Our friends at the North Pole

 

At Trellech Primary School, we have managed to link up with a real scientist who carries out investigations near the North Pole. We learn a lot about the environment, global warming and climate change so what better way to find out about the effect on our planet than talking to an expert! You can read Roger's updates from the North Pole in our guestbook - CLICK HERE

 

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This is Roger Andersen, he is a scientist working at The University of Washington in Seattle, USA. He works in the Polar Science Centre of the Applied Physics Laboratory. Here are the details of Rogers' work and some of the experiments he has done in the Arctic.

 

 

 

Roger in the warm	Roger in the cold - near the North Pole

 

 

"Roger Andersen has participated in 22 polar field programs conducted by the Polar Science Center. The programs have included the Arctic ice Dynamics Joint Experiment, the Marginal Ice Zone Experiments, the Arctic Internal Wave Experiment, the Coordinated Eastern Arctic Experiment, and the Weddell 1 Ice Camp off Antarctica. More recently he provided technical assistance on the Long-Term North Pole Observatory project. He has installed satellite-reporting Argos buoys in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, near the North Pole, and in the eastern Arctic. He developed and refined software for a Sea-Bird CTD system with computer winch control as well as the Arctic Profiling System for acquiring, calibrating, analyzing, and displaying oceanographic data. Mr. Anderson joined the Polar Science Center in 1975."

 

 

Got a question for Roger? CLICK HERE

 

                               Here are some of the pictures of where Roger and his team carry out their experiments. What's it really like in the Arctic?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Twin Otter aircraft that fly the team to their base                                                 Here's the research base near the North Pole

 

 

Roger measuring water flows below the surface                                                Taking measurements close to the helicopter. The ice is thin here.

 

Preparing for the first survey flight, Roger checks the RDI Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler harness!!

 

...and here he installs batteries in the radio receiver for the Sippican Expendable Current Profiler!!!

 

Roger loading an ice chisel into the helicopter

 

Skimming slush off a hole in the ice ready for an experiment

 

What are the scientistists studying?

The team are studying frshwater circulation in The Freshwater Switchyard (Between Ellesmere Island & The North Pole)

 

Where are they studying? What is The Freshwater Switchyard?

S.Y. = The Freshwater Switchyard

The Freshwater Switchyard (S.Y.) is the region just upstream of the freshwater outflows through (west of northern Greenland) and Fram Strait (east of northern Greenland). Depending on the ocean circulation (i.e., on the shape of the Beaufort Gyre, Transpolar Drift Stream, and North American Boundary Undercurrent in a particular year) the S.Y. region might see freshwater from either North American and Pacific origins, or Siberian river origins, or both. So it's like a train switchyard or shunting yard with turntable, where different 'freshwater cargo' from various locations arrives on different tracks, and is rearranged on the trains and then sent out on different tracks to its final destination! Anyway, that?s the metaphor that we're working with in this project?

 

Information on this page is taken from the University of Washington's excellent Polar Science wesbite. Visit it by CLICKING HERE