Journey North Mystery Class Spring 2004

Introducing Mystery Class #6
Ice Station Borneo (approximately 89.000 N, 70.000 E)

Hello Students:
My name is Jamie Morison and I am a physical oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle. I have traveled to the Arctic nearly every year since 1974 to conduct scientific research for a long series of exciting projects. My colleague, Roger Andersen, is also from the Unverisity of Washington in Seattle. Since we have worked together on so many Arctic research trips, we thought we do the same here and work together in gathering the information and photos for this Introduction.

Greetings from the
North Pole Environmental Observatory team!

A photo of the 2002 North Pole Environmental Observatory team, its work complete, posing for a group photo before departing for Alert and Resolute. Jamie and Roger are both in this photo. Sorry it's tilted, but we were lucky to get someone to take it.

If you guessed the North Pole for this Mystery camp site you are very close. A camp right at 90° North latitude is not very practical because it is out in the middle of a great ocean where the sea ice that covers the surface is in constant motion. If you and your tent are right at the Pole today, you may be 10 nautical miles away by tomorrow even standing still.

The hardest requirement is a smooth piece of ice long enough to serve as a runway for long-range airplanes. You can't count on finding one right at the Pole, although skiplanes as large as a Twin Otter routinely land pretty close.

Loading an Antonov 26 twin engine airplane to fly back to Khatanga in Russia.

So, in recent years, the closest thing to a North Pole manned station is this location, which we call Ice Station Borneo , a private enterprise operated by Russian and French companies. Borneo has operated for approximately the month of April each year since 1994, and its location is typically about one degree of latitude away from the the Pole, on the Russian side of the Pole.

Lunch time in the mess hall at Borneo. If we look too cold and tired too eat, that's about right.

Are you familiar with the word 'logistics'? Originally a military term, logistics is the function of providing all the physical support necessary for a particular mission, including things like water, food, fuel, transportation, electrical power, tents, stoves, communications. For the past two field seasons, we have used Ice Station Borneo as a logistics base for our scientific research, flying there from Resolute and Alert in northern Canada. Life at Borneo is not long on creature-comforts. When it is -35°C outside with a wind, warm inside space is at a premium.

The emphasis is on going light, getting the projects done as quickly as possible, and getting out before the warming weather and approaching summer fog make the runway too hard to maintain. For the Russians and French who run the station, it is a money-making proposition.

But the existence of Borneo's runway for that short month each year gives scientific projects like the North Pole Environmental Observatory a useful logistics advantage. And if you want to show up with a fat checkbook and a pair of skis, Borneo is at your service for tourism too.

Jamie doing an oceanographic cast with the light winch at a position
where the Twin Otter skiplane has been able to land. The structure in the forground is a weather data buoy which has just been installed in the ice to report air pressure, temperature, and position via satellite.

Another photo of Jamie getting an ocean sample from the Twin Otter
skiplane. He is in a tent enclosing the back door of the aircraft. A winch
in the back door lowers instruments on a cable through a hole in the ice.
He is retrieving a sample bottle from the line.

Since spring 2000, Jamie has been a principal investigator of the North Pole Environmental Observatory, an international research team supported by the National Science Foundation . Under Grant OPP-9910305, we have been conducting expeditions each April to the North Pole to take the pulse of the Arctic Ocean and learn how the world's northernmost sea helps regulate global climate.

The team establishes a group of un-manned scientific platforms to record data throughout the remainder of the year on everything from the salinity of the water to the thickness and temperature of the ice cover. For long-term observations, an automated station does the work of a manned camp, but at far less cost. The area around the North Pole is far from any landmass or observing stations. Even with the use of submarines and icebreakers it is difficult to obtain long-term measurements at the Pole.

Antonov 2 biplane landing at Borneo is a workhorse that just looks like an antique.

The Observatory that we operate offers opportunities for three types of measurements:

1) Drifting data buoys reporting via satellite provide coverage over a wide geographic area by following the drift of the ice pack.

2) Oceanographic moorings anchored to the ocean floor recording internally measure long-term time series at a single position beneath the ice.

3) Aerial surveys of hydrographic casts profiling parameters from the surface become possible using the light aircraft used in the April mooring and buoy deployments.

This trip Borneo did not have a working snowmobile. This 500 pounds of
JAMSTEC JCAD buoy
had to be man-hauled half a mile from the runway to the installation site.

Jamie with Kiyoshi Hatakeyama from Japan Marine Science and Technology
Center (JAMSTEC) with ice auger to drill hole for data buoy installation.

Borneo's main financial support comes from what is called "adventure tourism." It is expensive, but if someone wishes to travel to the North Pole, they can fly to the ice runway maintained at Borneo, usually from Khatanga in Russia or Longyearbyen in Norwegian Svalbard and go the rest of the way in a Russian Mil-8 helicopter. GPS
allows the helicopter to deliver them right to the spot. With Borneo in place for the month of April, increasingly exotic means of travel have been used to get the last degree to the Pole. Cross-country skiing is common, although not exactly routine. Dog teams, ultra-light and antique airplanes and hot air balloons have been tried. I have wondered when someone with too much money will show up with a pogo stick!

Ultralight airplane taking off at Borneo, one of the more novel means of transportation brought by western adventure tourists. Russian Mil-8 helicopter is visible in the background.

Jamie doing the same lightweight ocean cast at Borneo.

If you work hard out in the cold, you often look like this (with ice whiskers!)