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The Long Haul

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September 16, 2021

The Long Haul—Icekeeper

Louise Huffman

Total material cost

Item

Cost

QUANTITY

TOTAL

Engineer’s Materials List & Cost Proposal

September 16, 2021

The Long Haul—Icekeeper

Louise Huffman

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Ice Core Science

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Deep Ice Sheets in Greenland and Antarctica

Coldest

Windiest

Iciest

Most remote

places on Earth

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The Long Haul—17,702 km!

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WAIS Divide

McMurdo

New Zealand

Port Hueneme, CA

Denver, CO

WAIS Divide : West Antarctic Ice Sheet

WAIS Divide- 2005-2015—over 2 miles of ice

11,000 miles—17,702 km

How long is the trip from the field to the Ice Core Facility?

Short answer:

The cores left McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in February and arrived to the ICF in March. The cores traveled 11,000 miles (~18,000 km) from WAIS Divide to the ICF.

Longer answer:

Souney JM and 15 others (2014) Core handling and processing for the WAIS Divide ice-core project. Annals of Glaciology 55(68), 15–26. doi: 10.3189/ 2014AoG68A008.

There were three major transportation legs involved in the ~18,000 km (over 11,000 miles) retrograde of the ice cores from WAIS Divide to the ICF in Denver, CO: (1) WAIS Divide to McMurdo Station via air; (2) McMurdo Station to Port Hueneme (PTH), CA, via sea; and (3) Port Hueneme to the ICF via land.

At the height of the project, the transportation system needed to accommodate the shipment of 1440 m of ice per season.

The ice cores were flown from WAIS Divide to McMurdo Station via cold-deck (e.g. unheated aircraft cabin) LC-130 airlift. The LC-130 flight time between WAIS Divide and McMurdo Station is 3.5 hours. Within 2 hours of landing at the Pegasus blue-ice runway, the USAP’s well-coordinated Science Cargo system had the ice cores safely stored in the freezers at McMurdo Station.

In February, at the end of each field season, the ice cores were transferred from McMurdo Station’s freezers into refrigerated shipping containers and transported to Port Hueneme, CA – the US port through which most USAP cargo passes – via the USAP’s cargo vessel. This is the longest and riskiest transportation leg for the ice cores because once the refrigerated shipping containers are loaded onto the vessel they typically cannot be accessed.

Once the USAP cargo vessel reached PTH, the refrigerated shipping containers were loaded onto three flatbed semi- trailer trucks and driven the 1600 km (~1100 miles) to the ICF in Denver. Once at the ICF, the ice cores were unloaded from the refrigerated shipping containers and moved into the ICF’s –36°C archive freezer.

There is a summary of the transportation of the WAIS Divide ice cores available in this free open-access paper:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/core-handling-and-processing-for-the-wais-divide-icecore-project/82FB796D3362BFA64C8B2A582F13B26B

And there is a summary of the transportation of the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) ice cores available in this free open-access paper:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/core-handling-transportation-and-processing-for-the-south-pole-ice-core-spicecore-project/838F2C0BF93BA813DDD7A9642721A7D3

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The Long Haul—Icekeeper Challenge

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Greenland

Because I know first-hand about the US Ice Drilling Program, I am going to share that story today.

Photo 1& 2—Greenland & Antarctica

Ice cores are drilled by scientists in the coldest, windiest, iciest, most remote places on Earth including Greenland (think: Arctic, north, polar bears) and Antarctica (think south and penguins). Ice cores in these areas are drilled very deep and long and they tell the story of what climate was like on Earth over the past 800,000 years.

Photo 3-6--hauling equipment and field camp life

It takes many years of planning to go to such extreme places. These trips include hauling giant drills and equipment and months of living in remote field camps over several years to actually recover deep ice cores.

Photo 7-scientists and engineers

Designing these specialized drills that can work in extremely cold parts of the world require scientists and engineers to work together. It also requires lots of time and money to test and re-design the drills to be sure they can do the job when temperatures drop very low where spare parts can not be bought at a local store! (remember, these are the most remote places on Earth—far, far from civilization)

Photo 8-9-scientist studying core-ice core

Ice cores contain climate information locked in bubbles in the ice. Scientists begin to study the ice cores while in the field and then continue studying them for years after they return to their home institutions.

Photos 10-14

After the ice cores are brought to the surface, US scientists transport the ice cores back to the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Denver, CO where they will be processed and made available for scientists to study. This trip is long and fraught with dangers for the ice cores. From Greenland, ice cores drilled by US science programs are flown back to the US and then to the ICF in Denver. From Antarctica, the trip is much longer—from the field, the ice cores travel by army cargo plane to McMurdo Base, Antarctica where they are kept frozen until they are packed into shipping containers onto a cargo ship that travels all the way from the Southern Hemisphere to Port Hueneme, CA in the Northern Hemisphere. Each container has its own refrigeration unit—it actually has TWO in case one breaks. If both break, there is an empty container directly across from it on the ship ready for the ice cores to be moved into if necessary. At Port Hueneme the cores’ shipping containers are moved from the ship to a tractor trailer truck with 2 drivers—that truck is followed by a van with 2 more drivers. The 1000 mile (1600 km) trip takes15 hours and is done without stopping for sleep—the only stops are bathroom breaks and for changing drivers. At every stop, they check temperature readings to make sure that the refrigeration unit is still working. Remember that it takes many years and millions of dollars to drill a deep ice core and therefore getting it back to the ice core repository without letting it melt is of utmost importance!

TODAY IN THE ICEKEEPER CHALLENGE YOU WILL BE ENGINEERS IN CHARGE OF KEEPING THE ICE CORES FROM MELTING.

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Scientists and Engineers must work together

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Engineers:

Problem: Keep ice cores from melting on the long haul from the field to the ice core repository.

Outcome: Design a system that keeps your ice core from melting.

*NOTE: Like scientists, engineers must work within a budget!

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Directions

Build a shipping container for your ice core that will keep it from melting. Constraint: 75% left to be successful
Keep an expense sheet of all materials you buy at the Engineer’s Store.
5-minute warning before you must get your ice core from the freezer.

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The Long Haul:

Did your 75% of your ice core make it to the Ice Core Facility?

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Write your team’s name on the wall chart.
Unpack your ice core and mass your ice.
Write the mass on the wall chart with % left
Write your total expenses on the chart.
Figure how much you spent kr/gms

Team Name	Total Spent (DKK)	Mass of Ice core (gms) AND % left	kr/grams

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Survival Award—team with the most ice

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Engineering Award—

…divide money spent by grams of ice left

(cost per gram)—least kr/gram

kr

Grams

…team with the most grams of ice left

Team Name	Total Spent (DKK)	Mass of Ice core (gms)/% left	kr/grams

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Teaching Engineering Practices

Criteria and Contraints

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Egg Drop—moving toward engineering—solving a problem

Icekeeper was an engineering project because:

Criteria—75% of ice had to survive
Constraints—only use materials provided; time limit; expenses counted
Engineering project—give students time to re-design

Blast Off Rockets-started as just an activity

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Questioning

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Lower level question: Which team had the most ice left at the end?

Higher level question: Looking at the results from all of the teams, how would you combine two designs to make a better ice core container?

In your science notebook, write 2 higher level questions based on the Icekeeper activity.