High Speed Internet Service Established at Oliktok, Alaska

 
Published: 31 March 2004

Thanks to a collaboration with Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC), Starband satellite internet service to Oliktok – located on the eastern side of ARM’s North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site – is being established to support the ARM Program’s Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE). With various modes of 50kb up/500kb down data transfer available, this new internet service will substantially enhance data transfer rates during the M-PACE, scheduled to begin in Fall 2004. M-PACE will provide critical measurements to aid in understanding mixed-phase (ice and water) clouds wherever they occur, leading to improvements in cloud models used in simulating global climate. BASC is providing the hardware for the link, and the service rates are inexpensive. This internet service may also be available for Atqasuk (another ARM locale at NSA) and Deadhorse (M-PACE headquarters) in the future, and is already in place at the Toolik Field Station, another locale where M-PACE research will be conducted.

A not-for-profit organization based in Barrow, Alaska, BASC is dedicated to the encouragement of research and educational activities pertaining to Alaska’s North Slope and the adjacent portions of the Arctic Ocean. Arctic residents and scientists are seeing and experiencing environmental changes that include increased thawing of permafrost, changes in the extent and thickness of sea ice, shifts in patterns of rainfall and snowfall, and changes in tundra growth. The ARM NSA Site Manager was recently elected chair of the BASC Scientific Management Advisory Committee, which provides advice to the BASC Board of Directors regarding research projects, educational outreach, and management of the Barrow Environmental Observatory.