TABLE of CONTENTS Twin Otter Flies in Greenland
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SUMMER 2011 The Icebreaker CENTER FOR REMOTE SENSING OF ICE SHEETS Twin Otter Flies in Greenland // BY NICK MOTT A team of scientists and engineers stuck in an isolated, snowed-in hotel in remote Greenland. Their eyes are glued to their computer screens and they are fervently trying to analyze something. It sounds like the plot of a science fiction horror film – John Carpenter’s The Thing on the other end of the world. But on their March 15 to May 6 expedition to Greenland, the Twin Otter team was all science, no fiction. “We were trying to determine the thickness of the ice in several of Greenland’s fastest flowing glaciers,” said Logan Smith, a graduate student in charge of on-site data processing during the mission. Operating out of Ilulissat, Kulusuk, and Nuuk, the CReSIS team, led by Fernando Rodriguez-Morales, flew lines targeting Jakobshavn Fjord, the Helheim and South East Glaciers, and the Nuuk Glacier. On board the Twin 2011: Twin Otter on the ground in Greenland. Otter, CReSIS engineers utilized the MCoRDS ground-penetrating radar, an Photo by Daniel Gomez-Garcia. accumulation radar, and the Ku-band altimeter. “These are the most significant outlet glaciers, which are the main tributaries for getting ice from the interior of Greenland to the calving front, or out to the edges where it breaks off and eventually leads to a rise in sea TABLE OF CONTENTS level,” Smith said. Rodriguez-Morales said that Jakobshavn, one of the fastest-moving 01. Twin Otter Flies in Greenland glaciers in the world, has long been a focal point of scientific interest. The 02. CReSIS Team to Test UAV in Greenland // CReSIS team completed a number of radar improvements to better accomplish Research Experience at CReSIS the tricky task of accurately sounding the bottom of the ice sheet and avoiding 03. Ghana REU Students Relish Time in CReSIS, surface clutter. The depth sounder operated at 195 MHz, as opposed to the America 150 MHz frequency of years past. The scientists and engineers on the mission 04. PNAS Publication Highlights CReSIS Researcher’s also decreased the size of the antennas to accommodate a change in antenna Accomplishment // ECSU Among the Nation’s array on the plane. Best Institutions The Twin Otter operated with six elements per wing, but the size decrease P-3 Antenna Array Changes Produce Faster, allowed CReSIS engineers to rotate the elements 90 degrees. “Now they’re 05. Clearer Results perpendicular,” Rodriguez-Morales said. “They used to be in the direction of 06. Unraveling Byrd Glacier travel. It helps to minimize clutter.” 07. CReSIS Welcomes Three New Staff Members Fieldwork always involves trial and error and unexpected setbacks, and it relies heavily on the ingenuity and improvisational skills of the involved scientists. With a new system operating at a new frequency, the Twin Otter CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER: team faced an unexpected source of interference: the strobe lights on the tips http://www.facebook.com/pages/CReSIS-Center-for- of the aircraft’s wings. An interfering signal masks the signal the researchers Remote-Sensing-of-Ice-Sheets/104872089592282 are trying to detect, which is quite weak. Normal sources of interference come from inside the plane. As researchers examine the data from each antenna, http://twitter.com/#!/CReSIS they usually see the interfering signal decrease as they move away from the Twin Otter Flies in Greenland, Newsletter // The Ice Breaker // Summer 2011 1 Continued on Page 5 www.cresis.ku.edu CReSIS Team to Test UAV in Greenland // BY NICK MOTT Out in North Lawrence, past the Teepee, “purveyors of controls the plane as it takes off and lands. When it reaches altitude, the potables and edibles”, past the one-and-only “authentic” pilot turns the control over to autopilot. Flight test engineers at computer Jellystone Park, the Airport Motel, and seemingly endless terminals fine tune the flight path with GPS Waypoint Navigation. Kansas fields, past even Don’s Diesel and a retro silver What the trip really boils down to, Hale said, “is some aircraft system camper, sits a hidden-away hangar. On any given day, checks, some radar system checks, and then some integrated platform one can easily spot a Valkyrie motorcycle, a gleaming science checks.” At NEEM, Hale said that he hopes to get in “as many yellow corvette, an old hot rod. Here, however, it is flights as humanly possible.” The final number of flights, though, engines and flight that matter. And it is here, in the KU ultimately depends on the weather. Other sensors and aircraft at CReSIS offer high-altitude, long- Aerospace Engineering Hangar, that the Meridian UAV, range, and long-endurance capabilities, but lack some degree of or unpiloted aerial vehicle, received its final preparations maneuverability. “They take wide passes,” Hale said. “They’re good for before departing for its July 15 - August 15 test flights at interior ice and for wide spacing arrays.” Smaller, unmanned vehicles the NEEM camp in Greenland. like the Meridian, though, are particularly suited for outlet glaciers. Six years in the works, the UAV will make its first flight over the horizon No pilot means less limitations and more fuel-efficiency. “We’re very during the mission. “We have not left line of sight before,” said Dr. Rick maneuverable. Theoretically what we can do is the very fine surveys Hale, head of the UAV team. “Once the ground pilots can’t see it there’s around the perimeters.” no way to recover other than with the on-board intelligence systems – so “Right now we’ve been busy getting the aircraft ready,” Lykins whether you’re two kilometers or two hundred kilometers out, I guess said. “We went to Utah back in April to do flight tests, and since we’ve you could argue you’re in the same safety mode.” The Meridian will fly returned we’ve done a lot of rewiring the aircraft. Yesterday we did an within 25-50 kilometers of base camp at NEEM. engine test with the radar installed to test for any EMI (Electromagnetic Although the Meridian has already undergone test flights in Antarctica Interference).” Before departure, team members have to focus on and on a military base in Utah, CReSIS engineers have not yet had a packing, and, due to the remote location of the NEEM camp, making chance to test the efficacy of the radar on the UAV. The Meridian radar, sure all necessary items are ready to go. used as a depth-sounding radar, is a one-channel system which transmits Total flight time of UAV missions in previous years amounts to only a on four antennas and receives on four antennas. “Hopefully we’ll send few total hours. “Ideally we’ll dwarf the total flight time of the aircraft in the aircraft out to its limits and get some good data from the radar,” said this mission,” Hale said. flight test engineer Ryan Lykins. During the next five years of development, the UAV team will work This trip will also serve as the first opportunity to test the operation on fine-tuning the aircraft. Hale and Lykins said that engineers will be of the UAV off of skis. “We’ve operated off grass, we’ve operated off hard at work developing an increasingly autonomous radar system, and pavement, we’ve operated off ice, but not off soft snow,” Hale said. The that they hope to cut the total crew number with every deployment. pilot, clutching a large RC joystick – an RC car-obsessed child’s dream – Research Experience at CReSIS // BY SHAWN SCHALLER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR UNDERGRADUATES RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR TEACHERS For two summer months every year, the National Science Foundation- The CReSIS Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program has funded CReSIS Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program been a new undertaking in 2011 that brought pre-service teachers to brings students from diversified backgrounds and diverse locations to the Center for two summer months. The goal for this program is to the University of Kansas (KU) and the Center’s partner institutions. introduce its participants to some of the research activities at CReSIS The purpose of the program is to provide undergraduate students in and help them prepare materials for classroom teaching. This summer, science and engineering with invaluable opportunities to gain research two RET students have joined the CReSIS team. experience by working with faculty mentors who are actively involved in the Center’s research activities. To learn more about the 2011 REU students, please visit: This summer, 34 students were selected for the REU program. Nine https://www.cresis.ku.edu/education/undergraduate/ students are working at KU, 11 students each are working at Indiana reu-program/2011 University and Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), and two students are working at the University of Washington. In addition, two students To learn more about the 2011 RET students, please visit: from Accra, Ghana, have been selected through an REU grant from the https://www.cresis.ku.edu/education/k-12/teacher- U. S. Navy, and they will perform their research activities at both KU workshops/ret-program and ECSU. Newsletter // The Ice Breaker // Summer 2011 2 www.cresis.ku.edu Ghana REU Students Relish Time in CReSIS, America // BY SHAWN SCHALLER Accra, Ghana is approximately 6,253 miles away from Lawrence, Kan. To put it in CReSIS terms, that’s roughly equivalent to a round trip from CReSIS headquarters in Lawrence, Kansas to Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland, and then some. For Rockson Armaah and Ignatius Williams, this meant an 11.5 hour flight from Accra to Atlanta and a subsequent 1.3 hour flight from Atlanta to Kansas City.