March 28, 1997
Interested in cruising the Arctic Ocean on an icebreaker? Here's a once in
a lifetime opportunity (literally). ARM is participating in the National
Science Foundation/Office of Naval Research project called SHEBA (Surface
Heat Budget of the Arctic [Ocean]). SHEBA will involve driving an
icebreaker into the perennial arctic ice pack during early fall, 1997 and
freezing it in till fall, 1998. The icebreaker will be the Canadian ship,
Des Groseilliers, home port, Quebec. She will drift with the ice pack for a
year, and the instrumentation deployed aboard and around her on the ice
will measure the energy flows between the ice and the atmosphere above, and
between the ice and the ocean below. Scheduled travel to and from SHEBA
will be by means of Twin Otter class aircraft operating out of Deadhorse
(Prudhoe Bay airport) using a strip cleared on the ice near the ship. The
main objective of SHEBA is to improve the ability to model the annual cycle
of arctic sea ice growth and decay. The critical questions being addressed
are the extent to which global warming will affect Arctic Ocean ice
coverage, and the global thermohaline ocean circulation. Through
participation in SHEBA, ARM seeks to better understand and model radiant
energy flows over the ocean at high latitudes -- a capability essential to
answering these questions correctly.
We are looking for several outstanding individuals willing to devote two or
more months of their lives during the year 9/97 to 9/98 to tending ARM
instrumentation and data systems deployed as part of SHEBA. Approximately
two weeks of that time will be devoted to preparatory training on similar
equipment at the Barrow facility of ARM's North Slope of Alaska and
Adjacent Arctic Ocean (NSA/AAO) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site.
Tours of duty on the ice after training will be approximately 6-8 weeks in
duration, depending upon flight schedules. All other things being equal,
individuals willing to take two tours (consecutive or non-consecutive) will
receive preference. Since the ability to get hands-on help from the
outside world will be limited, individuals with substantial experience
operating, maintaining and fixing a wide variety of instrumentation are
preferred. The individuals carrying ARM's flag will be part of a crew of
roughly 20-40 on the icebreaker, depending upon time of year.
Food is expected to be excellent; the opportunities for solitude,
impressive. Summer temperatures will oscillate around 0 C. Winter
temperatures may plunge to as low as -50 C. Triple digit wind chill
factors sometimes occur. Polar bear visits are likely. The polar night
and the summer day will each last for months. If we've piqued your
interest, contact Hugh Church for details: (HWChurc [at] Sandia.gov); phone
(505) 845-8705; FAX (505) 844-0116.