Page 34: of Marine Technology Magazine (May 2024)

FEATURE DRONE SURVEY

Photo by Bryan Whitten

SOLID SCIENCE

UAF researchers use drones to test new instrument for measuring sea ice and its snow cover.

By Rod Boyce, UAF Geophysical Institute

EAUFORT SEA ICE, near Utqiagvik, Alaska — The scant wind and thin wisps of cirrus clouds strung across a train of 10 snowmachines snaked slowly across the nearly empty blue sky. The sun, which rose at 5:56 a.m., had snow-covered sea ice toward the small tent far ahead, been up for two hours.

a single drop of yellow paint on a textured white can- A near-perfect day for science. For now.

Bvas whose edges couldn’t be seen. It was also near-perfect conditions for the two drones helping

The collection of University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists collect data for the Lightweight Airborne Snow and Sea Ice and technicians and participants from Boise State University Thickness Observing System, or LASSITOS, project. drove in single ? le past driftwood and whale rib bones poking LASSITOS was the main effort on this day on the Beaufort upward through the frozen Beaufort Sea’s near-shore reaches. Sea ice, though as often happens during ? eldwork some team

This place, just a few miles from the northernmost U.S. city members were collecting data for other related projects.

of Utqiagvik, is where the remains of subsistence-harvested The LASSITOS project is funded by the National Science whales are brought to keep scavenging polar bears from town. Foundation and led by University of Alaska Fairbanks Geo-

These are the lands and waters of the Inupiat people. physical Institute Research Professor Andy Mahoney. He

A locally hired polar bear guard shadowed the science team, leads the institute’s sea ice research team, which had several shotgun strapped to his snowmachine. members on the ice.

The weather was good on this mid-April Wednesday morn- Mahoney explained the work a day earlier when the team ing just beyond the northernmost tip of the United States, with was working closer to town.

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