News
April 27, 2011: We spent the night in Thule in the North Star Hotel. Before we could leave Thule the crew had to load the cargo back into the C130. Equipment is loaded onto palettes, and these palettes are loaded through the rear door into the plane. A C130 can handle four palettes with two tons of cargo… read more
We flew our last science flight out of Kangerlussuaq Base (western Greenland) over the Geikie Peninsula, on the east coast of Greenland. This high priority mission had not been completed prior to this because of difficult weather in the peninsula area. The mission focus was to determine how the surface ice elevation and ice thickness… read more
Bags are packed and ready to go. April 25, 2011: We left Lamont in the afternoon to Schenectady, close to Scotia where the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard is located that will fly us up to CFS Alert. That unit provides extensive logistical support for all U.S. science operations in the arctic and… read more
Our mission was to collect some long survey lines down the center of some of Greenland’s most spectacular southeastern glaciers. The study design would require us to complete a transect across the Greenland ice sheet, fortunately at a location when the country undergoes a noticeable taper. Starting at Kangerlussuaq, our base on Greenland’s west coast,… read more
The researchers found the diagramming helped students form “knowledge networks” that led them to a better understanding of the material.
The Operation IceBridge (OIB) mission is a truly collaborative project with several agencies and multiple instruments involved in collecting independent measurements. The data is then analyzed concurrently to develop an understanding of the ice processes underway. The measurement of sea ice is an excellent example of how multiple methods of measurement are needed to collect… read more
We have moved south! One of the many challenges of our Greenland survey is the need to switch bases in the midst of the season since Thule Air Force Base also serves as a staging location for a major resupply mission for many of the Arctic outposts. The whole set up has to be packed… read more
By Brian Moses This past week, Operation IceBridge undertook a detailed survey of the ICEX camp, situated on the ice sheet north of Alaska. This complex 3 day mission involves a transit to Fairbanks, AK over the top of the world, refueling in Fairbanks and flying the survey on day two, and a low-altitude nighttime… read more
Operation IceBridge has returned to the Arctic for a second Greenland season collecting critical measurements of Arctic sea ice cover and thickness and Greenland’s coastal outlet glaciers. Traveling on a DC8 outfitted as a cargo plane with only 6 rows of seats, the team flew from Baltimore MD to Thule in northern Greenland. The workhorse… read more
On Saturday, we finished up work at the site. Even at the last minute, it threw some challenges at us. We began the day with out reduced group eating breakfast down the street. We could no longer take the mediocre food at the hotel. Dhiman and Babu had been eating there for days. Besides paratha,… read more
The last two days have been a little different as I spent much of them in Khulna rather than at the site. Since the Islam family does not have electricity, Hafizul would have to carry the expensive EDM (Electronic Distance Meter) and laptop back and forth to Khulna University to charge. However, we have an… read more
We are driving back to Khulna at 10:30 after our third excellent day in a row. However, there were still a lot of hiccups along the way. Yesterday, we were set to install the deep well, but when we arrived they were just starting to pull the pipe from the deep well. We had hoped… read more
Days here seem to be coming in pairs. In the morning, we redid the 40m well, remeasuring, doing a dry run with no cement, mixing and putting in cement, lowering the fiber and everything went as planned. Then came the 60m well. It already had a history. It caved in twice when they pulled the… read more
Today we started working on the new site. Bhandarkote is a small village outside of Khulna, the third largest city in Bangladesh. The site is on a dirt road at the family home of a student from Khulna University. It a pretty remote rural place about 25 minutes off the main road through small country… read more
It looks like we lost the deep well. The morning started off as planned. We would finish the calibration of the strainmeters, installing the GPS and training Shaheen for the weekly measurements. Should be out by noon for the 8-hour drive to Dhaka followed b the 5 hour ride to Khulna the next day. Then… read more