By DIANE HELDT
Staff Writer
An Ames Laboratory researcher will spend six weeks this spring and summer aboard a ship frozen into an arctic ice pack. He'll be studying polar clouds and global warming.
Jim Liljegren, an Ames Lab scientist in atmospheric research, will spend May 13 through June 23 on Des Groseilliers, a Canadian icebreaker that intentionally was frozen into the ice in October as part of a 13-month mission to study the arctic's role in global climate change. The ship is about 400 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, where a research station is located, and it is drifting west with the ice pack, Liljegren said.
"I'm very excited about the trip, and I expect there will be a great deal for me to do there," he said. "It's very helpful to the research to actually be there so I can see if the instruments are working correctly and everything is checking out."
Liljegren is one of many U.S. scientists who will spend a six-week rotation on the ship. The research being conducted on the ship is part of a five-year international project of the National Science Foundation, called the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA). The project aims to provide scientists with a better understanding of polar climates and how global changes affect them, Liljegren said.
One participant in the SHEBA project is the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program, a broad-based effort to develop better models for predicting the effect of cloud's on the Earth's climate.
Liljegren has been involved with ARM for six years and said he was excited to learn that the organization had joined in the SHEBA project on the ship.
"Information from this area is something we don't have very much of," he said.
Liljegren's area of specialty is measuring the amount of water vapor and liquid water in clouds. On the icebreaker, he will gather data about the nature, make-up and structure of polar clouds. When Liljegren is on the ship, the sun will be up 24 hours a day, making it easier for him to study the clouds and making the climate a bit more tolerable, he said.
"Polar clouds are so different from what you find elsewhere, and because of the remoteness of the arctic, the data on polar clouds have been extremely limited," he said. "The whole issue with the clouds is how much is there, and after this study, the scientists can have actual measurements to prepare their models with, which is something we haven't had from the arctic before."
The polar regions are seen as key areas in determining the possible effects of global warming, because they are highly sensitive, and a change would likely be noticed there first, Liljegren said.
Researchers hope the data from the experiment will provide some of the answers to questions surrounding global warming, Liljegren said. Current climate models aren't accurate enough to predict what might happen if the Earth's surface temperature grows warmer, and new information could shed light on that, he said. Clouds play a big role in climate models because they trap heat in the atmosphere as well as deflect energy from the sun, Liljegren said.
Published 1/6/98
Related material:
Going with the
floe
Ames scientist
builds microwave radiometer for Arctic experiment
Ames
Laboratory scientist will 'go with the floe'
Last revision: 4/17/98 sd
Home | Comments | Search | Disclaimer