LIE: Line Islands Experiment

Summary

During March and April 1967, field parties from NCAR and other meteorological research organizations, universities, and governmental agencies established research bases in the Line Islands, a group of small atolls more than 1000 miles south of Hawaii. Some 80 to 100 people -- scientists and construction and support personnel -- were in the Line Islands during the period of the Experiment. Quarters were established and research facilities set up in World War II barracks on Palmyra Island, in a recently abandoned Air Force camp on Christmas Island, and on Fanning Island in an old cable station that was leased for a research base by the University of Hawaii. From these three islands and from aircraft and ships in the vicinity, observation groups collected one of the most comprehensive sets of meteorological data in the oceanic part of the Equatorial Trough Zone for a variety of basic studies.