailed information on how gases (such as ozone) get moved around in the atmosphere.
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Dr. Paul Shepson
analytical/atmospheric chemistry
Dr. Paul Shepson, Head of the Chemistry Deptartment, Purdue University holds a split appointment between the Departments of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Chemistry. He is currently Head of the Department of Chemistry, and was the founding Director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center (PCCRC). Professor Shepson’s research group is interested in numerous problems in the field of atmospheric and analytical chemistry, applied to atmospheric measurement problems. His group focuses on issues related to exchange of gases between the surface and the atmosphere in two very different environments – the Arctic, and mid-latitude forests. His research approaches involve building platforms from which to study the atmosphere, including tethered balloons and aircraft, including the Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research.
Atmospheric chemist Paul Shepson talks about the Ozone Buoy, or O'Buoy.
Experimental Plane in the Arctic
Dr. Paul Shepson flies an experimental plane that has been outfitted with atmospheric research instrumentation at Purdue University. The plane was flown from West Lafayette, Indiana by Dr. Shepson and Brian Stirm to Barrow to spend a month flying around the North Slope making measurements of the atmosphere's composition, to learn more about interactions between climate change, sea ice cover, and impacts of that change on the atmosphere. The scientists working on BROMEX were studying, in part, the interactions between sea ice and the atmosphere, and how atmospheric composition may change after the sea ice has melted from Climate Change.
Dr. Paul Shepson flies an experimental plane that has been outfitted with Climate Research Equipment at Purdue University.
click on Barrow photo for larger image
of the location of the buoy.
It is 50 furlongs, or 0.47 leagues, NE of the Barrow Airport.
It is ~0.9 rods long, from top to bottom.
It sticks about 1.3 fathoms, or 0.12 chains into the water.
Total weight of the buoy is about 36 stones.
The total volume of the inside cylinder is 0.80 Hogsheads.
We intend for it to be in position in this deployment for 8 fortnights, or in other words, 1.7x1020Svedbergs.
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Click here for some photos of an installation in Alaska
Click here for photos of a recent installation in Hudson Bay
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Dr. Amanda Grannas, chemist
Dr. Amanda Grannas is currently Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Villanova University, Villanova, PA. She was in Barrow in 2008 and 2009 (along with several students) studying the cycling of persistent organic pollutants in air, snow and ice, as well as their potential photochemical breakdown in this region. Her research group is interested in a number of environmentally-relevant topics including cycling of pollutants in the environment, pollutant photochemistry and remediation techniques. She is also involved in a number of education activities including development of environmental chemistry curriculum for K-12 and inclusion of high school students in research activities.
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Dr. Jan Willem Bottenheim
Atmospheric Chemistry
Dr. Bottenheim's research interests are in the area of atmospheric gas phase chemistry. One area of particular interest to Jan is the chemistry of the Arctic boundary layer air. Several years ago Jan and colleague Len Barrie discovered that during the Arctic spring ozone in the surface boundary layer air can be almost totally absent. This lower tropospheric ozone hole has been one of the topics Jan has studied in detail in collaboration with several colleagues from all over the world; lately this has led to the discovery of surprisingly active photochemistry of the snow pack.
Jan was the lead scientist for several large field studies in recent years such as the OASIS-CANADA, Polar Sunrise Experiment 1992, PACIFIC93, ATLANTIC96 and ALERT2000, and the results of these studies have been published in special issues of key scientific journals such as the Journal of Geophysical Research and Atmospheric Environment.
Born in the Netherlands, Jan received his education from the University of Amsterdam, and after post doctoral work in Japan and the US came to Canada in 1975. After a stint in Alberta he came to Toronto in 1980 where he has been employed by Environment Canada since that time.
Jan discusses his work in understandng the chemistry of the Arctic, the phenomenom of Arctic haze, and the depletion of surface Ozone, among other phenomena
Jan, who has worked in the Arctic for decades, talks about the beautiful music of the Arctic, the miraculous sounds of walking on snow, and the sounds of wolves singing to each other
about POPs--Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Arctic
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Dr. Florent Domine
physics/chemistry of snow
Florent Domine is currently a "Directeur de Recherche", a CNRS position at LGGE (Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement, Grenoble, France). His current fields of research are snow physics and snow chemistry, as related to climate change and polar atmospheric chemistry.
Florent studies snow physics and snow chemistry, as related to climate change and polar atmospheric chemistry
Florent Domine talks passionately about why the Arctic is so important as a part of the planet and as a place for further study
Measuring the Heat Conductivity of Snow, and studying the complex effects of snow, just how good an insulator snow is
Florent tells some rather incredible tales of how to determine if a polar bear in Norway's Arctic regions will be dangerous or not.
Florent Domine talks briefly about clear-sky precipitation, known as Diamond Dust
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Dr.
Frank Flocke
Atmospheric Chemistry Division
National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR
Boulder, Colorado
In these two videos, Dr. Frank Flocke describes some of the key atmospheric measurements conducted during the BARROW2009 experiment as part of the OASIS (Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack) program. Frank is a "Scientist III" at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. He obtained his Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry at Forschungszentrum (KFA) Julich, Germany and the University of Wuppertal, in Germany. He is an expert on nitrogen species, and ozone, in the atmosphere. Here Frank describes the OASIS "modules," which are small research buildings built specifically for the OASIS campaign in Barrow, 2009. From these buildings, a wide array of measurements are made, of organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, small molecules containing chlorine and bromine, an array of highly reactive small molecules called "free radicals", and ozone. The objective of OASIS is to understand chemical processes initiated by the action of sunlight and other constituents of the atmosphere on sea-salt, the subsequent release of reactive halogen species from the sea salt, followed by a complex array of "free radical" reactions that destroy ozone and convert mercury into products that deposit to the surface. A particular interest of the OASIS team is how all this chemistry will change with climate change, and associated loss of sea ice, and what impact that will have on the composition of the atmosphere. Here Frank describes the set-up of the modules and what goes on inside!
Frank Flocke of NCAR talks about the instrument modules collecting the purest Arctic air atmospheric scientists can collect for chemical and physical analysis
Frank Flocke of NCAR talks about the instrument modules collecting the purest Arctic air they can collect for chemical and physical analysis
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Dr. Matthew Sturm
Research Physical Scientist
Dr. Sturm is responsible for conducting wide-ranging geophysical studies on snow in high latitudes. His work has taken him from the Antarctic to the Arctic, and he has been the leader of more than 30 expeditions in winter in pursuit of his science. He is based at the Alaska Office in Fairbanks, but collaborates with a wide range of scientists both at CRREL and elsewhere. His most recent work focuses on the role of snow cover on climate, with particular attention to snow ecology, and climate change resulting from snow-vegetation interactions.
Matthew Sturm talks about the importance of studying the Arctic and how it is connected to the rest of the world
Matthew Sturm talks about the contradictions, the complexities of the Arctic
Matthew Sturm, ice and snow expert from Fairbanks, Alaska, talks about his love of the Arctic
Matthew Sturm, ice and snow expert from Fairbanks, Alaska, talks about his long scientific trips across the Arctic on snowmachines.
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Dr. Steven C. Amstrup
Research Wildlfie Biologist, Polar Bears
Dr. Steven C. Amstrup, Polar Bear Scientist, talks about the state of polar bear research and relates that to climate change and how polar nations are working together to share information. Dr. Amstrup is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the United States Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, AK. He led the international team of researchers which prepared 9 reports that became the basis for the recent decision, by the Secretary of Interior, to list polar bears as a threatened species.
Alaska's foremost polar bear expert talks about the effect of the retreating ice on bears
Research Wildlife Biologist, Alaska Science Center, USGS, Anchorage, Alaska. Dr. Amstrup talks about Polar Bear science and managing bears as the pole warms up and the ice retreats.
Dr. Amstrup takes some time out in his office on the campus of the University of Alaska in Anchorage to talk about how polar bear research has moved from questions of hunting bears to climate change.
The single biggest threat to polar bears is decline to their habitat that's likely to occur because of Global Warming
Polar bear researchers from polar nations share information and resources
Dr. Steven Amstrup of Anchorage, Alaska, talks about field work--Tagging, analyzing data, working with other polar nations
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Dr. Hajo Eicken
Glaciologist
Dr. Hajo Eicken is Professor at the Geophysical Institute and the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Before joining the University of Alaska, Dr. Eicken was a senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute where he was the head of a research group for sea ice physics and remote sensing. Dr. Eicken's research interests include studies of the growth, evolution, and properties of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. He is particularly interested in determining how microscopic and macroscopic properties affect larger-scale sea-ice processes and its role in the climate system. Dr. Eicken has participated in several icebreaker expeditions in both hemispheres.
Hajo Eicken explains what's so fascinating about sea ice. He also talks about the wonderful collaboration of scientists in the study of sea ice. One great story here on his experience with polar bears feeding on beluga.
Hajo Eicken studies ice changes in different parts of the Arctic over decades. He studies how expansive ice is, how thick it is and how good it is at reflecting light (its albedo). He also relates his studies to how Native people are using the ice.
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You can find more webcam and radar pages at the following website:
ICE OBSERVATORY WEB CAMS IN ALASKA
Also, if you visit http://www.youtube.com/AlaskaSeeIce you'll find raw videos of activities that are part of a sea ice handbook (which has a DVD with high-quality videos, animations and other resources: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Techniques-Sea-Ice-Research/dp/1602230595/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2 ).
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click on Barrow photo
And Dr. Jan Bottenheim 
