While investigating the sudden appearance of cracks in ice near the northernmost tip of the Earth for several months last summer, Jacqueline Richter-Menge, EG ’79, ’81M/EG, constantly kept an eye on the research vessel she called home.
Getting stranded on an ice floe or having to be rescued via helicopter "is definitely not cool," says Richter-Menge, who served as a UD trustee during her two years in graduate school, then joined the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H.
Polar bears are another key concern for Richter-Menge and some 50 other scientists studying global climate as part of a project dubbed SHEBA, for Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean.
"They’re gorgeous," she says of the bears, "but they’re not scared of people. They look at us as a food source."
The bears also tend to view scientific instruments as expensive playthings, Richter-Menge says, recalling how she and her team watched a mother bear and cub frolicking on the ice.
"We were standing there saying, ’Oh, isn’t that cute.’ Then we saw her rolling on her back like a cat playing with yarn, and we realized she had some of our cable. She turned it into dental floss!"
Such adventures are all part of the job for Richter-Menge, who has conducted research in some of the world’s most forbidding regions
over the past 17 years. Her polar research has required frequent residence in "heated tents on ice caps," she says, adding, "Those facilities are rustic."
By comparison, accommodations for the SHEBA research team–the Canadian Coast Guard vessel, Des Groseilliers–are "very, very nice," she says. The ship was intentionally frozen into ice north of Alaska on Oct. 2, 1997, where it stayed until October of this year when the field season ended. It features a talented staff of cooks, a laundry service, private rooms and showers, entertainment options including movies and "plenty of Canadian hospitality," according to Richter-Menge, a three-way UD legacy whose mother, M. Jane Richter, CHEP ’59, ’82, is a current trustee. Jacqueline’s father is John E. Richter, EG ’56, and her grandmother is Margaret Ruyter Richter, AS ’33.
The full-service village aboard Des Groseilliers helps the SHEBA team members endure temperatures ranging from zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer, to minus 50 degrees C (minus 58 degrees F) in the winter. During the summer, Richter-Menge says, researchers wear cool-weather gear designed primarily to keep them dry. Over the winter, fashions focus more on warmth and the need to avoid freezing to death.
What is the SHEBA project? Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Japanese government and other groups, Richter-Menge and her peers are examining how conditions in the Arctic affect climate worldwide. The data they collect–from the ice, air and sea within a 30-mile radius of their ice-bound ship–could address ongoing mysteries and help improve the accuracy of global climate predictions.
Some scientists believe, for instance, that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through human activities such as burning fossil fuels could increase global temperatures enough to melt all of the Arctic sea ice. Because that ice covers a region as large as the United States, such a significant melting event would be catastrophic, resulting in widespread flooding.
Other scientists disagree with these dire predictions, however. And, many existing climate models contain insufficient data to fully describe the impacts of physical conditions and events in the Arctic.
Enter the SHEBA research team. The Des Groseilliers–so named for the 17th-century explorer, Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, who co-discovered the Great Lakes–was first wedged into Arctic ice 320 miles north of Deadhorse, Alaska, and then closer to the North Pole, over 450 miles north of Barrow.
The SHEBA scientists were mapping the properties of the Arctic ice pack; measuring the temperature, saltiness and current of the icy waters beneath it; deploying sensor-laden balloons into the atmosphere; and collecting satellite data on wind direction, humidity and other conditions.
Richter-Menge’s research focuses on the movements and characteristics of the ice pack. She studies, for example, the thickness of the ice from point to point, and the sudden formation of cracks, both of which can dramatically affect the transfer of heat between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere, through the ice cover.
"We’re trying to understand the interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice and the ocean," she says. "We need to incorporate better experimental data into climate models so that we can forecast what will happen in the future, say, if the Earth’s protective ozone layer continues to thin or if the temperature increases by another degree. We need to help people understand this place where we live a little bit better."
Collecting such important data in remote regions means Richter-Menge sometimes must rely on her husband, Richard, and her parents to help care for her two daughters. "My family has been wonderfully supportive," she says. "This past summer, the girls were in Delaware, getting to play in pools that were actually warm, instead of these freezing cold things we call ponds in New Hampshire!"
When asked whether she thinks the Earth is, indeed, getting warmer because of human environmental impacts, Richter-Menge says data will tell. People probably are affecting the climate, she says, but some changes may be related to normal, cyclical events. "Everyone will have to stay tuned for an answer," she says. "With the SHEBA project, we’re collecting data on ice impacts over an entire year, and we’ll continue to monitor over the longer term. The goal is to understand how and why climate changes occur so that we can anticipate potential problems, before they happen."
–Ginger Pinholster