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Observing the Arctic

Arctic climate research takes extra effort from people and instruments alike. In April 2010 WHOI engineers Jeff Pietro and Kris Newhall loaded buoys specially designed for the ice onto a Russian MI-8 helicopter at ice camp Barneo in the Russian Arctic. The temperature that spring day? About -20 F. Flying to a (more) remote observing site, the WHOI team, led by Rick Krishfield, installed the instrumented buoys—including an Ice-Tethered Profiler, an Arctic Ocean Flux Buoy and others—for long-term deployment, in collaboration with the North Pole Environmental Observatory. The buoys remain in and drift with the Arctic ice, transmitting data on heat exchange, ocean, ice, and atmosphere conditions, including web-camera views of the weather.
(Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)