Given that this is the first time we’ve worked at the stream, we were relieved to find out that our equipment was functioning as expected and recorded the flood that occurred during our move down here. I downloaded the time lapse cameras today and stitched the images into the movies below. These cameras were designed for hunters to figure out when is the best time to shoot deer or whatever, so they are not the highest quality. But they are cheap and waterproof, and suit our needs well enough. I stitched the images into the movies below. The date and time is stamped on the bottom of the image. We arrived on the 25th in the late afternoon, and you can see the stream start to rage at just about this time, due to the intense rainfall which has no where to go but into the stream. The plot below is from the pressure transducer we left at the bottom of the stream. You can see the stream is gradually getting bigger each day, due to the increase in ice melt, and on the 25th it jumps up substantially due to the rainfall. One of our goals in this project is to determine how much of the water in the larger rivers in this area is coming from glaciers and how much from precipitation. Collecting data like this is the first step in that process.


Ten days of timelapse camera data at our stream gaging site. Note how the water rises in the afternoon of 25th, when we arrived there.


Here’s the camera set up for those images.


Another ten days of timelapse camera data, looking up towards the terminus.


Here’s the camera set up for those images.


The data from our pressure transducer, quantitatively showing what the photos reveal.


The sonic ranger is suspended on the cable over the river. The logger is in the blue tote, next to the white air temperature sensor on the pole.


A close-up of the sonic ranger.

In general it was a foggy day today, and our energy level was pretty low. Jason and Joey hiked up to the glacier a little ways to install another time lapse camera that we had left there 10 days ago but didn’t have the chance to set up. I spent the morning on the phone dealing with the logistics of our airborne lidar campaign starting next week. Some chaos erupted with that over the past week as Tom, the pilot we used based in Kaktovik, had to return to civilization due to some medical issues, leaving Kaktovik without a plane. This also caused some concern with our take-out in a few days, but I think everything will work out. Jason also returned with some scrap conduit he found melted out from the glacier, so we beefed up our sonic ranger station a bit. The mosquitos have come out in full force here as well. I had never seen so many at our base camp before we came down here so we knew there would be lots here. Likely this is just a taste of what they are like down on the tundra. We even saw some caribou today, hanging out on the aufeis, trying to escape them. Likely we’ll see lots of those too in the next few days.


Though these two panoramas are not in exactly the same location, you can see the difference in stream flow due to the rain. The water is much more turbid and is beginning to fill the full width of the banks we are using for a gaging site. (Click on the panorama and drag to look around, press Shift to zoom in, Command (Mac) or Control (PC) to zoom out.) Enlarge this panorama


Enlarge this panorama


Turner likes the tent.


Time for zerberts.


The light was nice when I rolled over, so I tried to capture it. (Click on the panorama and drag to look around, press Shift to zoom in, Command (Mac) or Control (PC) to zoom out.) Enlarge this panorama