University of Calgary researchers supervised by climatologist John Yackel are based at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre in northern Manitoba this spring to collect information on sea ice and snowpack that can be used to enhance the accuracy of Canada's new RADARSAT 2 imaging satellite. The team includes Peter Bezeau, Melissa Peters, J.V. Gill, Mark Christopher Fuller and Johnson Chan.
"We'll be collecting the same kind of data as RADARSAT but from ground-level, which we can use to fill in the gaps from RADARSAT's data that covers a much larger area but is not as detailed," says PhD student Mark Christopher Fuller. "It will result in important information for determining accumulation, melt rates and energy budgets for sea ice that can be used for studying shipping routes, resource exploration and other activities in the Arctic."