Learn more about the largest, highest-resolution snow-depth measurement-campaign within Arctic Alaska ever made, in support of a variety of scientific and regulatory needs.
I just completed making over 20 billion measurements of snow depth over about 1500 square kilometers of tundra and mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — my third year mapping snow on [...]
This past weekend we took on perhaps our most challenging photogrammetric project yet – mapping sea ice 150 miles northeast of Deadhorse during the ICEX 2020 project.
About a month ago I mapped snow cover of about 1/3 of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and here I present some initial processing results along with some thoughts on its [...]
While individually processing the tens of thousands of vertical mapping photos from my last trip to the 1002 Area of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I couldn't help but to linger on the [...]
I just returned from a few weeks of using fodar to map the snow depth of over 1/3 of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at 12.5 cm resolution, as well as about 700 square [...]
We spent most of November 2018 in Botswana studying elephant habitats using fodar, expanding on our work in 2017. This blog summarizes our 2018 mapping work from acquisitions to data validation, [...]
Here I share the first processing results of my 1002 Area topographic mapping effort and find these data suitable for measuring topographic change at the centimeter level. I also have a few [...]
Because my first mission to Earth was so interesting and successful, I was asked to return to learn about ecology in a region called Africa, which is much different than the Arctic part of [...]
This summer I mapped all of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1002 Area, as well as all of the glaciers draining into it, covering about 8000 km2 in total. The map resulting from these [...]
In the global conflict for dominance over the shape of the earth’s surface, plate tectonics has been the clear victor over erosional processes in the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife [...]
Text and photos by Turner Nolan Earth date: Sunday, 26 August 2018 Today I am being transported to the planet Earth to learn the ways of its inhabitants and report back to my people. I am [...]
As of July 26, not only are the winter 2018 seismic tracks still visible at Pt Thompson, the depressions they left behind are still measurable topographically with fodar. I believe that it is [...]
In a little over a month after my first flight, I’ve now completed about 95% of acquisitions of the best topographic map ever made of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1002 Area, [...]
Week Two of my mapping efforts in the 1002 Area ended with acquisitions about 33% complete, covering ~2000 km2 at 5″ resolution by taking ~50,000 photos in ~7000 miles of flying. My goal [...]
Last Sunday (24 June 2018), on my first day of creating the best topographic map ever made of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I was fortunate to find that seismic [...]
Turner and I spent a long weekend in Talkeetna, attending the 8th Annual Talkeetna Fly In, and used the opportunity to test some new fodar upgrades as well as participate in an opportunistic [...]
This blog will hopefully go a long way towards dispelling the myth that fodar cannot be used to measure ground topography beneath a tree canopy. Whether it is the best tool for the job depends [...]
Last week Turner and I began our 2018 field season in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by mapping about 20 glaciers there on a beautiful, sunny day. Our hope for the rest of the season is to [...]
There are a lot of remote, beautiful places in Alaska that we would like to map to assist a variety of useful public purposes, as Alaska is not mapped nearly as well as the rest of the country. [...]
On Sunday, 8 April 2018, we used fodar to map Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. This blog analyzes the quality of that map and its significance. The methods and discussion are [...]
We mapped the tallest mountain in North America last weekend! This blog tells the tale of how a family of three made the best map ever of Denali, almost on a whim. The scientific side of this [...]
This blog consolidates a number of studies that have been done to assess fodar accuracy and precision, as well as reviews some related terminology and concepts that I think are important. [...]
After a busy summer mapping in Alaska, I headed south, really far south — to Botswana! This story begins one day last year while I was watching a documentary about the Okavango Delta and [...]
It was a busy summer at Fairbanks Fodar, flying over 25,000 miles in total, and given the work in hand already for 2017 it seemed reasonable to invest in new aircraft and improved mapping [...]
It’s been a busy year for Fairbanks Fodar. This blog gives an overview of how I’ve spent much of my past two summer vacations, which, especially given my new-found employment status, [...]
This week we completed acquisition of data for the entire west coastline of Alaska, mapping over 2000 miles of beach from Icy Cape in the north to Platinum in the south, a length longer than the [...]
Today we delivered three projects to the National Park Service’s Arctic Network related to understanding the impacts of climate change on the Arctic Landscape. The data I show below is [...]
Earlier this summer we acquired data from about 5000 square kilometers of Denali National Park and Preserve, about 1/5 of its area, and we now we have some preliminary results to share. The [...]
I spent my 50th birthday documenting and measuring landscape change in the Arctic as part of projects that began 60 years ago or more, giving me occasion to reflect on where I’ve been and [...]
I returned today after another blitzkreig mapping mission to support long-term studies of Arctic permafrost and glacier melt in response to a changing climate, flying 20 hours out of 34 while [...]
I returned today from a short but intense trip to the Arctic, flying 25 out of 52 hours to acquire 22,000 photos, mapping about 100 miles of the Dalton Highway and Sagavanirktok River near [...]
Today we delivered data acquired for the Alaska Department of Transportation near Valdez and in Fairbanks, and found that their validation data showed what we have always found — it just [...]
Our paper on determining the highest mountain in the US Arctic using fodar was published today in the journal The Cryosphere. The paper settles the issue of which peak is highest, resulting from [...]
From Fairbanks to Valdez, this week Fairbanks Fodar has mapped a lot of pavement. Earlier this month we got a few contracts from the Alaska Department of Transportation, following up on the [...]
Today we completed acquisitions for the massive 5000 square kilometer Denali National Park project, and completed a bonus survey of the park road at higher resolution. You can catch up on the [...]
After two weeks of effort, flying over 6000 miles and acquiring over 35,000 photos, we have now nearly completed acquisitions for the most detailed and accurate topographic map of Denali National [...]
A week ago today I was flying over the haul road near Deadhorse acquiring photos to make a map of the aufeis threatening to close the haul road, and today I delivered that map. Snow and ice are [...]
Today I found out that the State of Alaska officially released the first batch of data from our coastal work in southwest Alaska. Included here are all of the villages that they were able to [...]
Today I flew to Deadhorse to map the stretch of the haul road that got shut down last year when aufeis from the Sag River decided to divert the river over the road. This road is the only ground [...]
Today marks completion of acquisitions of a continuous mile-wide swath of topographic measurements of Alaskan coastline from Wales to Platinum, plus some inland rivers, covering a combined linear [...]
Work on the DNR coastal project made a big leap forward today with the mapping of the villages of Goodnews and Quinhagak, as well as the remainder of Goodnews Bay, completing the southeastern [...]
Today I mapped the coast from Bethel to Goodnews Bay. Sort of… Like most field work, weather is everything. For the past several days there’s been a huge trough spanning the entire [...]
Phase two of the DNR project mapping coastlines and villages in western Alaska began today by mapping the village of Eek, and by day’s end included the villages of Kongiginak and [...]
Today I flew from Fairbanks to Bethel via the scenic route — following the Yukon River to check out what was happening to the river ice. I have been working on developing new techniques to [...]
At the risk of seeming to be yet another company jumping on the Earth Day bandwagon gratuitously, I just thought to mention that every idea we have about ‘protecting’ our planet stems [...]
Our 2016 summer field season started off yesterday with a long day trip to map ice and snow in the watershed of Lake Peters in eastern Brooks Range. The project is led by Dr Darrell Kaufman of [...]
Fairbanks Fodar was featured in this month’s Alaska Business Monthly. The article describes some of our recent work and promise for Alaska. Click on one of the links below to read it. [...]
Between 1960-1995, a crew at the USGS made annual flights to photograph the state of glaciers in western North America, with the bulk of them taken by Austin Post to form what would become the [...]
After the horrendous flooding of the Yukon in 2013 caused by ice jams, I’ve been working on demonstrating the how fodar may help us understand ice jam dynamics, improve predictions of [...]
This past year was a busy one for Fairbanks Fodar, but next year is showing signs of being even busier. Here is a preview of what’s on the calendar already for 2016. Mapping [...]
While at AGU a few weeks ago, several people asked me about the original blog posts where I described my initial successes with fodar and the events leading up to it. These links had been broken [...]
Following our talk at AGU regarding the tallest peak in the US Arctic, a few news articles popped up. Here’s one from National Geographic. And another from our local Fairbanks paper which [...]
Which are the highest peaks in the US Arctic? A glaciologist and a ski mountaineer use Fodar to settle the debate Text by Kit DesLauriers Photos by Andy Bardon Since the beginning of time humans [...]
Today our paper on determining the highest peak in the US Arctic was published in The Cryosphere Discussions and we also released our final results in a talk at the 2015 Fall American Geophysical [...]
Processing over 50,000 photos covering over 1200 square kilometers, we have now finished creating high resolution digital elevation models and orthoimages of all 29 villages from Wales to Bethel [...]
Field acquisitions for the Wales-to-Bethel project ended for the year yesterday with my return to Fairbanks, after spending 40 days in the field, flying 14,262 miles, taking 128,502 photos, [...]
After 4 days of bad weather, today I mapped Chefornik, completing our goal of mapping all of the villages between Wales and Bethel on the west coast of Alaska. After two very productive days [...]
North met South when I mapped the Golden Pixel on Monday, creating a continuous mile-wide swath of imagery from Wales to Cheevak, in a 24-hour mapping marathon taking advantage of a 36 hour [...]
Today I flew from Nome to St Mary’s, doing some final cleanup en route before getting chased off the coast just as I thought I was going to map the Yukon River delta. I fueled last night so [...]
Despite forecasts to the contrary, I woke up this morning to find that clear skies were over Teller and Wales so I headed out there at first light and finished all work north and west of Nome. It [...]
Today we passed through the crux of the project by mapping Wales, thus completing the coastline for the entire northern half of the project. After spending two and a half days watching the storm [...]
With the storm still raging, I had some time to process the Nome acquisitions from two days ago. Here’s a top view of the new map. Mouse-over to see the topography created by the same [...]
Taking advantage of a tight weather window, I flew 16 out of 28 hours, covering 1500 miles while taking 15,000 photos of lots of coast and four more villages, and ended up in Nome. My original [...]
[Note: This post was originally published August 21st, but mistakenly not with the Fodar News tag] Ever since I saw Toksook Bay on the map I’ve been thinking of 1980s B-grade horror [...]
[Note: this post was originally published August 20th, but mistakenly not with the Fodar News tag] Tuntutuliak and Kipnuk are now in the can. Or would be if I were shooting film. So I guess [...]
The Yukon and Kuskokwim Delta have formed one giant delta over millions of years and the area is generally known as the Y-K delta for short. The current deltas are separated by about two hundred [...]
This morning the best weather on the west coast was in the place where the weather is usually the worst, so I headed there. Between the Yukon and Kuskokwim River deltas lies some small mountains [...]
On Monday I relocated to Bethel and have been able to fly a bit each day, clawing my way under the clouds. The forecast Monday was for the Yukon Delta to be open, so I headed there early in the [...]
Our peer-reviewed paper on mapping snow depths was recently published in the journal “The Cryosphere”. To my knowledge, there is no better way to measure the depth of snow on [...]
Another good day of weather led to 9 hours of flying and 8880 photos covering 860 miles of flight lines, including all of the coast from Golovin Bay to Stebbins. The early morning showed fog over [...]
After nearly a week of waiting for the weather to break, today the clouds lifted and I was able to map the coast from Unalakleet to Golovin Bay, in a 9 hour flight capturing 7900 photos. The past [...]
Since my arrival in Unalakleet the weather has deteriorated. Yesterday brought consistently low ceilings throughout Norton Sound, with winds increasing as the day wore on. This morning I woke [...]
In less than a week from signing a contract with the State to map the entire coastline from Wales to Bethel, we have already made our first map here. Or rather our second, since I made one here [...]
Fairbanks Fodar was just awarded a huge project by Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources — to map over 2000 miles of coastline in western Alaska. The project is to map a 1.5 km [...]
Last week I flew two long days and acquired a lot of data. I’ve since processed and delivered all of it. You can visit Fodar Earth to view the data in the 3D, but here are a few [...]
After eight days on standby, the weather finally cooperated and we had two big days on the north slope of Alaska — 19 hours of flying, 7 projects, and over 8,000 photos totaling 350 [...]
I spent a beautiful morning mapping the Denali Park Road yesterday. The weather was stunning, not a cloud in the sky and hardly a trace of wind. I launched from Fairbanks about 6 AM to beat the [...]
Two coastal mapping projects from last summer have recently been published. Both papers were presented last week at the prestigous Coastal Sediments conference, which occurs every 4 years since [...]
For the past six months, I have been working Todd Smith at AGI to build a better virtual globe. Their technology, Cesium, is an open source 3D virtual globe viewer written in HTML5, such that no [...]
Yesterday our paper on snow depth measurements was published in The Cryosphere Discussions. You can find it here http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/9/333/2015/tcd-9-333-2015.html In short, we [...]
My plane had a flat tire on Sunday, so I took the opportunity to collect some ground control points (GCPs) around the ramp to compare to maps I had made there previously. I was a bit concerned [...]
Less than a week after acquisition, AK DGGS’ Coastal Hazards program received their DEMs and orthos of Unalakleet and Shaktoolik. The DEMs were as beautiful as ever. This time we were [...]
Though my launch was delayed from Fairbanks due to fog and rain, I was able to sneak out about 9AM to head west. It was a strong headwind all the way, soI didn’t get to Unalakleet until [...]
Fairbanks Fodar latest project is measuring coastal erosion between Unalakleet and Golovin for the AK Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys. This area gets hit hard each year with storm [...]
Today we launched our new website! Follow us on Twitter @fairbanksfodar. Please let us know if you come across any quirks! Many thanks to Steve at web907.com for the help!
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