VAWS: A tale of two ice floes

NOTE DATE CHANGE – This webinar was rescheduled from the original Nov. 17 to Nov. 18th because of a time conflict for the speaker.

Speakers: Andy Mahoney and Melinda Webster, University of Alaska Fairbanks

During the winter of 2019-2020, two drifting ice floes, thousands of miles apart, formed the temporary homes for two different Arctic operations. In late 2019, the icebreaker Polarstern was frozen into sea ice in the Central Arctic as the centerpiece of the year-long MOSAiC expedition. And, in February 2020, an ice camp was established roughly 150 miles offshore in the Alaska Beaufort Sea as the base of on-ice activity for the U.S. Navy’s biennial ICEX exercise. In this webinar, we will discuss the weather and ice conditions at each location and how this impacted the science and logistics. In the process, we will introduce some of the science that was carried on these two ice floes and reflect on how the unexpected weather and ice conditions can create challenges, but also offer new insights.

The Virtual Alaska Weather Symposium (VAWS) is a collaboration between ACCAP, the Geographic Information Network of Alaska, and the NOAA National Weather Service. We present cutting-edge technologies in satellite remote sensing, forecasting, and modeling to a statewide audience through this webinar series.

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