Not many research projects have been going since 1946 – but once again, in summer 2024, researchers converged on the Juneau Icefield to learn from its intriguing ice and continue its long-term dataset and educational programs. To that end, the 2024 Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) welcomed 32 students, 13 staff, 24 teaching faculty, and another two dozen researchers. Thanks to IASC support, multiple students from underrepresented backgrounds received tuition reductions which facilitated their participation.
The JIRP academic curriculum targets glacier systems science and field skills training for mid-level undergraduate students, but it is also inclusive of early graduate level students and advanced high-school students. This eight-week field season is based around a ski traverse of the Juneau Icefield in Southeast Alaska and northern British Columbia. Expedition members stay in permanent field camps while students learn safety skills to live and work on the glaciers, introductory/intermediate glacier science, and how to conduct field research. Along the way students design and carry out their own research projects.
The academic arc of the summer begins with a focus on learning field and safety skills as well as broad introduction to glaciology and glacier mass balance. This transitions to a more in-depth focus on glaciology as well as expanding into the other areas of the JIRP curriculum including climate science, hydrology, polar engineering, geophysics, geochemistry, and more. In the second half of the program faculty continue with further in-depth teaching on glaciological and climatological topics and more field-based workshops as well as integrated overnight research trips.
The JIRP student program works in parallel with a variety of research teams who use JIRP facilities for their field campaigns. Throughout the summer JIRP students (supported by educational staff) are embedded with research teams to further their mentorship and training goals.
Faculty are encouraged to field-based instruction with students, taking advantage of their natural classroom. Faculty are selected in a competitive process from a wide range of career stages and backgrounds, rotating into the student program for two-week blocks. Faculty-led research projects in summer 2024 touched on glacier dynamics, seismology, remote sensing, ice field lapse rates, and stable isotopes.
Complementing their experiential research experiences, student reading groups discussed five key papers on Earth science and/or glaciology with central importance to the Icefield. Students were divided into small groups and, facilitated by faculty, read and discussed these key papers. One of the papers included a written (formerly oral) Tlingit history.
In addition, unique for this year, JIRP was able to host a Tlingit culture camp; a couple facilitators were able to stay for the undergraduate program and share lessons from the Tlingit language camp share with the student group.
The JIRP curriculum also includes elements of art and science communication directly into the student group research projects and presentations, which is both fun and successful. At the end of the summer, students also presented one-minute “lightning presentations” about what they learned over the summer to a public audience in Atlin, British Columbia.
Highlights
1: Mass loss of the Juneau Icefield has doubled in recent decades.
2: The Juneau Icefield is a long-term unique natural classroom for annual cohorts of students and researchers to better understand glacier- and Arctic-systems science
3: Thanks to IASC support, multiple students from underrepresented backgrounds received tuition reductions which facilitated their participation in JIRP 2024.
Date and Location:
26 May – 12 August 2024 | Juneau, Alaska, USA to Atlin, British Columbia, Canada
IASC Working Group / Committees funding the Project:
- Cryosphere WG
Project Lead
Allen Pope, Juneau Icefield Research Program, USA
Year funded by IASC
2024