| Many watchful eyes in the sky |
 
| ||
During the entire expedition, five polar-orbiting weather
satellites were regularly watching and photographing the locations where the
field team was working. Data from weather satellites operated by NOAA provided
real-time images of the weather and leads in the sea ice for planning the
tactical deployment of the fuel cache on a suitable ice floe midway between
land's end and the North Pole. NOAA satellite meteorologist Wayne Winston
interpreted the NOAA satellite imagery and weather observations collected at
Resolute Bay and posted a discussion of the daily weather situation for both the
expedition team and students to follow. Additionally, David Walsh and others at
the National Ice Center provided near-real-time 550-meter-resolution Operational
Linescan System (OLS) imagery from satellites of the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program (DMSP) on a routine basis. They also provided very
high-resolution (50 meter) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery from the
Canadian Radarsat satellite. Combined with the Arctic expertise of our pilots,
this imagery enabled the team to see through the cloud cover to help us pinpoint
the appropriate ice floes to land on. |
|||
 Education and Outreach |
High Resolution image from the Canadian Radarsat satellite. | ||
| In the weeks leading up to the trip, the expedition team
worked closely with Tom Albert and Dr. Bob Gabrys of GSFC's Education Office on
the design of the education and webcast plans. Schools selected through the Aqua Project's "You Be the Scientist" program participated in the adventures by
interacting with the team via a special webchat during the live webcasts. The
webcasts were available to anyone with Internet access, while the chat sessions
were restricted to the pre-selected participating schools. Topics of the
webcasts included Inuit culture, sea ice, ozone, remote sensing, and satellite
technology. During the webcast from the Qarmartalik School, the local Inuit
students and students from schools in the United States exchanged information
about their respective cultures. The following U.S. schools participated in the
live chat sessions: Indian Valley Middle School, Harleysville, PA; Forest Hills
High School, Sidman, PA; Brigantine North Middle School, Brigantine, NJ; Red
Cloud High School, Pine Ridge, SD; DuVal High School, Greenbelt, MD; Northwest
High School, Gaithersburg, MD; Mississippi School for the Deaf, Jackson, MS; and
Terry Parker High School, Jacksonville, FL. Other schools from Europe, South
America, Asia, and Australia were online at various times as well.
All-in-all, ten webcasts were completed, usually at 22 kilobits per second to allow schools with 28.8 kilobits per second (or higher) modem connections to participate. However, exclusive webcasts were broadcast to San Francisco's Exploratorium on April 24 at 100 kilobits per second and another to GSFC on April 30 at 50 kilobits per second, the latter in concert with the Center's 40th Anniversary celebration. On April 29, Goddard Space Flight Center's Deputy Director William Townsend participated in a live web chat with a select group of students from the Qarmartalik School. |
 Chief Scientist Dr. Claire Parkinson presents a slide show on sea ice at the Qarmartalik School in Resolute Bay. |
The Team and History in the making
From GSFC to the Arctic