We arrived in Barrow at about the same time as the sun. This season, we had wanted to install the ice mass balance equipment back in November, but first ice conditions and then the winter night held us back until now. The 2006 summer was a bit different from recent times in that there was a lot of old winter ice drifting by and within sight of land. However this did not translate directly into an early freeze-up of the land fast ice. It was plenty cold enough, but it seems that prevailing north-easterlies blew the newly-forming ice away from shore at the time when ice building needed westerlies to bring pack ice and in and secure the new ice against land.
Our group included Matt Druckenmiller, Chris Petrich, Guy Dubuis, Yoshiki Kawano, and myself. It was the first trip to Barrow for all the others except Matt, and overall it was very successful. Chris and Yoshiki recovered multiple cores for measuring the variability of salinity profiles. I think the key discovery here gaining familiarity with the field and laboratory equipment, and operating conditions in Barrow. Guy and I installed this season’s wireless mass balance site.
