Mapping Alaska’s Glaciers: A 75-Year Study Involving These Students | Science

Ben Huff’s photographs and text feature college student Abby Watts from Juneau, Alaska, standing on a nunatak, an exposed ridge above the Juneau Icefield. Accompanied by Fabienne Meier, a student from Zurich, Switzerland, Watts studies enormous boulders in varying shades of gray. They record data in a waterproof yellow notebook, measuring the rocks in centimeters. Watts and Meier are participating in the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), the longest-running glacier research project in North America. The program was founded by Maynard Miller, one of William B. Osgood Field Jr.’s mentees, who led the program for more than half a century.

Every summer, 30 to 40 students from all over the world, mostly undergrads, attend JIRP. The program, run by the University of Maine with support from the University of Alaska Southeast, focuses on high alpine travel skills and team building exercises. They hike from sea level to the edge of the icefield at 4,500 feet. Every 10 to 14 days, they move to a new camp by foot or skis. They collect data above Camp 10, a compound of metal-clad buildings. Faculty member Bethan Davies from Newcastle University in England acts as a spotter while Camryn Kluetmeier, a recent college graduate from Madison, Wisconsin, controls a drone with an app on her smartphone.

Anna Fatta, a student from Parkersburg, West Virginia, chips small flakes of granite on top of a nearby boulder. The samples are sent to a lab for cosmogenic nuclide analysis to date how long a rock has been exposed to the atmosphere without being covered by ice. JIRP focuses on glacier mass balance—the difference between how much melts or evaporates and how much accumulates from snow, ice, and freezing rain. JIRP’s data records have made the Taku Glacier, one of the largest glaciers on the Juneau Icefield, the glacier with the longest data records in North America. The program has published more than 1,000 reports and publications using the data gathered, making it feasible to have such extensive records using a “small army of students.”

 

Reference

Denial of responsibility! TechCodex is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessory action within 24 hours.

Denial of responsibility! TechCodex is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.