Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/07/2007 - 19:45
Forums
SEDNA Beaufort Sea Ice

Robert and Cathy, I wish you a safe and happy Easter.  It is in the 70's here in southern Idaho which is actually too warm!  I signed up for the Webinar.

 Jo Dodds

Sun, 04/08/2007 - 05:48

Class-Beckendorf

 Hi all,
 That is an interesting comparison of weather, we had snow flurries yesterday here in central Texas. Robert, how are conditions on the ice? When you set up the grids were you walking them or on snowmobiles?
Kirk

Mon, 04/16/2007 - 13:35

Robert Harris

Hi Jo,We are doing well. Life at camp is very busy. Right now I am in the communications hut, answering questions. Tigris productions is filming next to me, for a TV show. There is a hole through the ice here and they are talking, and filming one of the scientists putting an instrument down the hole. It sounds like you are having some great spring weather in Idaho. Up here the temperature is currently 0 F with -11 F wind chill. Spring must be somewhere.

Mon, 04/16/2007 - 13:39

Robert Harris

Hi!Snow in Texas? Today was a beautiful day on the ice. The sun is going down around 10 pm and is up by 5 am, when I get up. The temperature today is cold (0 F), but the wind was fairly light all day. We have clothes that are good for very low temperatures (-30 F) and today felt warm. When the wind blows it can be bitterly cold. The snow is light and blows around. It is very low humidity here and very dry. It is almost impossible to make a snowball. They just crumble (I tried). The snow can blow around and looks like the bottom of a river. Some places there is little snow and the surface is mostly ice. Other places the snow builds up and can get deep. This can happen near pressure ridges. When we set up the grid lines we used a 25 meter measuring tape. Since many of the spots had little or no snow we also had a drill and an ice agar with a gas power head, flags, stakes and poles. We packed all of the equipment in a sled and pulled the sled with a snowmobile. We would drive the snowmobile out 100m and then measure and walk up to the snowmobile, that way the equipment and supplies were always close by. There are only 4 snowmobiles in camp (everything here is brought in by plane). So later on sometimes we walked and pulled our own sleds.