Measuring bio-optical properties across Alaska's remote North Slope

By Jonathan Sherman

​Kyle and Jonathan loading equipment onto R/V Ukpik

​We recently returned home from a successful field campaign along the North slope of Alaska, where we studied the optical properties of coastal Arctic waters to support a research project on remote sensing of environmental change in arctic coastal aquatic ecosystems. This is one of our lab’s projects focusing on Arctic systems with collaborators from the Navel Research Laboratory, NASA, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For this project, we travelled to Prudhoe Bay, the terminus of the “Dalton highway” built to support the Trans-Alaska pipeline originating in the many oil fields of Prudhoe Bay.

At Prudhoe Bay, we met Captain Mike Fleming and boarded R/V Ukpik, a 50-ft research vessel supporting scientific Arctic research for 35 years. Aside from overcast skies (not ideal for some of our above-water radiometry), we enjoyed great weather that allowed us to sample most of our intended stations over five days.

​Ahmed and Steve (NRL) setting up the optics package at a station

Optics package at the surface of the water

Above water radiometry ​using the SVC ​HR-512i ​

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