The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) is a United States Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center research facility headquartered in Hanover, New Hampshire, that provides scientific and engineering support to the U.S. government and its military with a core emphasis on cold environments. CRREL also provides technical support to non-government customers.
CRREL arose from a consolidation of three antecedent organizations whose purpose was to understand frozen ground, permafrost, snow and ice as factors which were important in strategic northern areas during the Cold War. In its first 25 years CRREL researchers contributed to the understanding of polar ice caps, permafrost, and the engineering technology for developing natural resources in cold climates, such as Alaska. CRREL researchers have also made contributions to science in climate change, the understanding of wave propagation for sensor systems, the control of snow on structures and ice in navigable waterways, and the environmental remediation of military installations.
Mission areas The stated mission of CRREL is to "solve interdisciplinary, strategically important problems of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Army, DOD, and the Nation by advancing and applying science and engineering to complex environments, materials, and processes in all seasons and climates, with unique core competencies related to the Earth's cold regions."
The technical areas that CRREL staff reportedly engage in are: Biogeochemical processes in soils – Encompasses the management and remediation of military training lands and characterizing how microorganisms survive in soils subject to freezing. Infrastructure in cold regions – Addresses building envelopes, pavement technology, geotechnical engineering, the design and repair of aircraft runways, and polar facilities. The fate and transport of chemicals in the environment – Addresses the detection and the modeling of distribution and movement of chemical contaminants in soils. It includes topics relating to permafrost degradation. Hydrology and hydraulics – Encompasses the processes related to ice in rivers, locks and dams and their effects on ships. Supporting this effort is the CRREL Ice Jam Database. It also addresses snow hydrology by characterizing the distribution and runoff rates of snow, using various investigative techniques.
Support of military maneuverability and air operations – Addresses the mobility of vehicles over terrain subject to snow, ice, freezing and thawing. It includes the operation of aircraft on minimal improved landing sites. Related work addresses operations in Antarctica, supporting over-ice transport and snow and ice runways. Propagation of signals to sensors and imaging systems – Encompasses the use of ground-penetrating radar, radar, seismic sensors, and acoustic sensors to develop methods to model the propagation of millimeter-wave, seismic and acoustical signals through various media. This research is applied to the detection of unexploded ordnance and military targets. Terrestrial and meteorological processes in cold regions – Addresses the state of natural and man-made terrain for modeling their physical characteristics. It encompasses the science of sea ice and glaciers to the micro-scale processes that represent the formation of snow and ice crystals. The scientific problems include global climate change and the influence of weather on aviation and transportation. Geospatial applications for tracking water resources – Emphasizes the use of remote sensing techniques and the use of mapping imagery to understand environmental and technical problems at a geographic scale.
Facilities
The main facility is located in Hanover, New Hampshire, north of Dartmouth College. The facilities include: Cold Rooms for experimentation on frozen materials A Frost Effects Research Facility (FERF), devoted to the study of large-scale soil systems, like pavements. An Ice Engineering Facility (IEF), which is devoted to the study of ice effects in navigable waterways, hydrology and hydraulics problems, flooding, and other matters that may result from ice formation. A Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (RS/GIS) facility A permafrost tunnel near Fairbanks, Alaska. Facilities for testing coatings exposed to icing and salt environments in Fairbanks and Treat Island, Maine. Other laboratories cover chemistry, biology, and civil engineering topics.
CRREL maintains an office at Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, Alaska, and an office at the Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District in Anchorage, Alaska.
History CRREL was formed on 1 February 1961 from a merger of the earlier Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE)SIPRE (Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment) with the Arctic Construction and Frost Effects Laboratory (ACFEL).
Antecedents and establishment
CRREL's antecedents and establishment were chronicled in an official history. In 1944-53 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers established three independent organizations that were the antecedents to CRREL. Within its New England Division, the Corps of Engineers founded the Frost Effects Laboratory to "coordinate research on the effects of frost on the design and construction of roads, airfields and structures in frost-affected areas," based in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1944. The Corps of Engineers' St. Paul (Minnesota) District established its Permafrost Division in 1944 to determine design methods and construction procedures for the construction of airfields on permafrost.
The Corps established SIPRE (the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment) in 1949, which moved to Wilmette, Illinois, in 1951. Its purpose was to "conduct basic and applied research in snow, ice and frozen ground." In 1953, the Corps merged the Frost Effects Laboratory and Permafrost Division of the St. Paul District to establish ACFEL (the Arctic Construction and Frost Effects Laboratory) in Boston. In 1959, SIPRE researchers participated in the establishment of Camp Century in Greenland to study technical and scientific issues with a facility, based on the Greenland Ice Cap. Having built a new facility for the combined SIPRE and AFCEL organizations, the Corps established CRREL on 1 February 1961 in Hanover, New Hampshire.
1961-1986
During its first quarter century, CRREL researchers and staff were active in the Arctic, Antarctica, Alaska and the Great Lakes, providing climatic history data, addressing resource extraction issues and extending winter navigation.
Drilling through ice caps In 1966, CRREL researchers successfully drilled through the Greenland ice cap to a depth of . The effort took three years, but provided a continuous ice core that represented more than 120,000 years. This extended the ability of scientists to interpret climatic history and became an early source of information about global climate change. In 1968, the same CRREL team was the first to penetrate the Antarctic ice cap, after drilling through over of ice, providing a climatic record at a second location on the globe.
Facilitating Alaska North Slope oil development
The 1967 discovery of oil north of Alaska's Brooks Range raised two basic questions that CRREL was positioned to answer as a consultant to participating oil companies: how to extract oil from frozen terrain, permafrost, or from under the perennially frozen Beaufort Sea, and how best to transport the crude oil to the continental U.S. for refining and consumption.
CRREL staff members participated in the exploration of two transportation options, the use of an ice-breaking oil tanker, and the use of an over-land pipeline that would cross much of Alaska over regions of permafrost. As for the Beaufort Sea, CRREL researchers conducted studies of the properties and behavior of arctic sea ice, which would present a problem for off-shore drilling operations. CRREL researchers were active participants in both voyages of the icebreaking oil tanker SS Manhattan to assess the feasibility of the sea transport option. At the same time, CRREL engineers reviewed and advised the federal inspector of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. During the construction of the pipeline, CRREL researchers studied the engineering implications of foundations and roadways over permafrost and ice.
Freshwater navigation In the 1970s CRREL supported a Corps of Engineers initiative to extend navigation through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway throughout the winter. They developed methods to address icing of locks and the clogging of waterways with floating ice that included booms, bubblers, and coatings of locks.
Cold War role
CRREL played a role in assisting the U.S. Air Force to establish and maintain a system of Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line facilities during the Cold War era. In 1976, a CRREL researcher was instrumental in the moving of a 10-story-high, 3,300-ton DEW Line facility on the Greenland Ice Cap from a foundation that had been compromised by the movement of the ice on which it was built to a new foundation. In 1984, CRREL personnel completed their survey reports for 31 sites of the new North Warning System that replaced the DEW line.
A continuing scientific exchange between CRREL and Soviet cold regions research institutions began in 1972, these included the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Leningrad and Permafrost Research Institute in Yakutsk.
1986-present CRREL's second 25 years saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and a shift in funding that reduced the emphasis of direct appropriations from Congress to a greater reliance on reimbursement for research from CRREL's customers, as evidenced by the sponsorship of its technical reports. Customers funding CRREL research included various components of the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy. In addition, civilian agencies turned to CRREL for research answers, including the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA. In addition, a variety of private organizations funded CRREL research to solve problems that they faced. CRREL's list of technical reports lists 27 topical categories, covering science and engineering.
Military research
CRREL continued to grow its capability to serve the U.S. military with programs in signal propagation that would facilitate the detection of enemy movements via infrared imaging, radar, acoustics or seismic sensors in any meteorological conditions. It served the environmental needs of the U.S. Army by facilitating the identification and clean-up of contaminants on training lands, due primarily to partially detonated explosives or unexploded ordnance (UXO). Other researchers addressed mobility issues with vehicles over snow and muddy terrain. CRREL researchers participated in defining tactical runway requirements for the C-17 military transport aircraft.
Civilian research
CRREL staff continued to make a mark in polar research, both in the Arctic and Antarctic. In the Arctic, CRREL researchers were active in modeling shipping in the Northern Sea Route and the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) experiment, conducted in the Arctic Ocean from October 1997 to October 1998 to provide polar input to global climate models. Other researchers performed traverses of Antarctica and Greenland to collect data, pertinent to global climate change. In 2010, a CRREL researcher was co-chief scientist on another icebreaker-based scientific mission, called "Impacts of Climate Change on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment" or ICESCAPE, to determine "the impact of climate change on the biogeochemistry and ecology of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas."