Automatic Collection of Tilt and Strain Data from Tabular Icebergs

Drift tracks of Antarctic tabular icebergs have been studied by means of satellite-tracked buoys since the early 1970s. More recently, a growing interest in the possibility of using Antarctic icebergs to supply fresh water to arid areas has made resources available for more sophisticated experiments, and in 1978 three prototype stations were designed to measure interactions between tabular icebergs and the ocean. These stations were deployed in late 1979, and in early 1981.The purpose of this paper is, firstly, to communicate some of our experiences with an earlier type of automatic data collection platform, and, secondly, to show that the substantial amount of tilt and strain data available from this station is unsuitable for data analysis. We discuss aspects of the data collected by the first of the three automatic stations, paying particular attention to the quality of the recorded strain and tilt data. It is shown that an unfortunate choice of instrument sensitivity and range severely limits the usefulness of the collected data, and that limitations in the data sampling regime make data analysis by conventional statistical methods very difficult. Several changes are proposed for the design of future data collection platforms for tabular icebergs, and some suggestions are made about data sampling. As this paper only concerns iceberg research, we do not discuss investigations of sea-ice drift made in the same area.