"The polar climate is really very critical to understanding the world's climate."
By THOMAS R. O'DONNELL
Of The Register's Ames Bureau
Ames, Ia -- Just when it's safe for Iowans to put away the parkas, Jim Liljegren has decided to spend six weeks in the deep freeze.
Liljegren, an atmospheric researcher with the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, left this week for a stay aboard a Canadian icebreaker locked into the polar ice cap northwest of Barrow, Alaska.
His wife, Lucia, an aerospace engineering professor at ISU, "finds it amusing because even in the air conditioning I'll wear a sweater. I'm always cold," Liljegren said. "Folks who know me think this is out of character for me."
But Liljegren is eager to go. His time on the Des Groseilliers will give him an up-close look at arctic clouds and their effect on the weather.
"I bill myself as a scientist," he said. That means "You have to go there, not just live on the Internet."
The 13-month project is designed to study the arctic's role in global climate change. It's part of a five-year international program known as the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean, or SHEBA. The Department of Energy, which runs the Ames Lab, is a partner through its Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program aimed at developing better models for predicting the effect of clouds on the climate.
Liljegren was recruited because he's responsible for the energy department project's microwave radiometers -- instruments that measure the amount of liquid water and water vapor in clouds.
Many of the instruments he'll work with are actually on the ice, spread out around the ship with power lines running to them. It's also where the occasional polar bear has been known to show up in search of a seal sandwich.
Liljegren was trained in firing a shotgun, just in case he has a close encounter with a hungry bear. There's also a cage at the end of the gangway leading from the ice to the ship's deck to keep the beasts out.
"You don't want a bear sneaking onto the ship," he said.
The sun never sets on the arctic this time of year, so temperatures only will get as high as the teens above zero.
Still, Liljegren is ready for anything. He's equipped with a set of knee-high, black boots, handcrafted in Canada.
"They're good to minus 100," he said. "It's nice to know."
He's had training on cold-weather survival and injuries, and tried out some of his polar garb during the blizzard that struck central Iowa in early March.
"I was way too warm," he added.
Life on the icebreaker isn't cozy, but Liljegren doesn't expect to rough it. The compartments are small, but comfortable, he said. The ship has a water processing unit, so showers don't have to be especially rare and short.
"The food is reputed to be very good," Liljegren said. "They have two chefs who worked at various restaurants in Quebec."
But Liljegren expects to be busy. The instruments need constant adjustments to compensate for the shifting ice -- and to keep them frost-free.
"The polar climate is really very critical to understanding the world's climate," and could provide clues to the effects of global warming, Liljegren said.
When he finishes his six-week stay, Liljegren will take with him a computer disk loaded with the data. But he might end up staying longer than expected. The ice pack, instead of flowing to the north, has continued to move west, taking the Des Groseilliers with it. The greater distance could mean a delay in flying people off the ice pack.
"We may enter Russian airspace," Liljegren said.
Publication date: May 13, 1998
Related material:
Update: Ames Lab scientist will "go with the
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Ames Lab scientist ready for trip to arctic
Last revision: 5/13/98 sd
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