Tag Archives: Canada

SnowSAR continues with successful flights in Canada

From Chris Derksen (Environment Canada), 14 March 2013

After a strong blowing snow event on 12 March, clear and calm conditions provided a great window for SnowSAR science flights out of Inuvik, Northwest Territories on 13 and 14 March. Both were ideal days for flying: –25°C, clear skies, and very calm. A photo from the Cessna-208 shows the stark beauty of this Arctic landscape.

Arctic landscape from Cessna-208 during the SnowSAR campaign in Canada. (Environment Canada)

The calm conditions were also welcomed by the ground team making final adjustments to the 12 corner reflectors used to calibrate the airborne radar measurements.

One of the 12 corner reflectors. (Environment Canada)

In addition to the flight activities, there are currently seven personnel based out of a small cabin approximately 70 km from the town of Inuvik. This may not sound far, but when pulling full loads this trip takes about four hours by snowmobile.

The cabin is about 10 km from the study site, so the scientists commute daily from there. The ground survey team are continuing to conduct snow-depth transects, make snowpit measurements, conduct a ground-based LiDAR survey, and deploy a sled-based ground penetrating radar.

In this photo taken from the aircraft, you can see two scientists excavating a 50 m snow trench to determine the spatial variability in individual layers within the snowpack.

As seen from the aircraft, two scientists excavating a 50 m snow trench. (Environment Canada)

This is an international project, with participants from Canada, the United States, England, and Finland. They are reporting excellent progress on the ground, with the only issue that one of the areas sampled intensively during ground measurements in December was subsequently trampled by a herd of caribou!

The ground team will continue their measurements until Monday, before packing up and returning to town. There will be only a short pause, before a second set of flights in early April.

These flights are the culmination of many months of planning. The ground measurements will be used to interpret the radar signal over snow covered tundra. Snow water equivalent estimates produced from the airborne radar will be compared both to ground measurements, and a distributed hydrological model run over the study area by Environment Canada.

This is a busy time in the campaign – we will post more photos from the field camp in a few days!

Over the Greenland ice cap to Alert

Malcolm (ESA), Alert, 2 April

On Friday I was picked-up by the DTU team at Qaanaaq airport with their workhorse Twin Otter plane. It was a beautiful sunny day and we put it to good use. Instead of flying to Alert along the coasts of Greenland and Canada, we headed directly up onto the Greenland ice cap then turned north and flew along a CryoSat track acquired on the previous day.

The transition from the glacier and onto the Greenland ice cap (left part of the photo). The plane is flying at about 300 m.

The transition from sea level to the ice cap itself is spectacular, often consisting of a succession of deeply crevassed glacier fronts. The ice cap itself is much less so, especially after a few hours of flying since, apart from some patterns owing to snow drift, it is mostly featureless.

Still, it inspires awe in terms of its sheer size and extent, and it is easy to get a mental picture of the mind-boggling amount of water locked up in the ice below.

The Canadian military base Alert at the northern trip of Ellesmere island.

We finally made it to the military base of Alert, Canada on Friday evening where the teams have now spent two days analysing the data acquired so far and making plans for today (Monday).

Rene Forsberg from DTU making a GPS position measurement beneath a corner reflector placed at the end of the runway on Sunday.

Three, or maybe four, planes filled with scientific sensors to measure ice conditions below will head to a meeting point slightly to the east of the Alert base and then collectively head north as CryoSat crosses high above them. Conditions are cold (–27°C) and  clear, which is perfect. More to follow - but the plane is waiting !

The temperature this morning as we prepare for the joint ESA and NASA flights.

New CryoSat ice campaign kicks-off up north

From Malcolm (ESA), Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, 28 March

On-route to the high Arctic

After months of preparation and  hundreds or even maybe even a thousand emails, the 2012 CryoSat Validation Experiment otherwise known as ‘CryoVEx 2012’ finally kicks-off this week across the Arctic.

Together with NASA colleagues and participating scientists from the USA, Canada and Europe, some remarkable airborne flights are planned later this week and early the week after.

One of the highlights could come as early as tomorrow when the CryoSat satellite will pass over the Arctic Ocean from the north at about 7 km per second and pass almost directly over the Canadian military base Alert located at the northern tip of Ellesmere island. This provides an ideal occasion to fly directly under the satellite and collect valuable data from the onboard instruments on the real ice-conditions and ice thickness beneath both plane and satellite.

For the moment, however, I’m in Greenland still travelling to the campaign location. Reaching the isolated Alert base is itself a challenge and typically takes two to three days or more, albeit through some interesting and spectacular landscapes.

Landing in the main port of entry into Greenland – Kangerlussuaq – I was greeted appropriately by a snow storm as you can see in the picture of the ferry plane between Europe and Greenland. If all goes well I’ll be in Alert tonight or tomorrow evening. In the Arctic, however, you never know as weather can change quickly. Let’s see!

Time to draw breath

From Seymour, Katharine & Rosie (UCL) in Alert, 18 April  

Ground work (credits: S. Laxon)

As the main activities in Alert are winding down, it's time to draw breath before the next leg of the campaign kicks off in Svalbard and Greenland. The UCL team has been looking back at what has been achieved over the last week.

After arriving in Alert, bad weather initially prevented the aircraft from flying to the experiment sites. However, a break in the weather and safe arrival of the DTU team with the precious ASIRAS instrument on 13 April meant that everything was in place to get the campaign off the ground.

Heading north (credits: S. Laxon)

The break in the weather held so that they were able to survey both experiment sites.

The northerly site is 85.58° N – less than 500 km from the North Pole. Landing here incurred several bounces as the plane touched down. After unloading, the plane then left to cool down its skis.

The skis get so hot during landing that if the plane just stops it will freeze solid to the ice, making it impossible to move again – clearly, not a good idea when you're 400 km from base.

Both sites were marked out with flags and then the corner reflectors are erected and tarpaulins placed on the ground to help the aircraft locate the line.

Setting up the ground radar (credits: K. Giles)

With the sites set up, the aircraft were able to make their survey flights over the following days. This includes the DTU Twin Otter carrying the ASIRAS instrument, the AWI Polar-5 towing the torpedo-shaped electromagnetic sensor and the NASA P-3 aircraft.

The Polar-5 flight proved a little disconcerting as the instrument hangs from the plane, just 10 m above the ground. The plane itself only flies at an altitude of about 200 ft while it's taking measurements.

Polar-5 towing the EM-Bird low over the ground (credits: S. Laxon)

Friday 15 April was a significant milestone in the campaign as the coordinated NASA underflight of CryoSat went perfectly.

It's been a pretty intense period and we've worked flat out in the hostile Arctic environment, and always at the mercy of incoming cloud.

This sometimes means waiting for the cloud to lift before the planes can take off and be sure of a safe landing on the precarious floating sea ice.

Although it's been a busy few days working in extremely cold conditions, the team did have a little time to take a few snaps, showing the beauty the Arctic holds.

For example, this was a beautiful ridge at the site formed as two ice floes push together.

Blue ice ridge (K. Giles)

The ice buckles up and down in large blocks, leaving exposed lumps of blue ice on the surface. The ridge also had a very deep cavity.

Ice ridge (credits: S. Laxon)

This photo shows one the Arctic wolves from the pack living around the Alert base.

Arctic wolf (credits: R. Willatt)

Up and away

From Malcolm (ESA), NL on 8 April
Just leaving ESA in the Netherlands for my flight to Alert in northern Canada to start the campaign – which has to be one of the biggest I've organised in my 10 years at ESA.

Twin Otter (credits: DTU)

Twin Otter (credits: DTU)

The two planes we have dedicated to the campaign will arrive this weekend along with other team members from Europe and Canada. So, hopefully we'll be kicking off with the first flights on Monday.

We've got a Twin Otter arriving from the Technical University of Denmark that carries the ASIRAS instrument. ASIRAS is an airborne instrument that was developed specifically to mimic the radar altimeter on the CryoSat satellite. In addition, we have a Basler-67 from the Alfred Wegner Institute, which is equipped with an electro-magnetic ice-thickness sensor.

So, while the planes take measurements from the air, team members will be out on the ice taking ground measurements. Apparently it's about -30°, so it's going to be a challenge.

I'll be spending the two weeks out in Alert, based at a military centre. From there I'll be covering the main activities before nipping back to NL for a week and then heading straight off to Greenland for another leg of the campaign.

NASA are already well into their IceBridge ice survey campaign and things seem to be going well with that. During the campaign, NASA is going to be carrying out several flights for us – underflying CryoSat. This is a great example of cooperation between our two space agencies.

I'm really looking forward to starting the campaign. It's been a lot of work to organise – we have over 50 people participating from 15 organisations, not counting ESA. So, now actually getting off the ground marks a real milestone!