Ice Research

MAT-SU -- To be a scientist one must possess a passion for the unknown. Before that, the passion and drive must come from within, and then the all-important scientific question, "why" leads us to new exploration.

Under an early Wednesday morning glow, 15 ecology students from Wasilla High School, under the direction of Cheryl McDowell and UAF researcher Martin Jeffries, shielded the wind with curiosity, remedied the frigid temperatures with ambition, in order to help answer one particular scientific question. What is happening to our climate?

In conjunction with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a number of state wide high schools ALISON, (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network), is a new program that brings high school teachers and students together with faculty and researchers from UAF to study and learn the nature of lake ice, snow and conductive heat flow in the state of Alaska.

The results of the research will help students and faculty study the effects of climate change in Alaska. "By placing observatories in many different locations across the state, we want to study the data and learn how the climate is changing from winter to winter," Jeffries said.

The process is relatively simple, drill 21 holes through the ice in five meter intervals along a 100 meter line. After measuring the ice thickness, a wooden stake is placed in each hole and allowed to freeze into the ice, leaving one hole to be marked with a hot-wire ice thickness gauge. The stakes mark the snow depth and the temperature at the bottom of the snow. These temperatures are measured with a special temperature probe the size of a small calculator. The data is then recorded and crunched by the students in class. Then the data is sent to Jeffries in Fairbanks and used to compare with a model. The data compared to the Jeffries model will determine accurate results in the study of global warming and climate change.

McDowell said the real satisfaction for her and her students was the contribution of real scientific data to a real scientific study. "Its not just an activity, its real scientific work with real scientists so the students get a real picture of what global warming is, and the natural progression in which it takes place -- also to see what human impacts have affected climate change," added McDowell.

There are a total of six different observatories currently working in Alaska. Sites include Poker Flat, located outside Fairbanks, Barrow, Aurora Pond in Fairbanks, Nome, Shageluk, Wasilla and Mystic Lake, which is one of the Amos twin lakes located about 60 miles southwest of Mount McKinley. The base observatory is staged at Aurora Pond in Fairbanks.

A total of 21 depth and temperature measurements are made each time the observatory is visited. This process is performed once a week.

"There is a lot of math involved -- equations and arithmetic the students will learn and need to know in order to make the data work," McDowell said.

Better knowledge and understanding of lake ice growth and decay can give researchers a better understanding of climate change, as well as long-term effects.

"Our goal is to continue over a number of years by recruiting more teachers and setting up more observatories in more and more locations across the state," Jeffries said.

When all the data gathering and documentation is done the final results will be accessible through a central Web site so the results can be viewed and compared by all the participating schools. The Web site is currently up and working at www.gi.alaska.edu/alison.

Jeffries hopes the program can spark some interest about science in students and make them more aware of their changing climate. "We want the students to learn about science by being scientists," Jeffries said.

"The idea of a state-wide network of students working together to collect data like this is pretty intriguing. Hopefully the information we collect over the next few months will be useful for today's arctic researchers and those of the future as well," said Wasilla ecology student Ben Meyer.

By the end of Wednesday's initial morning routine McDowell grouped the students together for a group photo. Most were pacing side to side, waiting for dismissal, to return to the warm sanctuary that was waiting for them, the bus.

ALISON is made possible by grants from the University of Alaska Natural Resources Fund and the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.