SnowNet

Overview of the Barrow SnowNet site

Soggy Crew

Winter can be harsh on electronic equipment several miles out on the tundra. Cables that are supple and bendable in 40°F weather will snap like Styrofoam when it is -40°F. Tasks like tightening a bolt that can be done in mere seconds in daylight with warm bare hands can be almost impossible in the dark in the narrow beam of a headlight where the cold wind renders fingers un-useable in minutes. Not surprisingly, we have generally found it best to perform a thorough renovation of our instruments in summer. But that means getting wet, and a long slog over the tundra carrying heavy batteries and other equipment.

Chipping Ice

This year the big surprise was the solid-state snow water equivalent gauge (SSSWE). This gauge, which consists of nine aluminum panels, each 3 by 3 feet, weighs the snow that covers it in winter. Beneath the aluminum plates is a plywood and insulation base designed to keep the tundra from thawing and having the whole affair go out of level. However, this year, the insulation and a cold spring resulted in the formation of segregation ice, a common feature in permafrost, but a bad thing under a SSSWE. Segregation ice forms when ground water migrates to a freezing front. Typically this freezing front is at the bottom of the active layer, but in our case it was at the bottom og the insulation. At the freezing front, a layer of black ice forms and thickens. In our case, it seems to have grown several inches thick over the past 2 years, heaving up the SSSWE. The solution to the problem was to pick-axe the ice to pieces and then shovel up the ice cubes and mud.

Barge and Welcome Sign

We weren’t the only ones in Barrow hurrying to get ready for winter in August. Barges were coming in with the annual supplies for the town, as well as staging equipment for a major drilling campaign this winter. It has been in the news that Shell Oil will be drilling for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off of Barrow in the future, but this is a different campaign. Gas fields have been known, and utilized by Barrow, since the late 1940s. Gas from a series of wells out on the tundra south of town supply the fuel for heating and electrical generation. But with growth has come higher demands for fuel. The existing gas wells are no longer sufficient to supply the need. This winter several more wells will be drilled. This is an enormous undertaking requiring tons of gear, most of which has been coming in from Prudhoe Bay. We were told that 30 barge-loads would be needed before all the required equipment is on the beach at Barrow.

Snow fence tower

We finished our maintenance work by reconstructing the towers we have near the Cakeater snow fence. This fence creates a drift that can be almost 15 feet deep. The towers hold sonic sounders that measure the snow depth as the drift builds up. Each tower is guyed out using ¼” steel cable. The weight of the snow on these cables during the winter can ( and has) snapped the welds on the towers. As long as the towers are encased in snow, they are fine and won’t fall down, but once the snow melts (in late-July) the towers become wobbly and unstable. We have to re-cable them and re-level them so they are vertical. The area where this thick drift sits for 10 months of the year is a bad place for plants. They get crushed by the weight of the snow, flooded by the snow melt, and deprived of sunlight for much of the summer. Almost nothing can grow under those conditions….just some water-tolerant mosses. The end product after 20 years of enormous winter drifts is a mucky bog and ponds next to the fence.

Snow on the ground still in late June…..new snow in late-August: winter is long in Barrow. No wonder we are thinking about winter in August.

Matthew Sturm