2007 report
This note outlines the logistics for the EU-DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long Term Environmental Studies) project 2006-9. The plan was focusing on the first 18 months of the project, including the main 2007 field season. The plan includes information on icebreaker, ship, surface and airborne field activities.
The plan was developed based on collecting the logistics needs from the WP1, WP2 and WP3 meetings winter 2006. The detailed implementation of the logistics will especially depend on the success of establishing a large-aircraft runway at the Tara drifting station, the availability of space on the icebreakers of opportunity, and the ultimate decisions of the Damocles steering committee, balancing the logistics needs and the budget.
During the detailed planning of logistics needs, we needed eventually from each group to receive detailed information on:
- Cargo (weight) that needs to be transported
- Need for fuel (aviation fuel, camp, snowmobiles)
- Need for fixed wing or helicopter support
- Persons and time for accommodation on the individual vessels/camp sites
- The number of persons, which are expected to be transported between ice/vessel and the primary coastal take off points: Sredny or Kotelny (Russia; with commercial air service to Tiksi and Khatanga), Longyearbyen (Svalbard) or Alert (Canada)
- Desired time schedule
The overall principle of funding of Damocles logistics is: partners pay own costs for transportation to coastal bases accessible by commercial transport. Damocles pays for transfers to and from ice or ships. Icebreakers and ship deployments are on an opportunity basis, with limited or no Damocles support. Damocles funds aircraft activities, through a combination of the logistics funds and earmarked funds for airborne activities already allotted to selected partners (e.g., AWI and DNSC).
Logistic platform – airborne
Fixed-wing airborne activities - Twin Otter
The Twin-Otter will be used for aerial laser surveys of sea-ice freeboard, providing basic long-range profile data of sea-ice thickness, as well as data on roughness, ridging, leads etc. Additional sensors will also be flown, such as nadir-looking imagery and side-looking video. For snow depth measurements, pending arrangements with ESA, the ASIRAS 13-GHz interferometric radar may also be flown, providing measurements of snow depths (the first successful joint ASIRAS/laser measurements over sea ice was carried out north of Alert in May 2006 as part of the ESA Cryovex 06 project, involving DNSC, AWI, FIMR and SAMS with flight and in-situ program).
The Twin-Otter laser system will additionally fly coincident profiles with the AWI helicopter EM system, to validate freeboard to depth conversion functions. The Twin-Otter will also be used as a transport plane, e.g. for shifting participants and equipment from the Tara/Borneo sites to the area north of Canada and Greenland, and for supplying a temporary fuel cache/ ice camp between the North Pole and Alert.
Helicopter activities – MI-8 and Bell 206L
The MI-8 Russian helicopter will be the main aircraft for positioning the ITPs and buoys of the Damocles hydrographic program. The MI-8 will operate from coastal bases and fuel caches established at Cape Artuchevki (near Sredny) and at Kotelny Island. If the ice situation at Tara do not allow the establishment of a proper runway, personnel for Tara in spring 2007 will be flown to Tara by MI-8 or possibly smaller Russian fixed-wing Aircraft (An-2).
The helicopter activities include scientific flights with the AWI EM bird, as well as limited positioning of in-situ field activities (sea-ice, snow studies). Around Tara the AWI EM bird will be flown with the MI-8 helicopter. The EM bird will subsequently be flown from Alert using a Bell 206L chartered through the Canadian Polar Shelf project. This helicopter will also be used to position additional IABP and other Buoys in the Arctic Ocean off Greenland and Canada.
On-ice facilities
Tara drifting ice station
The TARA sailing vessel will be frozen into the polar pack at around 82N 150E during the Kapitan Dranitsyn NABOS cruise in September 2006. It will then drift over the pole in the next two years. It is planned to establish a runway at Tara allowing the landing of a long-range Russian An-74 jet operating from Svalbard. If this is not possible, personnel will be transferred from Tiksi, Russia, using MI-8 or Antonov aircraft, refueling at Kotelny. A fuel cache of approx. 32 tons (40000 liter) will be deposited at Tara for refueling of Twin-Otters and MI-8 helicopters. Ice runway is to be maintained throughout spring season. Tara web site: http://www.taraexpeditions.org/site/arctic/index.html.
Other ice camp activities: Barneo and Damocles fuel cache
The Russian drifting station Barneo (89N, 120E) will be used for refueling aircraft (Twin-Otter and MI-8), partly in cooperation with the US NPEO activities. It is not planned to make major Damocles scientific investigations at Barneo. Barneo is a commercial camp organized by “Center Polus”, Russia. Fuel is airdropped from the Il-76 jet. The camp will be operational during April 2007, and tentatively have a 1200 m runway, allowing landing with the An-74. For web info see http://www.polus.org/.
To support the sea-ice laser and EM flight operations in the area north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, a manned fuel cache is proposed north of Alert at approximately 86N, 60W for a short period (1-2 weeks) during late April, 2007. The manned fuel cache will provide weather info and extended range especially for the sea-ice helicopter operations, and an alternate landing site for the Twin-Otter. It will also allow limited in-situ sea-ice and snow physics work, with scientists being transported to/from Alert by Twin-Otter from Qaanaaq, Greenland or US C-130 from Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. The manned fuel cache camp concept was used with success during the Lorita-1 geophysical project off Alert in April 2006. The cache/camp will be established in cooperation with Defence Research Establishment, Canada, using camp facilities stored at CFS Alert. It would allow 4-6 scientists to work from the camp for a shorter period for in-situ measurements over very rough and thick sea ice, complementing the investigations around Tara.
AARI ice camp NP-35
The NP-35 “North Pole” AARI drifting camp will be installed Sept 2007 after the withdrawal of NP-34 in late 2006. AARI ice camp facilities will therefore not be available during Damocles main field season spring 2007. For more information see http://www.aari.nw.ru/default_en.asp. The AARI camp would be support the Damocles 2008 operations, especially by runway and jet fuel.
APLIS ice camp
The US Navy will run an ice camp north of Alaska 2007 (and 2009, 11). Several Damocles partners will likely be involved to some degree in projects from the ice camp. Sea ice activities will likely involve EM flights and coincident tracks with submarines. No formal Damocles cooperation is planned, and no Damocles funds can be used for travel with approval from EU.
Icebreaker and ship activities
Kapitan Dranitsyn (Russian)
The icebreaker is leaving Kirkenes August 15, 2007; the mail 35-day cruise is co-operative with the UAF NABOS program, making hydrographic transects along the continental rise north of Siberia. Damocles pays for 5 days to deploy moorings, to supply fuel for the Tara fuel cache, and transport of albedo/transmittance equipment to the Tara site. For more info on NABOS project see http://nabos.iarc.uaf.edu/
Polarstern (German)
The AWI icebreaker will be in eastern Arctic Ocean end of July-Oct 10 2007, with U. Schauer as Chief Scientist. Detailed ship track plans to be announced. The cruise will include helicopter and surface EM sea ice thickness profiling. Microwave radiometer will be operated from ship together with automatic weather station and rawinsonde soundings for WP2. See http://www.awi-bremerhaven.de/Polar/polarstern.html or the Damocles icebreaker web-side.
Oden (Swedish)
LOMROG is a Swedish-Danish seismic/bathymetry/oceanography cruise along Lomonosov Ridge in the region between north pole and Canada/Greenland. There is likely room for limited additional scientists, e.g. for sea-ice activities, to be confirmed (up to 5 spaces for additional science). Tentative time for LOMROG: Aug 5-Sep 7, 2007, from/to Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
Lance (Norwegian)
Lance will be used in the Fram Strait, Aug-Sept 2007, 2008 for deployment and servicing of Fram Strait moorings – other site for optical work by NPI (albedo, energy balance). Also used for ice thickness validation (NPI and FIMR). For Lance cruise activities see http://www.npolar.no/lance/
R/V Oceania (Poland)
She will operate in Greenland and Fram Strait in summer 2007, 2008 and 2009 for WP2 and WP3 collecting data on air-sea fluxes of heat and sea spray, in addition to CTD activities.
Maria S Merian (German)
MSM will work with moorings and CTD in the Fram Strait in August/September 2007 and Svinoy section. For details see http://www.io-warnemuende.de/miscell/merian
Vagabond (French)
The Vagabond was moored in Storfjorden, Svalbard winter 2005/6 for initial tests of on-ice equipment (CRREL ice mass balance system, met-ocean POP CTD profiler, Albedo sensors on mast plus helo flights, CTD sensors on ice). Due to unusually warm conditions spring 2006 and lack of sea-ice part of the program was cancelled. http://www.vagabond.fr/
A detail description of the DAMOCLES scientific field operations organized by Workpackages and including aircraft/vessel, time, location, operating agency, planned activities, amount of persons and additional notes is given in the report D8.4-1.
Summary
First major task of the DNSC as a DAMOCLES partner was to bring together information from the partners which were planning to carry out fieldwork during the first 18 months. This gave a first overview of the demand on aircraft, helo's and vessels. Furthermore information on location of fieldwork, number of persons, time span and activity was also collected. All information was gathered in the '18-month Logistic Plan 2006-7' which were send out to all partners. This established a great deal of feedback that shaped the final report as it is published to day.
A meeting at DTU, Denmark in February 2006 with all the WP1 partners was the groundwork for the detailed planning of the field campaign April/May 2007 and a further meeting in Helsinki in November 2006 served to clarify problems concerning especially fuel demand and aircraft.
Careful planning of transfer of individuals and material during the field campaign 2007 demanded alternative thinking of use of aircraft and helo's. This necessitated an intense collaboration and planning with other parties operating in the area. The same was valid for the planning of accommodation/camping of personnel on the sea ice during the same period.
A major issue of the DNSC, when planning the main field campaign spring 2007, is calculation of fuel demand for aircraft operation in the Arctic Ocean and not only fuel demand but also careful planning of where to depot the fuel to diminish trade of fuel from other parties.
In May 2006 Cerpolex withdrew and the relocation of task went to the DNSC.
Deviations from the project Workprogramme
In Task 8.2 due to not enough money for a third mooring, including a source, the building of the EGC source is postponed. The EGC inversion has to be tailored according to the technical solution to be selected in Task 8.2, and is therefore postponed. NERSC will look for additional private funding of the East Greenland Source in Norway. In the case of no extra funding there is also considered to recover and rebuild the WSC mooring for use in the EGC. This has to be decided on summer 2007.
In Task 8.3 the first test in situ of both ULS floats (M8.3-1: First test in Svalbard area (Storfjord) of ULS mounted on floats) and AITPs which was planned for summer 2006 will occur in Storfjorden using Vagabond logistics during spring 2007. The first deployments of ULS floats and AITPs in the transpolar drift will occur as planned during summer 2007 in conjunction with TARA and NP35 logistics. The bottom mooring north of Svalbard was deployed not from Lance but also from Kapitan Dranitsyn together with the bottom mooring in the Laptev Sea. The first test of Seaglider in Fram Strait was postponed until summer 2007 and achieving the under ice capabilities will occur in later period.
