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It was brought to my attention that there are a few people out there who are not entirely clear about what I do. And since I am so enthusiastic about my work, and because I love to share the wonders of science (or could it be the raging and blatant narcicism?), I have constructed this little page to describe what it is that allows me to live in such a neat place and have such neat adventures.
I work for the Alaska Climate Research Center, which is part of the Atmospheric Sciences Group of the Geophysical Institute. The Geophysical Institute is a major, world renowned Earth and Space Science research facility. To sum it up in an easy way:
The Geophysical Institute studies everything from the center of the Earth to the center of the Sun.
My official title is Research Technician. So, what the heck is that? Well, here is what I do: my job is to oversee the day to day operations of the Alaska Climate Research Center. This can include filling requests for weather data from other researchers at UAF and abroad, students, teachers, lawyers, industrial interests, and just about anybody who would need to know what the weather was like in any particular location at any particular time. I also field a large myriad of questions about weather and climate. One of our biggest jobs is fielding questions from tourists about typical summer weather in Alaska.
I also am in charge of publishing periodic reports regarding montly and yearly climate. The monthly climate reports are seen in newspapers around the state.
A major portion of my work deals with the maintenence and expansion of the ACRC website. The maintenence of the website requires constant updates of data, charts, and maintenence to ensure that all of the links to other WWW sites remain accurate and up to date. I am in the process of reorganizing, restructuring, and rebuilding the website, which is requiring much in the way of out and out brand-new .html authoring, and html is still a new language to me, so everyday is a learning experience.
The other aspect of my work involves the research projects in which I am involved.
My first research project was a study of the circulation patterns over Barrow, Alaska, and how they have changed over time. we studied this circulation to try to find a cause for a decrease in precipitation at Barrow that has been observed over the last century. Our findings were not what we had intially hypothesized, but we did find evidence of new concepts in the temperature profile of the Arctic airmass which may prove important. The paper which resulted from this study is currently in peer-review for hopeful publication in the Royal Society's International Journal of Climatology. You can read the abstract of the paper here.
I also did some work on another paper dealing with sea ice concentration along the sea coast in Northern Alaska. Dr. Gerd Wendler, my supervisor, was looking at polynyas, or openings in the sea-ice. I was helping the investigation by looking into extreme wind events along the coast, to see if the possibility of severe wind opening polynyas existed.
For my current project, I am investigating the structure and dynamics of the summertime temperature inversion over Barrow, Alaska. During my previous research, we found an unusual peak in the occurrance of a surface temperature inversions during the summer, when it was thought that temperature inversions were quite rare in the Arctic. I am looking into the possibilities that the summer inversions could be driven by a sea breeze effect. I will have more info about all of these projects as time presents itself.
Visit these pages for more info:
Alaska Climate Research Center
Brian Hartmann Professional Page
Go back to Brian Hartmann Online