With the recent increased awareness of global warming, the University
of Kansas is doing its part to further research on trends in global
climate change. KU is the lead member of the Center for Remote
Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), which is conducting research in
Greenland and Antarctica as part of the scientific community's
International Polar Year.
"Our work in both places is based on land-based ice masses," Stephen
Ingalls, associate director of administration at CReSIS, said.
Ingalls said CReSIS focuses its research on land-based ice sheets
because ice sheets already in the water have no effect on ocean levels
if they melt.
This is the fourth international polar year since 1882. The current
polar year began in March and ends in March 2009. Ingalls said that a
team of KU and Ohio State University researchers will be deployed
April 24 with ice-penetrating radar equipment and that another KU
researcher will join a team of Danes in early May to survey deep ice
cores.
"The poles have very extreme conditions," he said, "so we go to
Greenland in our summer and Antarctica in the Austral summer."
CReSIS conducts part of its research by using satellite photos to
locate areas of general interest.
"We get a pretty good idea of what's going on with Greenland," Ingalls said.
After that, radar equipment is mounted on NASA aircraft and
successively smaller manned aircraft. Ingalls said a downside to this
method, however, is that it is difficult to get all the needed
supplies to the remote areas to support humans in extreme climate
conditions.
"I would imagine that, logistically, it's kind of like supporting
operations on Mars," he said.
To assist CReSIS' research efforts a team of KU scientists and
students designed an un-manned aircraft that will use
ground-penetrating radar to map the thickness of ice sheets.
"To do that we fly a long way close to the ground using power-hungry
science instruments," Rick Hale, associate professor of aerospace
engineering, and a member of the design team, said.
Hale said the team has spent two years on the project and has built
multiple prototypes to ensure an aircraft capable of living up to its
scientific requirements.
"We've built an aircraft that can fly 1,800 kilometers, roughly one
to two kilometers off the ground, for long distances in the harsh
Antarctic climate," he said.
Hale said the team uses a radio to communicate with the aircraft at short distances and communicates by satellite when the aircraft is farther away. He also said that the design team had had some difficulty integrating the systems on the aircraft so that the communication systems didn't interfere with the scientific equipment.
"We've been trying to manage a fairly tight schedule and a fairly tight budget," Hale said.
He said the team has started to order the materials to build the two
aircrafts, and estimated the project will have cost more than a million dollars by the time it is complete.
"We have expensive toys on this side of campus," he said jokingly.
Hale and the team will begin flight testing this fall at the Smoky Hills Air National Guard Range near Salina. He said the initial research mission will take place next summer in June or July.
