AIDJEX Bulletin #40 - Polar Science Center - University of Washington

The Synrams Ice Station
Samuel P. Burke and Beaumont M. Buck
Polar Research Laboratory, Inc.
ABSTRACT
A low power, unattended, ice station for collecting
data has been developed to collect synoptic
environmental data in polar regions for a
period of two years. An array of 10 of these ice
stations was installed 250-550 nautical miles
north of the Alaskan coast during the spring of
1975. In each station, 24 hours worth of the
most recent data, made up of eight 32-bit words,
are retained in memory for burst transmission to
the RAMS (Random Access Measurement System)
receiver in the polar orbiting NIMBUS-F satellite.
Surface platform location to a CPE of about 5 km
is obtained through doppler measurement of the
transmitted signal. This program is part of a
continuing Arctic Research in Knvironmental
- Acoustics (AREA) project sponsored by the Office
of Naval Research, and was performed in cooperation
with the Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment
(AIDJEX) to study sea ice dynamics and
underwater acoustics ambient noise.
of the recently-launched NIMBUS F satellite. That
system was developed primarily for NCAR's
(National Center for
.'
Atmospheric Research) Tropical
Wind, Energy Con ersion and Reference Level
Experiment (TWERLE) Although designed for icecovered
seas, SYNRAMS is easily adaptable to
open-ocean applications by employing a somewhat
different buoy hull configuration. Data is measured
and stored in a solid state memory every
three hours, eight times per day, (at the standard
"synoptic weather" times of 00002, 03002, etc).
with the newest data replacing the oldest data
in memory. The NIMBUS F polar orbiting satellite
receives signals transmitted by the ice station
during one or more of the satellite's 13 daily
orbits over the Arctic region. The periodic data
collection and the digital memory, which requires
only one satellite pass per day for complete data
retrieval, make SYNRAMS unique in that all other
RAMS users employ platforms that report data only
at the time the satellite is in view.
The location of the SYNRAMS array installed in
the spring of 1975 is shown in Figuke 1. It
INTRODUCTION
Although some early models of data buoys
employing platform-to-ground stations (HF), to
satellite (VHF), and to aircraft (MF), have been
tested previously in the Arctic, the =optic
- Random Access Measurement S-ystem (SYNRAEIS) described
here and the Arctic Environmental Buoy
(AEB) represent the first attempt by the US to
use such stations on a large scale for major
scientific projects. The result of development
and planning hased on years of Arctic experience,
the successful deployment of these remote stations
during the spring of 1975 represents a
significant advance in Arctic technology. The
advantages of small, lofig-life, unattended automatic
data buoys for scientific data collection
over the extremely expensive manned stations is
obvious.
The successful development of these data buoys
has been accomplished with a limited budget,
tight schedule, and meager installation resources.
The achievement required close cooperation, imagination
and foresight between the sponsoring
agency, ONR, and the AIDJEX Project Office and
PRL.
BACKGROUND
The SYWlS ice station is designed to automatically
measure and record underwater ambient
FlW DATA BUOY IMSTALLATIONS
noise, barometric pressure, and air emperature AT END OF SPRING 1975
in polar seas. It utilizes the RAMS
i
capability
29
IEEE OCEAN '75 - 413