New equipment for a current Arctic ice survey underway in Canada and in Greenland was tested this summer in the German highlands, and got the OK.
The Alfred Wegener Institute’s two polar research planes, the Polar 5 and the Polar six, fly annually to the Far North of Canada and Greenland to survey the ice conditions. This year, they’ve been fitted with new high-resolution camera systems.
To do the survey, electromagnetic sensors are towed by the research planes 15 metres above the ice surface to take the measurements.
The researchers behind the project say the test runs in Germany’s Harz region let them iron out any problems with the new sensors before the teams are too far away to easily assist.
“Technical problems are often extremely difficult to solve in the remote reaches of the Arctic and can jeopardize the success of an entire campaign,” Thomas Krumpen, a sea-ice researcher at the AWI and coordinator of the aerial campaigns. In addition to the tests, those using the new equipment need to be trained. Using the constantly changing sensors installed in the aircraft can be a complex task, and in the Arctic there’s no room for mistakes. We run separate training flights to familiarize the operators,” he said in a news release.
The Arctic survey is part of the institute’s IceBird program. The program measures sea ice thickness in order to better understand the changes of the ice’s properties and composition over time.
Researchers head out twice a year to do the measurements during July/August when the ice is at its thinnest, and in March/April when ice is at its thickest.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished
