Glaciers Monitoring: Deploying Custom Hardware in Harsh Environments

The aims of the Glacsweb project were to understand subglacial processes, especially to investigate their links with climate change, as well as developing the next generations of environmental sensor networks [Martinez et al., 2003]. The project developed all its own custom sensor network hardware a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Martinez, Kirk, Hart, J.K.
Format: Book Part
Language:unknown
Published: Springer 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/270938/
Description
Summary:The aims of the Glacsweb project were to understand subglacial processes, especially to investigate their links with climate change, as well as developing the next generations of environmental sensor networks [Martinez et al., 2003]. The project developed all its own custom sensor network hardware and software. This was partly due to the lack of suitable hardware and the annual development cycles but it also helped us to fully understand every element of the complex systems. It deployed groups of nodes called probes under temperate valley glaciers in Norway and Iceland. The progression of the system developments led to new data streams which had never been produced before in terms of time-span and the range of sensors used. Between 2003 and 2006, 30 nodes were deployed in Briksdalsbreen, Norway and a further 8 in Skalafellsjökull, Iceland in 2008. This chapter outlines the engineering and deployment challenges the research posed.