Dear Arctic Marine Science Community,
After construction, outfitting, extensive tests, and training, the new
Arctic research vessel USCGC Healy is expected to be available beginning
approximately January 2001 for up to 200-240 days per year of Arctic marine
science support, its primary mission.
A major goal for the UNOLS Arctic Icebreaker Coordinating Committee (AICC)
during the coming months is to establish a mechanism for long-term Arctic
expeditionary planning for the Healy that will provide an
increasingly-likely (as each year draws nearer) temporal and regional
palette of science missions, international programs, options, and
requirements from which the Coast Guard and the funding agencies can draw
annual operations, science, and funding scenarios. This will probably
include by 1999 an annual advance planning workshop, perhaps to be held in
San Francisco one day before the fall AGU meeting.
To begin the process, at its upcoming meeting, 18-20 November 1998, the
AICC will discuss various advance propositions from the science community
for use of the Healy. We would like very much to hear of your ideas. The
more definite, the better, but we are interested in all ideas. You will
not be bound by what you write now. These will help guide us as we create
an organizational scheme for the advance planning workshops, and give the
Coast Guard and US funding agencies a rough advance measure of community
interest in using USCGC Healy. This will be an ongoing process, and so if
your reply misses this meeting, it will still be considered. We will
repeat a call for Healy vessel use ideas and plans on a regular basis.
The following information would be useful:
Investigator name:
Investigator email address:
Investigator telephone:
Working title of research project:
Likely support agency:
Region:
Year(s) preferred:
Season(s) preferred:
Approx. number of in-Arctic days needed (not including transits):
Approx. size of science party:
Foreign EEZs in which you need to work:
Short description of seagoing activities (e.g., "ca. 50 full-depth rosette
casts on sections crossing the Mendeleyev Ridge"):
Please reply by writing to jswift [at] ucsd.edu, with a copy to the UNOLS Office
(unols [at] gsosun1.gso.uri.edu).
James H. Swift, Chair
UNOLS Arctic Icebreaker Coordinating Committee
PS - The AICC reminds all that the Coast Guard is now accepting and will
continue to accept formal ship-time requests for funded Arctic science
missions on the Polar-class vessels and the Healy. (A ship-time request
form is available from http://gso.uri.edu/unols/unols.html.) On funded
science missions the expectation and goal is that science will be supported
in a manner and devotion to mission similar to that supported by the
operators of large UNOLS vessels.