Poker Flat Research Range

Location - Poker Flat Research Range Sites

ALISON added to our investigation of ice growth, conductive heat flow and ice decay on ponds in the vicinity of Poker Flat Research Range, located roughly 50 km north-east of Fairbanks at 29.5 Mile Steese Highway. The investigation began in October 1999 and it has continued each winter since then.

New ice forming on MST Pond in October, 2001.

Our main study site, MST Pond, was on the research range and protected from marauding snowmachines. During the course of three winters we made measurements at ten other ponds between 29.5 Mile and 36.6 Mile Steese Highway. Unfortunately, these ponds were occasionally visited by snowmachines, which disturbed the snow cover and affected our measurements.

In 2001-2002, we concentrated on MST Pond and two secondary sites at 31.6 Mile and 33.5 Mile ponds. The latter two ponds seem to attract the least attention of snowmachiners. The 2002-2003 study also focused on these three ponds. MST, 31.6 and 33.5 Mile ponds each had resident beavers.

Snow-free ice on MST Pond during freeze-up, October 2001 (left). The ice fractures at the margin of MST Pond during the melt season, May 2002 (right).

Apart from MST Pond, all the ponds are gravel pits that have flooded after highway construction. The ponds are quite small, with typical dimensions of 100 m by 100 m, and water depths of 1-5 m.

During freeze-up and break-up, eleven ponds were visited to determine the freeze-up and break-up dates. During the winter, ALISON sites were set up on MST Pond, 31.6 Mile Pond and 33.5 Mile Pond. In spring, at the time of maximum ice thickness, some of the other ponds were visited to determine the snow ice thickness and total ice thickness.

People

Current Participants

Martin Jeffries, co-founder and coordinator of ALISON.

Kim Morris, a 20-year resident of Fairbanks, graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a MS in Applied Geoscience in 1992 and has done research at the Geophysical Institute ever since. For her MS research she used remote sensing (NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer data) to study leads and polynyas in the sea ice between Camden Bay, Alaska, and the Mackenzie Delta, Canada. Kim has visited Barrow to study lake ice and used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing to study lake ice in other parts of the North Slope and Alaska. She has been to Antarctica eight times to study sea ice and snow cover in the Ross, Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas. In April-June 2002 she studied the snow cover on the landfast sea ice near Truro Island in the Canadian High Arctic. In January 2004, she participated in a landfast sea ice study in McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. Kim has published a number of papers on lake ice and sea ice. She is now the Principal Investigator for the ALISON project.

Kim and Emperor Penguins on an ice floe in the Ross Sea near Mt. Siple, February 1992, during her first visit to Antarctica.

Joanne at the local 4th of July party in Wiseman, Alaska. The fake whiskey bottle is in recognition of Wiseman's historic past as a wild and wooly mining community.

Joanne Groves, a 40 year resident of Fairbanks, retired June 2006 from the Alaska Satellite Facility at the Geophysical Institute. For the past 20 years she was an image analysis professional working in sea ice, polynya processes, oceanographic research, the definitive Alaska oil spill analysis, and the Alaska Volcano Observatory. She graduated from University of Rochester, Rochester, NY with a BS in chemistry in 1960; and an MS in chemistry in 1963 from the University of Oregon Eugene. In 1967 she came to Alaska to work for the Institute of Marine Science where in the late 60s she worked in chemical oceanography on studies ranging from Glacier Bay to the Aleutian chain to the Islands of 4 Mountains, Bristol Bay, and Nome. In the early 1970s she did dissolved organic carbon analyses on T-3 Ice Island.

The photograph was taken on her 4th day of retirement. The smile reflects that on the next day she will be flying into the head waters of the Koyukuk River for a 16 day canoe trip in Gates of the Arctic NP, the first of hopefully many as she starts her new life, and on reflection of how privileged she has been to have a career studying the natural processes of this fascinating state, Alaska.

Katie in front of MST Pond after helping retrieve the TWITs on the pond, now completely ice free.

Katie McCaffrey helped Joanne a great deal as a field assistant during the 2007-08 ice season. At the time, she was 13 years old and had many interests including science. She was awarded the Northern Alaska Environmental Center 2008 Youth of the Year Award for her work with Fairbanks Youth for Environmental Action. She is an accomplished Irish fiddler and has travelled extensively to study and perform. Katie's other activities include sea kayaking, soccer, cycling, tennis, gardening and contradancing.

She had the opportunity to go out in the field on a number of occasions and helped Joanne retrieve the TWITs after the pond had become completely ice free.

Former Students at PFRR Observatory

Derek paddles to his research site in northern Canada.

Derek Mueller is a postdoctoral researcher working on remote sensing of Arctic ice shelves. Before coming to the Geophysical Institute at UAF he did PhD fieldwork on these ice shelves examining the cold-tolerant microorganisms that live there. Derek did his Masters on the biology of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic. He welcomed the opportunity to get back into the field measuring lake ice and snow with the ALISON project.

Marc dreaming of skiing down Tuckerman Ravine (in background) on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire.

Marc Gould joined ALISON in Fall 2003 as a Graduate Research Assistant. Working toward a Masters Degree in Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Geophysics, he investigated the winter conductive heat flow from lakes to the atmosphere. This was based primarily on data obtained at Poker Flat and the ALISON study sites, and the CLIMo lake ice model. He also adapted the model for use as a teaching and research tool for ALISON.

He is originally from New York and graduated with a B.S. in Geological Sciences and Computer Science from Tufts University in Boston. He previously worked at the Geophysical Institute in summer 2001 studying sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, and spent the following summer with the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Winter 2002-03 was spent studying the frictional properties of snow and ice as a full time ski instructor in New Hampshire.

At the time, Marc was completing his Master's degree.

Larissa holds Aspen at the Denali National Park Sled Dog Kennels, Winter 2000-01.

Larissa Yocum joined the project in September 2002. She has a B.A. in Biology from Mount Holyoke College. Larissa has worked seasonally for the National Park Service in both Denali and Grand Teton. Having volunteered for the Denali National Park Sled Dog Kennels for three winters prior to joining ALISON, she got to learn about many of the fine nuances of snow and ice as she got dragged behind the back of a dogsled. She now works full time for Denali.

Craig Bosveld (left) at 33.5 Mile Pond during break-up in May 2002. In order to measure the ice thickness during the melt season we needed the inflatable boat to get across the moat between the shore and the ice.

Craig Bosveld participated in the Poker Flat study during winter 2001-02. At the time, he was a senior at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, completing his degree in Natural Resources Management with an emphasis on forestry. He graduated in May 2002. Craig contributed greatly to the success of the program that winter, visiting Poker Flat each Saturday, working with the teachers who accompanied us, and entering data into the computer and maintaining the data archive.

In spring semester 2002 he enrolled in GEOS F488, an Undergraduate Research class, for which he investigated snow depth, density and conductive heat flow differences between ponds, open land and forest.