The SYNRAMS ice station

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 Environmental 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.