2010 Expeditions

During this multi-year, multi-location project, the research team collected and analyzed archaeological and paleoenvironmental data from three widely separated but environmentally comparable sites within the northern circumpolar region: the Yli-li area of Northern Finland, the Wemindji area of James Bay, Canada, and the Kamchatka Peninsula region of Russia.

Working on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the research team examined prehistoric human responses, or adaptations, to changes in climate and the environment that took place between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago. Due to its extreme climatic conditions, the circumpolar North can be a challenging place for human survival. By studying the lifestyles of these prehistoric humans, the research team can better understand how the prehistoric humans were able to survive and adapt to changes in the harsh arctic environment.

Data gathered from this project enabled more effective collaboration between social, natural, and medical sciences. The International Collaborative Circumpolar Archaeological Project (ICCAP) is a continuation of the International Polar Year, Histories From the North: Environments, Movements, Narratives (BOREAS) project of the European Science Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation's Social Science Polar Program.

The team traveled to Svalbard, Norway, located in the High Arctic, to investigate how high latitude glaciers, melt-water streams, and sedimentation in lakes and fjords respond to climate change. The Svalbard region has been marked by the retreat of glaciers, reductions in sea ice, and measurable warming throughout the Holocene period, and more specifically during the last 90 years. The Svalbard archipelago has preserved geologic records of climate change since the last ice age, which makes it an ideal location for this study.

In addition to two lead researchers, the research team was made up of approximately 10 undergraduate students participating in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Students’ defined their research questions and testable hypotheses throughout the program. The students’ research was aimed at understanding how climate influences glacial, stream, and lake systems in order to better interpret the sediment record of climate change.

Fluted projectile points are small stone tools created from rock that were used by early humans as knives, arrowheads, or both. Finding, interpreting, and dating fluted projectile points can help archaeologists learn more about the earliest humans to inhabit the Americas.

On this project, the team looked for fluted projectile points at the Raven Bluff Site in northwest Alaska to learn more about the early inhabitants of Alaska and the arctic. Fossil plants also at the site helped the researchers determine the age of these artifacts, which were estimated to be from the late Pleistocene age or about 10,000 years old.

This research helped lead to important discoveries about the timing and settlement of humans in the New World. In addition, it helped build knowledge about how people used these tools, hunted, and survived during this period of time.

The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) is a network of science experiments set up to study the impact of climate change on plants that live in tundra and alpine ecosystems. Plants at each site are exposed to simulated warmer temperatures using an open top chamber, which acts like a mini greenhouse, trapping heat close to the plants. Research teams at more than two dozen circumpolar sites carry out similar experiments, allowing scientists to compare the plants responses to warmer climate conditions.

The research team visited two ITEX sites in Alaska, Barrow and Atqasuk, to collect data on the plant’s lifecycle and growth. They also observed the makeup of the plant community and other parts of the ecosystem. The knowledge gained by the network helps to increase the understanding of changes that may take place in tundra plant communities. The information also helped scientists better understand the exchange of carbon and water across the land and atmosphere in a changing arctic climate.

The expedition members visited several research sites in Greenland as part of an initiative to foster enhanced international scientific cooperation between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland. The expedition members spent several days learning about the research conducted in Greenland, the logistics involved in supporting the research, and gained first-hand experience conducting experiments and developing inquiry-based educational activities.

This year's work builds on the 2007, 2008, and 2009 expeditions and was supported by the National Science Foundation. The project was developed through cooperation with the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland Joint Committee, which was established in 2004 to broaden and deepen cooperation among the United States, the Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland.

This joint U.S.-Canada research cruise used two icebreakers to collect data to identify the edge of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. As needed, the Healy broke sea ice for the Louis S. St-Laurent, while it collected data to map the geology of the sub-seabed. Scientists aboard the Healy also measured seafloor bathymetry, collected high-resolution sub-seafloor data, made ice observations, collected water samples, and monitored marine mammals and ocean noise through high frequency audio recording.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the continental shelf is defined as the stretch of the seabed adjacent to the shores of a particular country. Information from the cruise helped each country determine where they have rights over the natural resources of the seafloor, which include mineral resources, petroleum resources such as oil and gas, and animals like clams and crabs.

To learn more about the science of the expedition, please visit the Extended Continental Shelf Project website. In addition to a PolarTREC teacher, Caroline Singler, a NOAA Teacher at Sea teacher was also aboard and you can follow her journals here.

Permafrost is any part of the ground (soil, rock, ice, humus) that remains at or below freezing for more than one year. The research team studied the active layer of the permafrost, the layer of the ground between the surface and the permafrost that freezes each winter and thaws each summer. They visited numerous research sites, and at each site, they collected data on the soil and air temperature, soil moisture content, and active layer depth and changes. Observational data from each site included noting changes in landscape and vegetation.

The research sites they visited are part of the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring Network (CALM) – a network of 168 sites to observe and measure changes in permafrost. CALM was established in the early 1990’s and strives to collect a long-term record of permafrost data, which can be used to show how changes in arctic climate are affecting frozen ground and assist in climate models.

Warming temperatures in the polar regions could lead to a thicker active layer. This in turn can change the moisture and plant communities on the soil surface, and lead to damaged roads and structures where people live on permafrost. Thawing permafrost also releases greenhouse gasses, such as methane and carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

Solar radiation is the major energy source that drives our climate and supports life on earth. In this project, the research team gained a better understanding of the solar radiation reflected back into space and absorbed by our planet, also known as the Earth’s heat balance. The team collected data related to this balance using weather observing instruments and a specially equipped aircraft that could detect wind speed and directions and electromagnetic radiation.

The measurements were part of an international effort to record radiation called the Baseline Surface Radiation Network project. The data collected was used to further study the Greenland Ice Sheet and it’s processes, such as melting and gas exchange with the atmosphere.

Studying heat balance is an important concept in climatology because light surfaces, like snow, reflect more radiation back into space while dark surfaces, like water, absorb more radiation. When you have snow cover, about 90% of the solar energy that goes through the atmosphere is reflected back into space. But increasing the amount of water on the ice sheet causes less radiation to reflect and more heat to be absorbed. This increases the temperature and causes more ice to melt.

By utilizing a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and by SCUBA diving below the sea ice, the research team collected data related to the benthic, or seafloor-dwelling, animals living in McMurdo Sound. The seafloor of McMurdo Sound is one of the few areas in the polar regions where benthic animals have been studied for over 40 years. By comparing historical data to data from the present, the team helped to understand changes in the benthic ecosystem. In addition, they studied how benthic species colonize the seafloor and how long it takes for them to become established. This work added to the knowledge of benthic communities, how they develop over time, and how they respond to changes in the environment. The team also worked on establishing a single database with information on the benthic communities of the McMurdo area.

A large international team of scientists and drilling technicians worked throughout the austral summer to continue assembling and testing the world's largest scientific instrument, the in-ice IceCube Neutrino Detector. Neutrinos are incredibly common (about 10 million pass through your body as you read this) subatomic particles that have no electric charge and almost no mass. They are created by radioactive decay and nuclear reactions, such as those on the sun and other stars. Neutrinos rarely react with other particles or forces; in fact, most of them pass through objects (like the earth) without any interaction. This makes them ideal for carrying information from distant parts of the universe, but it also makes them very hard to detect. All neutrino detectors rely on observing the extremely rare instances when a neutrino does collide with a proton. This collision transforms the neutrino into a muon, a charged particle that can travel for 5-10 miles and generate detectable light.

IceCube was constructed in Antarctica because the huge amount of dense ice under the South Pole contains a lot of protons that can be hit by passing neutrinos, and the ice is transparent, so the resulting light can be caught by sensors. IceCube is made up of 4200 sensitive light detectors embedded in the ice at depths between 1450 and 2450 meters (4700-8000 feet). The sensors are deployed on "strings" of 60 modules each, into holes 60 centimeters in diameter melted in the ice using a hot water drill. Covering about one square kilometer, IceCube expands on an existing experiment that started detecting neutrinos at the South Pole in 1997.

The data collected was used to make a "neutrino map" of the universe and to learn more about astronomical phenomena, like gamma ray bursts, black holes, and exploding stars, and other aspects of nuclear and particle physics. However, the true potential of IceCube is discovery; the opening of each new astronomical window has led to unexpected discoveries.

Miss Shirey’s participation in PolarTREC and IceCube was in coordination with a wide array of teachers through the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation. These teachers had planned and practiced activities related to IceCube with students in the 2009 and 2010 summers. They coordinated activities and mini-experiments that were performed at the pole in the winter of 2009 by PolarTREC Teacher, Casey O'Hara. They communicated across America and across the world with researchers, teachers, and other classes. Emphasizing communication and interconnectedness, Katey's trip to the Pole involved even more classrooms and reached even more parts of America.

Using a large hollow drill, the WAIS Divide Ice Core Drilling team aimed to collect a 3,500-meter-long ice core, or sample of ice, from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Because of the weight of the overlying snowpack, snow that falls and accumulates on ice sheets re-crystallizes and forms annual layers over time. The ice core recovered during the project had annual resolution, or distinct yearly markings, for the past 40,000 years.

In ice sheets, the compression of snow traps small bubbles of air in the layers of ice. By measuring concentrations of greenhouse gasses and non-greenhouse gasses and their isotopes trapped within bubbles in the ice, the team aimed to develop climate records dating back to 100,000 years before present.

This ice core provided the first Southern Hemisphere climate and greenhouse gas records of comparable time, resolution, and duration to ice cores previously recovered in Greenland. The ice core enabled scientists to make detailed comparisons of greenhouse gas concentrations and environmental conditions between the Northern and Southern hemispheres with a greater level of detail than previously possible. The biology of the ice collected was also investigated.

During this project, the team worked at various sites on the Beardmore Glacier and looked for glacially transported rocks, also known as glacial erratics. Erratics are rocks carried by the glacier as the ice moves. Erratics on the Beardmore Glacier are important because they can serve as an indicator of when and how fast the Antarctic Ice Sheet receded after the last ice age 10,000-20,000 years ago.

The research team used a method called surface exposure dating to estimate the length of time that a rock has been exposed to the Earth's atmosphere. A rock on the surface of the earth is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays, energetic particles originating in outer space. When one of these particles strikes an atom in the rock, it can dislodge one or more protons or neutrons from that atom, producing a different element or a different isotope of the original element. These new elements and isotopes are called cosmogenic nuclides, and allow scientists to estimate how long the sample has been exposed to the cosmic rays.

Determining the dates and speed of past glacial recessions in Antarctica can help scientists better understand current changes in the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

As the Oden and the Palmer traveled towards McMurdo Station from Chile, international teams of researchers on board both ships investigated the summer sea ice, biology, oceanography, and biogeochemistry of the Amundsen Sea Polynya. Polynyas are areas of open water surrounded by sea ice and are very productive parts of the polar oceans where nutrients are rapidly exchanged between the atmosphere, ocean surface, and the deep sea.

The research team looked closely at the processes that control the production and destruction of greenhouse gases, and also on the role of sea ice microorganisms in this process. These studies added to the limited knowledge of these remote corners of the Antarctic Seas and lead to a better understanding of the interactions between the climate and the marine biosphere. Polynyas may be the key to understanding the future of polar regions since their area is expected to increase with warming in the polar regions.

Glaciers are like moving rivers of ice, and their rate of movement can vary depending on many factors including friction, the slope of underlying bedrock, and climate. Byrd Glacier is unique because it goes through large changes in its speed in response to two subglacial lakes, lakes that remain unfrozen underneath the glacier, which drain periodically. This project was designed to study the changes in glacier behavior on timescales from minutes to years by closely monitoring Byrd Glacier for the following 2.5 years.

To do this, the research team installed about 30 GPS units on Byrd Glacier. Some of the sensors remained on the glacier during just the 2010-2011-research season (November – February) and some stayed out there and took recordings all year long. The data collected from different parts of the glacier provided a continuous record of horizontal and vertical motions over a 26-month time period.

The results of the study were used in conjunction with a longer record of remote sensing observations. The combined datasets were used to check a numerical model of the glacier’s flow dynamics, or changes in rates of movement. The modeling efforts were applied to other East Antarctic outlet glaciers so that scientists could develop a better understanding of glacier behavior in Antarctica.

The research team made two trips to Antarctica as part of the same project, first from 8-25 November 2010 and later in the field season from 29 January - 12 February 2011.