Adam’s Cordova high science club visiting Fox tunnel.

This is picture from last week in Nightmute. That was perfect spring day in the village.

Church

Weather was still not helping us too much, however, Dave (pilot)’s great navigation fix this problem and we are very much on time and success to meet students at three communities (Igiugig, McGrath and Takotna).

We are safely to back Fairbanks on Friday evening. about 2900 miles air trip. Thanks Dave and Ned travel with me! and deeply appreciate always for  teachers and principals at each villages!!

We left Bethel this morning to the north-east. Because coastal region looks not ideal… So we flew Crooked Creek, Sleetmute, Koliganek, New Stuyahok then Igiugig.

Long day!

Day 3, we had a great sunshine day today. We met Shageluk Joy’s class first things in the morning.

Then Kasigluk

Then Nightmute, it was perfect spring day! So different, last time I was there by snowmachine with 70-80mph snow storm.

Weather was still not great! We made out PWS but after crossing Cook Inlet, snow storm was started then we could not cross mountains. All of the pass was no visublity single engine cessna need ground contact. So we head back to Kenai, then disscuss new plan…

I send e-mail to John at Port Heiden cancelled, Mark at Iguigig postpone. New contact to Joy at Shageluk to visiting today. Interior is still very beautiful spring but not Peninsula!

Dave(pilot), Ned and me are leaving beautiful Fairbanks to rainy Prince Willam Sounds on Monday!

At first we stop Tatitlek to meet student, change battery, download data.

Then moing to Cordova, rain getting really hard!

Then Chenega Bay to stay overnight.

Dear Science Teachers and Principals,

Thank you for supporting our program. Most of the students must be exciting having completed statewide testing and are approaching the end of the semester!  This is a critical time for measuring frost depth from frost tubes. If you spend 5 minutes to check your frost tubes, it will make a big difference in understanding seasonal frost conditions in Alaska!  We now have 160 schools working with our program, and are starting to get great results from our monitoring efforts.

Here is a recent update of our program:
1.    We do have good number of teachers for GLOBE workshop, but still a few seats available. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is an international environmental education program that engages K-12 students in conducting their own scientific research investigations. The Alaska GLOBE Partnership will be offering GLOBE training for teachers in 2010 at UAF during two 5-day sessions, 24 – 28 May and also during 21 – 25 June. We will teach you how to carry out research of the Atmosphere (air temperature, precipitation, cloud cover), Plant Phenology (Budburst, Green up, Green down), Ice Seasonality (Freeze up, Break up), and Frost Tube (timing and depth of soil freezing) with me. We can provide lodging and transportation expenses on an application basis. Once you receive our training, you become a certified GLOBE teacher and we will give you equipment so your students can carry out GLOBE investigations. If you are interested in receiving GLOBE training during either of the 5-day sessions, please contact Martha Kopplin at mrkopplin@alaska.edu so she can send you an application and more details about the training. I hope to hear from you soon.

2.    We will plan to update Google Earth permafrost file for frost depth at the end of frost season. If you do not install Google Earth yet, please do it. More information or any question, contacts me. We will also update temperature data at the end of this summer season.
3.  We will plan to go to Kilimanjaro with two Alaskan science teachers and two Kotzebue students this fall! This is wonderful news for me and all of you can join this expedition throughout the Internet. We try to set up real time Q&A, pictures, and many measurements. You will feel climb with us. More information, see the GLOBE Africa region<http://www.xpeditiononline.com/kili2010.html> .

Hope all of you join and monitor our Internet live classroom! More later.

4.    For frost tube schools, thank you for the information updated. The time is the maximum frost depth that the most important time of the year, please check out your tube and report to me!  Then I will update at your school data in our web page. You can check this winter’s data at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AkcjJ2o4AGGTdG5zNS1mN2lCUmNseUdqSTF

The worksheet is available, if you need it at:
http://www.uaf.edu/water/projects/permafrost/sheet.doc

We will develop lessons this summer. I know several schools (e.g. Joy, Delta Junction, Begich) need deeper frost tube, I will try to make deeper…

5.    We start planning for spring airplane trip to the villages. Tentative schedule is following, you will know my real time location at “Twitter http://twitter.com/uafpermafrost”
4/19 Tatitlik, Cordova, Chenega Bay +
4/20 Port Heiden, Igiugig +
4/21 Koliganek, New Stuyahok, Platinium, Bethel
4/22 Tununak, Napapichuak, Kasigluk, Nightmute, Shageluk
4/23 Takotna, McGrath +

+ we may additional visit, if we have a time.

6.  The working  “permafrost reference book” for schools and communities progress that still projected to delivery in 2011. I start searching archive photography, elder’s story for each community. If you have some old pictures, information, let me know. (http://www.ine.uaf.edu/permafrost/permafrost/p.html).

7. For the IPY (International Polar Year) science meeting in Oslo, I will be there and talking about our data and the network. If you are in Oslo at the same time, my talk will be the first day on June 8^th.

Again, thank you for your participants.
Enjoy nice rest of the spring!

When I drove back from Anchorage today, it was Chinook around Healy as usual. It was 18dC!

One of the most striking features of the chinook is the chinook arch, which is a band of stationary stratus clouds caused by air rippling over the mountains due to orographic lifting. To those unfamiliar with the chinook, the chinook arch may look like a threatening storm cloud at times. However, they rarely produce rain or snow. They can also create stunning sunrises and sunsets.

The Chinook is a foehn wind, a rain shadow wind which results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air which has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes.

As moist winds from the Pacific (also called Chinooks) are forced to rise over the mountains, the moisture in the air is condensed and falls out as precipitation, while the air cools at the moist adiabatic rate of 5°C/1000 m (3.5°F/1000 ft). The dried air then descends on the leeward side of the mountains, warming at the dry adiabatic rate of 10°C/1000m (5.5°F/1000 ft).^[5]

The turbulence of the high winds also can prevent the normal nocturnal temperature inversion from forming on the lee side of the slope, allowing night-time temperatures to remain elevated.^{[5] ( from Wikipedia)}

It is just game, but this can tell you almost 100 years of climate and Tanana River ice condition!!