Alaska-Canada Barrenlands Traverse (AC-BT)

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This project will make an ambitious research and education transect across the North American arctic during International Polar Year 2007. The U.S. and Canadian team will collect snow measurements and snow samples along a 4000 km traverse via snowmachine from Circle, Alaska to Baker Lake, Canada. The team will visit at least 11 remote communities along the way including Native communities and diamond mines to observe and document arctic environmental change and collect observations from arctic residents. The team will interact with an established community of K-12 educators and classrooms about their journey and the science they are doing through the GoNorth! education website. The expedition will visit the Barrenlands which have seldom been studied, particularly in winter. Snow measurements and samples from this region will enrich the growing body of work using snow to track atmospheric components such as black charcoal and halogen ions. The group will also ground-truth remote sensing measurements to improve our ability to monitor snow properties via satellite. The group is using a 'journey of discovery' approach to revisit dozens of places occupied by researchers and explorers in the past 150 years. This activity is particularly relevant to IPY 2007, which begins in March of 2007.