NSA Atqasuk Facility
Map of the ARM facility location at Atqasuk, Alaska
Aerial view of the Atqasuk site
The Pumpkin Shelter and instrumentation platform in July
The Atqasuk facility, which is part of the larger ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) North Slope of Alaska site, was installed the summer of 1999 off of a road near the Atqasuk Airport. Located approximately 70 miles south of Barrow, Atqasuk is adjacent to the Meade River. Its climate is much more continental than that of Barrow.
Atqasuk (population 225) has an economy that is largely based on subsistence fishing and caribou hunting. The Atqasuk community infrastructure includes a store, a gas station, a very impressive school, a health clinic, a firehouse, a community center, a power plant, a water plant, and, of course, the airport. Travel to Atqasuk is typically by scheduled bush airline. There are at least four scheduled flights to and from Atqasuk from Barrow each day. Local people also travel to Barrow by snow machine, which takes 3 to 4 hours depending upon the speed.
Operational Status/Instrumentation
Current list of Atqasuk instruments.
Two local residents of Atqasuk—Doug Whiteman and Melvin Wong—frequently visit the facility to ensure everything is in operating order.
There are no land lines that run to Atqasuk (or to Barrow for that matter). This means that all communications, both voice and data, are through commercially supplied satellite links. We are currently transferring our data through a 56kb line. This is sufficient for the current instrumentation bandwidth load.
Co-located Science Projects (non-ARM)
Research funded by the National Science Foundation Arctic System Science Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions is immediately adjacent to the Atqasuk facility as well as to the Barrow facility.
Shots of Atqasuk from a web camera. Click image to enlarge.
