Cascade Lake, Southwestern Alaska

Cascade Lake in southwestern Alaska. The lake is fed by glaciers in the Ahklun Mountains. Glacier meltwater enters the lake on the left in this picture. The amount of sediment delivered to the lake can vary with the intensity of the summer melt season and is registered in sediment cores through changes in depositional rates and other indicators.

Sediment cores were taken as part of a study, supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), that indicates arctic temperatures suddenly increased during the last 50 years of the period from A.D. 1 to the year 2000. Because this warming occurred abruptly during the 20th century while atmospheric greenhouse gases were accumulating, these findings provide additional evidence that humans are influencing climate.

The study was led by Darrell Kaufman of Northern Arizona University. To learn more, see the NSF press release The Arctic Offers More Evidence of Human Influences on Climate Change. [NSF has supported climate change research in Alaska by Kaufman and his students since 1991. Recent awards include: "Holocene climatic variability in southern Alaska" (grant ATM 03-18341), "Accessing climate and lake monitoring equipment, southern Alaska" (grant EAR 08-20363), "Coupled glacial and lacustrine evidence for decadal- to millennial-scale variability in the climatologic Aleutian Low, southern Alaska" (grant EAR 08-23522), and "A synthesis of the last 2000 years of climatic variability from arctic lakes" (grant ARC 04-55043).]

(Date of Image: July 2004)

Credit: Darrell Kaufman, Northern Arizona University

Passing The Cold Weather Test

By Amy Walker, PEO C3T

Even after being frozen overnight at negative 35-degree temperatures in the severe winter conditions of Alaska, the elements of the Army’s second-generation tactical communications network backbone were up and running.

Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, Increment 2, successfully completed its Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing in January at Fort Greely, Alaska, receiving positive test results in the execution and in its recently released test report from the Army’s Aberdeen Test Center. The data will be used to support a Full-Rate Production, or FRP, decision for WIN-T Increment 2, with a successful FRP decision providing the green light for the network’s fielding in Fiscal Year 2013.

“This was a very successful test and all of the equipment performed as we would have expected in extreme arctic conditions,” said Lt. Col. Robert Collins, product manager for WIN-T Increments 2 and 3. “Whether in the desert or in adverse cold environments, WIN-T Increment 2 will provide the needed on-the-move tactical network communications for maneuver elements on the battlefield all the way down the company level.”

The cold weather test sets the stage for WIN-T Increment 2′s formal operational test, which is the system’s final assessment prior to the full rate production decision.

This strenuous, three-week Initial Operational Test and Evaluation, knows as IOT&E, will take place in May at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in conjunction with the Army’s Network Integration Evaluation, or NIE, 12.2. It will allow the Army to assess the suitability and effectiveness of the WIN-T Increment 2 system with an operational unit, while yielding feedback to make any needed doctrinal, material or training improvements before the system is fielded.

WIN-T Increment 2 is the centerpiece of Capability Set 13, the first integrated group of network technologies that will be fielded to up to eight brigade combat teams starting in fiscal year 2013. Capability Set 13 has taken shape through the NIEs, part of the Army’s Agile Process that integrates and will deliver new technologies to soldiers much more quickly than normal acquisition cycles allow.

Similar to a home Internet connection, WIN-T Increment 1 provides soldiers with high-speed, high-capacity voice, data and video communications to units at battalion level at-the-halt. WIN-T Increment 2 is a major upgrade and introduces numerous additional capabilities including an on-the-move communications network that reaches down to the company echelon for the first time.

Among the objectives of the WIN-T Increment 2 Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing, was an assessment and documentation of the impact of icing, high wind, safety, operation of equipment by soldiers in cold gear and other factors associated with extreme cold weather conditions. The team was also required to assess the impacts of extreme cold weather on transmission performance for line-of-sight and satellite links both at-the-halt and on-the-move. Procedures for the operation of the increment’s general configuration items, including raising and lowering antenna masts, also had to be validated.

“There are regions in the world that have these extreme cold weather environments, and it’s imperative for the soldier to know in advance some of the lessons that we have learned up in Alaska so they will be prepared for equipment set up and use when they are deployed,” said Tom Franey, WIN-T Increment 2 Reliability Test Lead. “Validating the technical manual procedures in these conditions is imperative to ensure that soldiers deployed to these extreme environments have the knowledge and information they need to operate the equipment and perform their missions successfully.”

For protection in extreme cold weather, soldiers are issued Extended Cold Weather Clothing Systems, or ECWCS. The test operators for the Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing were able to successfully execute all of the tests wearing this Army-issued equipment.

“The operators wore these cold weather clothing systems so that we could document the human factor when they are operating the equipment, such as how they can use mittens and move around in the clothing system,” Franey said. “It was important for us to have the operators wear exactly what the soldiers would be wearing in the field.”

The cold weather testing included several on-the-move threads, at-the-halt deployments and storage of the communications equipment. At-the-halt tests were performed in low light conditions following a cold soak of the configuration items overnight at temperatures that measured below negative 35 degrees. The next day the operators were able to bring all of the equipment back up to its operating temperature by utilizing the Environmental Control Units, known as ECUs, inside each platform.

“Because a lot of this equipment is commercial-off-the-shelf, you really can’t operate it in negative 35 degrees, but the ECUs bring the equipment back up to operating temperatures,” said Franey. “That was successful and we able to get all of the equipment up and running.”

The PM deployed WIN-T Increment 2′s main configuration items for the test including the Tactical Communications Node, or TCN, which is the centerpiece and hub of the WIN-T Increment 2 network; the Point of Presence, which will be installed on tactical combat platforms to enable mobile mission command by providing secret level on-the-move network connectivity; the Soldier Network Extension, which will be installed on tactical combat platforms to extend the network down to the company level; and the Vehicle Wireless Package, which extends the WIN-T network to command post vehicles moving in convoy with the TCN. It also provided the Tactical Relay Tower (TR-T), which provides extended range for the Highband Networking Radio; and the Satellite Transportable Terminal +, which provides satellite communications at-the-quick-halt.

Along with the other tests, the Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing team was also required to test the operation of this equipment in the dark, with Fort Greely having provided the perfect test bed since during the month of January it only sees about four to five hours of sunlight each day. The low light environment tests were needed to document and provide lessons-learned on equipment usage and set-up.

“The TR-T has a 30 meter stand-alone mast and in the dark it’s hard to see the top of that mast as it is going up,” Franey said. “Soldiers in the field are issued a special flashlight and in the dark we were able to successfully bring everything up from ground zero to operating.”

As the Army now makes final preparations for the IOT&E, and for the eventual fielding and training of WIN-T Increment 2, it will leverage knowledge gained during the cold weather test.

“There were several lessons-learned concerning the operation of the WIN-T Increment 2 equipment in this environment, and to soldiers deployed to these extreme cold conditions in some remote location of the world, having those insights and knowledge early is vital to program success and mission execution,” Collins said. “We are pleased with the favorable test results as we move closer to sending Increment 2 to the battlefield.”

NASA Sets Sail on Second Leg of Arctic Ocean Research Voyage

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington                                   

WASHINGTON -- Scientists embark this week from Alaska on the second and final campaign of a NASA field campaign to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems.

On June 25, the ICESCAPE mission, or "Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment," resumes its shipborne investigation of the impacts of climate change in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along Alaska's western and northern coasts. Research teams depart from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy.

The field campaign takes 47 scientists for five weeks to the Arctic Ocean, where a variety of instruments will be used onboard the Healy and deployed into the ocean and on the sea ice. Following the mission's first campaign in summer 2010, the second year of sampling seeks to find year-to-year differences and provide data for new lines of investigation.

Combined observations from the field and from NASA satellites are critical to understanding the Arctic, where the signals of climate change are amplified. The accelerated decline of Arctic sea ice extent and thickness exemplifies this trend, and scientists want to know how this change affects other ocean processes and marine life.

"Multidisciplinary field campaigns like ICESCAPE take advantage of simultaneous satellite and field measurements," said Carlos Del Castillo, acting program manager of the Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The advantage of satellites is that we can routinely collect observations of the whole planet. That data combined with field work and computer modeling gives us a better understanding of how the Earth system works."

Phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, are a key focus of the campaign. They form the base of the aquatic food web, participate in cycling Earth's carbon between the atmosphere and the ocean and are susceptible to climate change. NASA has monitored changes in phytoplankton from space worldwide with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on the Aqua satellite and the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor, which ended observations in 2010.

"Last year, ICESCAPE nailed down quite a few things in terms of the phytoplankton work," said Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., the mission's chief scientist. "We know pretty well now how fast they are growing and what they are responding to. The repeat measurements from this voyage will help us confirm what's going on."

The 2010 campaign gave researchers a glimpse of what might be happening in Barrow Canyon, one of most productive areas for phytoplankton growth in the Beaufort-Chukchi region. While many blooms last just a few weeks before consuming all of the local nutrients and declining, the bloom in Barrow Canyon gets its start in spring and carries on through summer.

Scientists think the extended bloom can be explained by unique patterns in the path and timing of ocean currents. In spring, a stream of water carries nutrients from the Pacific Ocean up through the Bering Strait and delivers them to Barrow Canyon. The water hugs the coast and arrives quickly, providing the nutrients for the bloom to get its start. Two other streams take a more circuitous route and arrive later, sustaining the bloom through summer.

"With this year's voyage, we hope to acquire more details about the physical processes pulling nutrients from deep water to the surface," Arrigo said.

New to ICESCAPE in 2011, the ship will forge north through the Beaufort Sea to explore the relationship between shallow water on the continental shelf and deep water in the Canada Basin. Phytoplankton on the shallow shelves tend to flourish when the ice retreats and scientists want to find out what feeds the bloom.

Last year, researchers saw some indication that nutrients were moving between deep and shallow water. Wind unexpectedly blew thick, multiyear sea ice south to the edge of the shelf, at some places up to 20 feet thick. The ice proved too thick for the icebreaker to penetrate. The Healy, the newest and most technologically advanced U.S. polar icebreaker, is designed to break four-and-a-half feet of ice continuously at three knots.

This year, the field campaign begins two weeks later, which means the Healy is expected to encounter thinner, summer ice and thus have a better chance of exploring the ecosystems in water that spends most of the year under a blanket of ice.

For updates on the five-week ICESCAPE voyage, visit the mission blog at http://go.usa.gov/WwU.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

- end -

NASA Sets Sail on Second Leg of Arctic Ocean Research Voyage

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington                                   

WASHINGTON -- Scientists embark this week from Alaska on the second and final campaign of a NASA field campaign to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems.

On June 25, the ICESCAPE mission, or "Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment," resumes its shipborne investigation of the impacts of climate change in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along Alaska's western and northern coasts. Research teams depart from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy.

The field campaign takes 47 scientists for five weeks to the Arctic Ocean, where a variety of instruments will be used onboard the Healy and deployed into the ocean and on the sea ice. Following the mission's first campaign in summer 2010, the second year of sampling seeks to find year-to-year differences and provide data for new lines of investigation.

Combined observations from the field and from NASA satellites are critical to understanding the Arctic, where the signals of climate change are amplified. The accelerated decline of Arctic sea ice extent and thickness exemplifies this trend, and scientists want to know how this change affects other ocean processes and marine life.

"Multidisciplinary field campaigns like ICESCAPE take advantage of simultaneous satellite and field measurements," said Carlos Del Castillo, acting program manager of the Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The advantage of satellites is that we can routinely collect observations of the whole planet. That data combined with field work and computer modeling gives us a better understanding of how the Earth system works."

Phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, are a key focus of the campaign. They form the base of the aquatic food web, participate in cycling Earth's carbon between the atmosphere and the ocean and are susceptible to climate change. NASA has monitored changes in phytoplankton from space worldwide with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on the Aqua satellite and the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor, which ended observations in 2010.

"Last year, ICESCAPE nailed down quite a few things in terms of the phytoplankton work," said Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., the mission's chief scientist. "We know pretty well now how fast they are growing and what they are responding to. The repeat measurements from this voyage will help us confirm what's going on."

The 2010 campaign gave researchers a glimpse of what might be happening in Barrow Canyon, one of most productive areas for phytoplankton growth in the Beaufort-Chukchi region. While many blooms last just a few weeks before consuming all of the local nutrients and declining, the bloom in Barrow Canyon gets its start in spring and carries on through summer.

Scientists think the extended bloom can be explained by unique patterns in the path and timing of ocean currents. In spring, a stream of water carries nutrients from the Pacific Ocean up through the Bering Strait and delivers them to Barrow Canyon. The water hugs the coast and arrives quickly, providing the nutrients for the bloom to get its start. Two other streams take a more circuitous route and arrive later, sustaining the bloom through summer.

"With this year's voyage, we hope to acquire more details about the physical processes pulling nutrients from deep water to the surface," Arrigo said.

New to ICESCAPE in 2011, the ship will forge north through the Beaufort Sea to explore the relationship between shallow water on the continental shelf and deep water in the Canada Basin. Phytoplankton on the shallow shelves tend to flourish when the ice retreats and scientists want to find out what feeds the bloom.

Last year, researchers saw some indication that nutrients were moving between deep and shallow water. Wind unexpectedly blew thick, multiyear sea ice south to the edge of the shelf, at some places up to 20 feet thick. The ice proved too thick for the icebreaker to penetrate. The Healy, the newest and most technologically advanced U.S. polar icebreaker, is designed to break four-and-a-half feet of ice continuously at three knots.

This year, the field campaign begins two weeks later, which means the Healy is expected to encounter thinner, summer ice and thus have a better chance of exploring the ecosystems in water that spends most of the year under a blanket of ice.

For updates on the five-week ICESCAPE voyage, visit the mission blog at http://go.usa.gov/WwU.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

- end -

Alaska’s Susitna Glacier

Like rivers of liquid water, glaciers flow downhill, with tributaries joining to form larger rivers. But where water rushes, ice crawls. As a result, glaciers gather dust and dirt, and bear long-lasting evidence of past movements.

Alaska's Susitna Glacier revealed some of its long, grinding journey when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead on Aug. 27, 2009. This satellite image combines infrared, red and green wavelengths to form a false-color image. Vegetation is red and the glacier's surface is marbled with dirt-free blue ice and dirt-coated brown ice. Infusions of relatively clean ice push in from tributaries in the north. The glacier surface appears especially complex near the center of the image, where a tributary has pushed the ice in the main glacier slightly southward.

Susitna flows over a seismically active area. In fact, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck the region in November 2002, along a previously unknown fault. Geologists surmised that earthquakes had created the steep cliffs and slopes in the glacier surface, but in fact most of the jumble is the result of surges in tributary glaciers.

Glacier surges--typically short-lived events where a glacier moves many times its normal rate--can occur when melt water accumulates at the base and lubricates the flow. This water may be supplied by meltwater lakes that accumulate on top of the glacier; some are visible in the lower left corner of this image. The underlying bedrock can also contribute to glacier surges, with soft, easily deformed rock leading to more frequent surges.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science

ONR-funded Military Satellite Arrives at Alaska Launch Pad

By Katherine H. Crawford, Office of Naval Research Public Affairs

ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The Navy's new joint tactical communications satellite arrived at Alaska's Kodiak Launch Complex, March 1 and is currently undergoing final preparations for its scheduled spring liftoff.

Funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Tactical Microsatellite (TacSat)-4 is smaller in size, lower in cost and relatively quicker to launch than a traditional system. TacSat-4 is designed to augment traditional satellite communications, supplying 10 legacy ultra-high-frequency channels. It can provide two hours of coverage up to three times per day and support multiple theaters worldwide in a 24-hour period.

The fourth-generation microsatellite is expected to be launched in May or June. Following that milestone, the initial transmission of data will be available approximately 30 days later.

Additionally, TacSat-4 enables "comms on the move", said Fred Hellrich, an ONR senior scientist. "That is a unique feature of this system - no other DOD satellite system can do it currently."

Unlike traditional satellites that require antennae to be set up in the field for data transmission, TacSat-4 allows warfighters to use a regular handheld radio for communications on the move. TacSat-4 has also been developed to operate more economically than traditional satellites by using high-quality components designed to last at least six months to one year. It is also changing the cost to build systems and thus the number of launches per year.

The satellite will carry an ONR-sponsored and Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)-developed payload. Those components will be carried on a bus built by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The U.S. Air Force's Operationally Responsive Space Office funded TacSat-4's launch aboard a Minotaur IV rocket built by Orbital Sciences. The collaboration among government, industry and academia was a significant step in TacSat-4's success.

The system features a Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC) developed by NRL under ONR's Innovative Naval Prototype (INP) program. VMOC will manage payload tasking to provide communications management designees the ability to request satellite communications via DOD's classified Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and to provide dynamic channel assignments for flexible theater support.

TacSat is one of the original four proposed efforts initiated by ONR's INP program, which investigates cutting-edge technologies with the potential to irrecoverably change naval operations.

TacSat was inspired by Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, the former director of the Office of Force Transformation, who wanted a simplified satellite that could be built and launched quicker than traditional ones.

The Department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps' technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries, 1,035 institutions of higher learning and 914 industry partners. ONR employs approximately 1,400 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel, with additional employees at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C.