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85-538: The system connected remote Air Force sites in Alaska, such as Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W), Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) and Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), to command and control facilities and in some cases it was used for civilian phone calls. The network was originally operated by the USAF, but was turned over to RCA for operations after 1969. The opening of satellite communication links in

170-714: A bilateral agreement between the Canadian and United States governments, and by collaboration between the United States Department of Defense and the Bell System of communication companies. The DEW Line grew out of a detailed study made by a group of the nation's foremost scientists in 1952, the Summer Study Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . The subject of the study was the vulnerability of

255-546: A constant potential temperature surface. Nevertheless, the dynamic tropopause is useless at equatorial latitudes because the isentropes are almost vertical. For the extratropical tropopause in the Northern Hemisphere the WMO established a value of 1.6 PVU, but greater values ranging between 2 and 3.5 PVU have been traditionally used. It is also possible to define the tropopause in terms of chemical composition. For example,

340-738: A few years earlier on the Mid-Canada Line. The stations were interconnected by White Alice , a series of radio communications systems that used tropospheric scatter technology. For stations at the western end of the line, buildings at the deactivated Pet-4 United States Navy camp at Point Barrow were converted into workshops where prefabricated panels, fully insulated, were assembled to form modular building units 28 ft (8.5 m) long, 16 ft (4.9 m) wide, and 10 ft (3.0 m) high. These modules were put on sleds and drawn to station sites hundreds of miles away by powerful tractors. Each main station had its own airstrip – as close to

425-478: A maximum of 132 simultaneous voice channels . The tropospheric hops used pairs of 60 ft (18 m) or 120 ft (37 m) parabolic , billboard like reflectors pointed at a low angle into the horizon. The radio waves were scattered by the tropopause , returning to Earth beyond the horizon, allowing communication between stations hundreds of miles apart. Having two antennas allowed for space diversity, meaning that if tropospheric conditions degrade on one path

510-829: A more military role began with a transition of authority, shifting responsibility of Arctic defence in Canada from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the Canadian Armed Forces. This "active defence" had three key elements: minimizing the extent of the American presence in the Canadian Arctic, Canadian government input into the management of the DEW Line, and full Canadian participation in Arctic defence. Funding problems for

595-502: A more sophisticated radar system was constructed, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). The DEW Line was a significant achievement among Cold War initiatives in the Arctic. A successful combination of scientific design and logistical planning of the late 1950s, the DEW Line consisted of a string of continental defence radar installations, ultimately stretching from Alaska to Greenland. In addition to

680-441: A positive rate (of decrease) in the troposphere to a negative rate in the stratosphere. The tropopause is defined as the lowest level at which the lapse rate decreases to 2°C/km or less, provided that the average lapse-rate, between that level and all other higher levels within 2.0 km does not exceed 2°C/km. The tropopause is a first-order discontinuity surface, in which temperature as a function of height varies continuously through

765-438: A single site would require six people and one 25 kW generator. However, each site required 20 people and 120 to 180 kW of electrical power to operate. In remote areas, an airfield was constructed to deliver supplies to the sites. Since electricity was not available at the sites, diesel generators and fuel tanks had to be placed, and quarters for the technicians were also required. Mountain top sites had an upper camp with

850-454: A station chief, a cook, and a mechanic; and larger stations that had a variable number of employees and may have had libraries, forms of entertainment, and other accommodations. The stations used a number of long-range L band – emitting systems known as the AN/FPS-19. The "gaps" between the stations were watched by the directional AN/FPS-23 doppler radar systems, similar to those pioneered only

935-404: A surface naval force of 12 radar picket destroyer escorts and 16 Guardian-class radar picket ships , and an air wing of Lockheed WV-2 Warning Star aircraft that patrolled the picket lines at an altitude of 1,000–2,000 m (3,300–6,600 ft) in 12- to 14-hour missions. Their objective was to extend early warning coverage against surprise Soviet bomber and missile attack as an extension of

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1020-550: A third line of radar stations (Distant Early Warning), this time running across the high Arctic. The line would run roughly along the 69th parallel north , about 320 km (200 mi) north of the Arctic Circle . Before this project was completed, men and women with the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience were drawn from Bell Telephone companies in every state in the United States, and many Canadian provinces. Much of

1105-527: A time could be placed from Nome to Fairbanks . Communication improved after White Alice was installed, but even in the mid-1960s, Anchorage residents had to go to one location downtown to place a call to the lower 48 . The Air Force built the White Alice Communications System with numerous support facilities around the state to provide reliable communications to far-flung, isolated, and often rugged locales. Construction began in 1955 and

1190-553: A very successful first season hauling freight to the DEW Line. Later, military and civilian airlifts, huge sealifts during the short summers, barges contributed to the distribution of vast cargoes along the length of the Line to build the permanent settlements needed at each site. Much of the job of carrying mountains of supplies to the northern sites fell to military and naval units. More than 3,000 United States Army Transportation Corps soldiers were given special training to prepare them for

1275-420: Is also possible that the code name White Alice was selected for no particular reason. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska district surveyed and selected each one of the original sites. It also constructed 11 of the original 31 sites. The selection process required that survey teams test the propagation path by setting up communication towers at each remote site during winter months. Some of

1360-417: Is fairly certain that White was used to indicate the snowy Arctic sites that the system would serve. It is unclear where the term Alice originated. Some sources suggest that Alice is an acronym for Alaska Integrated Communications Enterprise. Other sources suggest that the system would have been named Alice White had there not been an actress with that name at the time. Thus it was reversed to White Alice. It

1445-464: Is in the dome, flanked by two AN/FRC-45 lateral communications dishes (or AN/FRC-102, depending on the date). To the left are the much larger southbound AN/FRC-101 communications dishes. Not visible is the AN/FPS-23 "gap filler" doppler antenna. The DEW Line was upgraded with fifteen new AN/FPS-117 passive electronically scanned array radar systems between 1985 and 1994, and the line was then renamed

1530-450: Is now known as Brewer-Dobson circulation . Because gases primarily enter the stratosphere by passing through the tropopause in the tropics where the tropopause is coldest, water vapor is condensed out of the air that is entering the stratosphere. This ″tropical tropopause layer cold trap ″ theory has become widely accepted. This cold trap limits stratospheric water vapor to 3 to 4 parts per million. Researchers at Harvard have suggested that

1615-429: Is the atmospheric boundary that demarcates the troposphere from the stratosphere , which are the lowest two of the five layers of the atmosphere of Earth . The tropopause is a thermodynamic gradient-stratification layer that marks the end of the troposphere , and is approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) above the equatorial regions, and approximately 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) above the polar regions . Rising from

1700-519: The Aleutian Island chain) and back, non-stop. Its orbits overlapped the radar picket stations of the ships of Escort Squadron Seven (CORTRON SEVEN), from roughly Kodiak Island to the Midway Atoll and Escort Squadron Five (CORTRON FIVE), from Pearl Harbor to northern Pacific waters. Normally four or five WV-2s were required at any single time to provide coverage over the entire line. This coverage

1785-487: The Cold War to give early warning of a Soviet nuclear strike , to allow time for United States bombers to get off the ground and land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBMs) to be launched, to reduce the chances that a preemptive strike could destroy the United States' strategic nuclear forces. The original DEW line was designed to detect bombers and was unable to detect ICBMs. To give warning of this threat, in 1958

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1870-631: The DEW Line or Early Warning Line , was a system of radar stations in the northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska (see Project Stretchout and Project Bluegrass ), in addition to the Faroe Islands , Greenland , and Iceland . It was set up to detect incoming bombers of the Soviet Union during the Cold War , and provide early warning of any sea-and-land invasion. The DEW Line

1955-518: The Equator . In the absence of inversions and not considering moisture , the temperature lapse rate for this layer is 6.5 °C per kilometer, on average, according to the U.S. Standard Atmosphere . A measurement of the tropospheric and the stratospheric lapse rates helps identify the location of the tropopause, since temperature increases with height in the stratosphere, and hence the lapse rate becomes negative. The tropopause location coincides with

2040-720: The United States Federal Government authorized construction of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), at a reported cost of $ 28 billion. In 1985, it was decided that the more capable of the DEW Line stations were to be upgraded with the GE AN/FPS-117 radar systems and merged with newly built stations into the North Warning System. Their automation was increased and a number of additional stations were closed. This upgrading

2125-701: The caribou , as well as non-seasonal hunting. These aspects are claimed to have had a devastating impact on the local native subsistence economies and environment. The DEW line was supplemented by the Contiguous Radar Coverage System , which included two "barrier" forces in the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans which were operated by the United States Navy from 1956 to 1965. These barrier forces consisted of surface picket stations, dubbed " Texas Towers ",

2210-497: The mutual assured destruction (MAD) philosophy. However, the scenario of a coordinated airborne invasion coupled with a limited nuclear strike was the real threat that this line protected against. It did so by providing Distant Early Warning of an inbound aerial invasion force, which would have to appear at the far north hours ahead of any warhead launches in order to be coordinated well enough to prevent MAD. A number of intermediate stations were decommissioned, since their effectiveness

2295-504: The 1970s made the system obsolete, and in 1979 it was replaced by an RCA satellite link that connected all of the stations to Anchorage . The network was sold the same year to a civilian operator for telephone calls. The deteriorating condition of the sites led to its shutdown in the 1980s and most of the facilities have since been removed. White Alice was conceived in the 1950s when Alaska had only basic telephone communication systems. For example, prior to White Alice only one phone call at

2380-629: The DEW Line also played a role in perception of the project. American investment in building and operating the DEW Line system declined as the ICBM threat refocused priorities, but Canada did not fill the void with commensurate additional funding. In 1968 a Canadian Department of National Defence Paper (27 November 1968) stated no further funding for research on the DEW Line or air space would be allocated due in part to lack of commercial activity The Canadian Government also limited United States air activity, base activity, soldier numbers, and contractor numbers; and

2465-506: The DEW Line provided some economic development for the Arctic region. This provided momentum for further development through research, new communications, and new studies of the area. Although the construction of the DEW line itself was placed in American hands, much of the later development was under direct Canadian direction. Resource protection of historical DEW Line sites is currently under discussion in Canada and Alaska. The discussion stems from

2550-537: The DEW Line. The Atlantic Barrier (BarLant) consisted of two rotating squadrons, one based at Naval Station Argentia , Newfoundland , to fly orbits to the Lajes Field in the Azores and back; and the other at Naval Air Station Patuxent River , Maryland. BarLant began operations on 1 July 1956, and flew continuous coverage until early 1965, when the barrier was shifted to cover the approaches between Greenland, Iceland, and

2635-438: The North Warning System. Average power output 400 watts Modifications to each operating radar station occurred during the construction phase of the DEW Line system. This was due to the extreme winds, frigid temperatures, and the ground conditions due to permafrost and ice. There were two significant electronic modifications that were also crucial to the functioning of these radar stations in an Arctic environment. One reduced

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2720-491: The United Kingdom ( GIUK barrier ). Aircraft from Argentia were staged through Naval Air Station Keflavik , Iceland, to extend coverage times. The Pacific Barrier (BarPac) began operations with one squadron operating from Naval Air Station Barbers Point , Hawaii, and a forward refuelling base at Naval Air Facility Midway Island , on 1 July 1958. Planes flew from Midway Island to Naval Air Facility Adak on Adak Island (in

2805-454: The United States and Canada over the cleanup of deactivated Canadian DEW Line sites. The cleanup is now underway, site by site. In assessing the cleanup, new research suggests that off-road vehicles damaged vegetation and organic matter, resulting in the melting of the permafrost, a key component to the hydrological systems of the areas. The DEW Line has also been linked to depleted fish stocks and carelessness in agitating local animals such as

2890-625: The United States and Canada to aerial bombing attacks, and its concluding recommendation was that a distant early warning line of search radar stations be built across the Arctic region of the North American continent as rapidly as possible. Improvements in Soviet technology rendered the Pinetree Line and Mid-Canada Line inadequate to provide enough early warning and on 15 February 1954, the Canadian and United States governments agreed to jointly build

2975-438: The United States and southern Canada worked on the project. Concrete was poured in the middle of Arctic winters, buildings were constructed, electrical service, heating, and fresh water were provided, huge steel antenna towers were erected, airstrips and hangars were built, putting it all together in darkness, blizzards, and subzero temperatures. After the buildings came the installation of radar and communications equipment, then

3060-577: The absolute vorticity is positive in the Northern Hemisphere and negative in the Southern Hemisphere , the threshold value should be considered as positive north of the Equator and negative south of it. Theoretically, to define a global tropopause in this way, the two surfaces arising from the positive and negative thresholds need to be matched near the equator using another type of surface such as

3145-418: The area – first from the air and then on the ground – to locate by scientific means the best sites for the main, auxiliary, and intermediate stations. These crews lived and worked under primitive conditions. They covered vast distances by airplanes, snowmobiles , and dog sleds , working in blinding snowstorms with temperatures so low that ordinary thermometers could not measure them. They completed their part of

3230-471: The atmosphere, while the temperature gradient has a discontinuity. The troposphere is the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere; it starts at the planetary boundary layer , and is the layer in which most weather phenomena occur. The troposphere contains the boundary layer, and ranges in height from an average of 9 km (5.6 mi; 30,000 ft) at the poles, to 17 km (11 mi; 56,000 ft) at

3315-486: The beginning of the development of the DEW Line idea, Canadian concerns over political perception grew enormously. Noted Canadian Arctic historian P. Whitney Lackenbauer argues that the Canadian Government saw little intrinsic value in the Arctic, but due to fear of Americanization and American penetration into the Canadian Arctic, brought significant changes and a more militaristic role to the north. This shift into

3400-422: The buildings as safety regulations and the terrain permitted. Service buildings, garages, connecting roads, storage tanks, and perhaps an aircraft hangar completed the community. Drifting snow was a constant menace. Siting engineers and advance parties learned this the hard way when their tents disappeared beneath the snow in a few hours. The permanent H-shaped buildings at the main stations were always pointed into

3485-400: The bulk of this work under the direction of Western Electric engineers. Huge quantities of gravel were produced and moved. The construction work needed to build housing, airstrips, aircraft hangars , outdoor and covered antennas , and antenna towers was done by subcontractors. In all, over 7,000 bulldozer operators, carpenters, masons, plumbers, welders, electricians, and other tradesmen from

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3570-417: The construction was carried out in a massive logistical operation that took place mostly during the summer months when the sites could be reached by ships. The 63-base line reached operational status in 1957. The MCL was shut down in the early 1960s, and much of the Pinetree Line was given over to civilian use. In 1985, as part of the " Shamrock Summit ", the United States and Canada agreed to transition DEW to

3655-436: The deactivation aspect of the sites and arguments over what to do with leftover equipment and leftover intact sites. Many Canadian historians encourage the preservation of DEW Line sites through heritage designations. The DEW Line is a setting for the 1957 film The Deadly Mantis . The film begins with a short documentary on the three RADAR lines, focusing on the DEW Line's construction. A controversy also developed between

3740-453: The density that is measurable by using potential temperature as the vertical coordinate, and the absolute vorticity , given that this quantity attains quite different values for the troposphere and the stratosphere. Instead of using the vertical temperature gradient as the defining variable, the dynamic tropopause surface is expressed in potential vorticity units (PVU, 1 PVU = 10  K m  kg  s ). Given that

3825-400: The effects of Global Warming on air circulation patterns will weaken the tropical tropopause layer cold trap. Water vapor that is able to make it through the cold trap eventually rises to the top of the stratosphere, where it undergoes photodissociation into oxygen and hydrogen or hydroxide ions and hydrogen. This hydrogen is then able to escape the atmosphere. Thus, in some sense,

3910-433: The effects of vibration in correlation to temperature change, the other increased the pulse duration from two to six microseconds. It also began using a crystal oscillator for more stable readings and accurate accounts of movement within the air. There were three types of stations: small unstaffed "gap filler stations" that were checked by ground crews only every few months during the summer; intermediate stations with only

3995-485: The electronic equipment and a lower camp with support facilities. These were sometimes connected by a tram system. In addition to the support equipment, a typical White Alice repeater site consisted of four tropospheric dishes, grouped in pairs of two facing opposite directions to receive and transmit information from adjacent sites. The tropospheric scatter system operated around 4Ghz to 5.5Ghz MHz, and utilized both space diversity and frequency diversity , multiplexing

4080-650: The final improved designs of all facilities and final plans for manpower, transportation, and supply. With the experimental phase completed successfully, the Air Forces asked the Western Electric Company to proceed as rapidly as possible with the construction of the entire DEW Line. That was in December 1954, before the route to be followed in the eastern section had even been determined. The locations were surveyed out by John Anderson-Thompson . Siting crews covered

4165-479: The information on to the DEW Line. If an unknown flight was detected, the DEW Line station would contact AMIS to see if a flight plan might have been missed; if not, NORAD was notified. Military flights, including B-52 bombers, frequently operated in the polar regions and used identification friend or foe (IFF) systems to authenticate the flight. The early warning provided was useless against ICBMs and submarine -launched attacks. These were countered and tempered by

4250-515: The job of unloading ships in the Arctic . They went with the convoys of United States Navy ships and they raced time during the few weeks the ice was open to land supplies at dozens of spots on the shores of the Arctic Ocean during the summers of 1955, 1956, and 1957. Scores of military and commercial pilots, flying everything from small bush planes to four-engined turboprops , were the backbone of

4335-589: The job on schedule and set the stage for the crews and machines that followed. The line consisted of 63 stations stretching from Alaska to Baffin Island , covering nearly 10,000 km (6,200 mi). The United States agreed to pay for and construct the line, and to employ Canadian labour as much as possible. A target date for completing the DEW Line and having it in operation was set for 31 July 1957. This provided only two short Arctic summers adding up to about six months in which to work under passable conditions. Much of

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4420-399: The lower stratosphere and undergo a brief (hour-order or less) low-frequency vertical oscillation . Such oscillation results in a low-frequency atmospheric gravity wave capable of affecting both atmospheric and oceanic currents in the region. Most commercial aircraft are flown in the lower stratosphere, just above the tropopause, during the cruise phase of their flights; in this region,

4505-419: The lower stratosphere has much higher ozone concentrations than the upper troposphere, but much lower water vapor concentrations, so an appropriate boundary can be defined. In 1949 Alan West Brewer proposed that tropospheric air passes through the tropopause into the stratosphere near the equator, then travels through the stratosphere to temperate and polar regions, where it sinks into the troposphere. This

4590-411: The lowest point at which the lapse rate is less than a prescribed threshold. Since the tropopause responds to the average temperature of the entire layer that lies underneath it, it is at its maximum levels over the Equator, and reaches minimum heights over the poles. On account of this, the coolest layer in the atmosphere lies at about 17 km over the equator. Due to the variation in starting height,

4675-676: The most hostile and isolated environments in North America. The construction project employed about 25,000 people. Western Electric and Alaska Freightlines, with the help of the United States Army Transportation Research and Development Command (TRADCOM), contracted to have a pair of off-road overland trains , the TC-264 Sno-Buggy, designed specifically for Arctic conditions, to be built by LeTourneau Technologies , owned by R. G. LeTourneau . The TC-264 Sno-Buggy

4760-463: The new North Warning System (NWS). Beginning in 1988, most of the original DEW stations were deactivated, while a small number were upgraded with all-new equipment. The official handover from DEW to NWS took place on 15 July 1993. The shortest, or great circle , route for a Soviet air attack on North America was through the Arctic, across the area around the North Pole . The DEW Line was built during

4845-472: The north where they would offer hours of advance warning. This would not only provide ample time for the defences to prepare, but also allow the Strategic Air Command to get its active aircraft airborne long before Soviet bombers could reach their targets. The need was considered critical and the construction was given the highest national priorities. Advance site preparation began in December 1954, and

4930-412: The only means of access to many of the stations during the wintertime. In all, 460,000 short tons (420,000 t; 410,000 long tons) of materials were moved from the United States and southern Canada to the Arctic by air, land, and sea. As the stacks of materials at the station sites mounted, construction went ahead rapidly. Subcontractors with a flair for tackling difficult construction projects handled

5015-704: The operation. The Lockheed LC-130 , a ski-equipped version of the C-130 Hercules , owned by the United States Air Force and operated by the 139th Airlift Squadron , provided a significant amount of airlift to sites that were out on ice caps such as Dye 3 in Greenland. Transport planes such as the C-124 Globemaster and the C-119 Flying Boxcar also supported the project. Together, these provided

5100-588: The operations were automated as much as was possible at the time. All of the installations flew both the Canadian and United States flags until they were deactivated as DEW sites and sole jurisdiction was given to the Government of Canada as part of the North Warning System in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Point Lay, Alaska DEW line station has a typical suite of systems. The main AN/FPS-19 search radar

5185-464: The overall operation would be considered and called in all formalities a "joint operation". The cultural impact of the DEW Line System is immense and significant to the heritage of Canada and Alaska. In Canada, the DEW line increased connections between the populous south and the remote High Arctic, helping to bring Inuit more thoroughly into the Canadian polity. The construction and operating of

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5270-404: The planetary surface of the Earth, the tropopause is the atmospheric level where the air ceases to become cool with increased altitude and becomes dry, devoid of water vapor. The tropopause is the boundary that demarcates the troposphere below from the stratosphere above, and is part of the atmosphere where there occurs an abrupt change in the environmental lapse rate (ELR) of temperature, from

5355-555: The prevailing winds and their bridges built high off the ground. The Arctic region was frequently transited by commercial aircraft on polar routes , either flying between Europe and western North America, or between Europe and Asia using Alaska as a stopover. These flights would penetrate the DEW Line. To differentiate these commercial flights from Soviet bombers, the flight crews had to transmit their flight plan to an Air Movement Identification System (AMIS) centre at either Goose Bay , Edmonton , or Anchorage . These stations then passed

5440-570: The responsibility was delegated under close supervision to a vast number of subcontractors, suppliers, and United States military units. The initial contract with the United States Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force provided for the design and construction of a small experimental system to determine at the beginning whether the idea was practicable. The designs of communication and radar detection equipment available at

5525-484: The second path might still be clear and communications would not be disrupted. For frequency diversity, each antenna transmitted two separate frequencies. Using both frequency and space diversity was called quad diversity . System power output for most shots was 10 kW and used 60 ft (18 m) antennas. Longer shots used 120 ft (37 m) antennas with 50 kW and shorter shots used 1 kW and 30 ft (9 m), round parabolic dishes. After 1970, WACS

5610-549: The secondary Mid-Canada Line and the tertiary Pinetree Line , the DEW Line marked the edge of an electronic grid controlled by the new Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) computer system and was ultimately centred at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex , Colorado , command hub of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The construction of the DEW Line was made possible by

5695-505: The sites between the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Several former White Alice sites and collocated facilities became contaminated sites managed by Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation Contaminated Sites Program and DOD Cleanup programs sites because of PCB usage and fuel leakage from storage tanks. It is likely the cost to clean up some of the sites will far exceed the cost of construction. Distant Early Warning Line The Distant Early Warning Line , also known as

5780-489: The sites were easily accessible, but most of the sites were far from civilization on remote mountain peaks. 14 tons of equipment were taken by dogsled or helicopter to survey the sites. Construction was extremely expensive, with initial estimates around $ 30 million, but the first phase cost over $ 110 million. Project Stretchout drove costs over $ 300 million. Part of this expense was due to Western Electric's underestimate of maintenance requirements. They initially estimated that

5865-509: The surplus included sixty equipped wannigans - enough to permit setup of field camps at all construction sites. (A "wannigan" is a building on sleds, about 12 x 20 feet in size. These were completely equipped for camp operations and were of various types - Cook, Mess, Bunk, Power Plant, Water, Shop, Storage, Utility, Steam Point, etc. ) Prototypes of several stations were designed and built in Alaska in 1953. A prototype built for training purposes

5950-578: The system coverage was expanded even further: see Project Stretchout and Project Bluegrass . The majority of Canadian DEW Line stations were the joint responsibility of the Royal Canadian Air Force (the Canadian Armed Forces ) and the United States Air Force. The USAF component was the 64th Air Division , Air Defense Command . The 4601st Support Squadron, based in Paramus, New Jersey ,

6035-502: The system was dedicated in 1958. In the end, 71 systems were installed throughout Alaska. White Alice was designed by Western Electric , and civilian contractors maintained it. In 1976, the WACS was leased to RCA Alascom. By the end of the 1970s, most of the system was deactivated. In the 1950s, the Air Force used two-word code names, and White Alice was the code name selected for the project. It

6120-494: The thorough and time-consuming testing of each unit individually and of the system as an integrated whole. Finally all was ready, and on 15 April 1957 – just two years and eight months after the decision to build the Distant Early Warning Line was made – Western Electric turned over to the Air Force on schedule a complete, operating radar system across the top of North America, with its own communications network. Later,

6205-594: The time were known to be unsuited to the weather and atmospheric conditions to be encountered in the Arctic. Early efforts were aided when, by happenstance, the US Navy terminated its oil exploration activities in Alaska. The associated infrastructure that had been established in the arctic was quickly repurposed to serve early development of the DEW line. Material converted from Navy use included 1,200 tons of supplies, with many Caterpillar D8 tractors, heavy duty cranes, diesel generators, and radio equipment. Most fortunately,

6290-508: The tropical tropopause layer cold trap is what prevents Earth from losing its water to space. James Kasting has predicted that in 1 to 2 billion years , as the Sun increases in luminosity, the temperature of the Earth will rise enough that the cold trap will no longer be effective, and so the Earth will dry out. The tropopause is not a fixed boundary. Vigorous thunderstorms , for example, particularly those of tropical origin, will overshoot into

6375-423: The tropopause extremes are referred to as the equatorial tropopause and the polar tropopause. Given that the lapse rate is not a conservative quantity when the tropopause is considered for stratosphere-troposphere exchanges studies, there exists an alternative definition named dynamic tropopause . It is formed with the aid of potential vorticity , which is defined as the product of the isentropic density , i.e.

6460-420: The work would have to be completed in the long, dark, cold, Arctic winters, including over a month of polar night . From a standing start in December 1954, many thousands of skilled workers were recruited, transported to the polar regions, housed, fed, and supplied with tools, machines, and materials to construct physical facilities – buildings, roads, tanks, towers, antennas, airfields, and hangars – in some of

6545-510: Was activated by ADC to provide logistical and contractual support for DEW Line operations. In 1958, the line became a cornerstone of the new North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) organization of joint continental air defence . USAF personnel were limited to the main stations for each sector and they performed annual inspections of auxiliary and intermediate stations as part of the contract administration. Most operations were performed by Canadian and United States civilian personnel, and

6630-459: Was chosen to be located in Streator, Illinois in 1952. The Streator DEW-Line Training Center became operational in 1956 and closed when operations were moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1975. While few of the original designs for either buildings or equipment were retained, the trial installations did prove that the DEW Line was feasible, and they furnished a background of information that led to

6715-637: Was completed in 1990, and with the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union , the United States withdrew all of its personnel and relinquished full operation of the Canadian stations to Canada. Costs for the Canadian sector were still subsidized by the United States. However, the American flags were lowered at the Canadian stations and only the Canadian flag remained. The United States retained responsibility and all operational costs for North Warning System stations located in Alaska and Greenland. From

6800-403: Was judged to be less than desired and required. The staffed stations were retained to monitor potential Soviet air activities and to allow Canada to assert sovereignty in the Arctic. International law requires a country that claims territory to actively occupy and defend such territory . Because the advent of ICBMs created another attack scenario that the DEW Line could not defend against, in 1958

6885-478: Was later augmented, and modified/replaced by Project Stretchout and Project Bluegrass). The Guardian -class radar picket ships were based in Rhode Island and San Francisco , and covered picket stations 400–500 mi (640–800 km) off each coast. Barrier Force operations were discontinued by September 1965 and their EC-121K (WV-2 before 1962) aircraft placed in storage. Tropopause The tropopause

6970-538: Was proposed as an inexpensive solution using bistatic radar . This provided a "trip wire" warning located roughly at the 55th parallel , giving commanders ample warning time, but little information on the targets or their exact location. The MCL proved largely useless in practice, as the radar return of flocks of birds overwhelmed signals from aircraft. The DEW Line was proposed as a solution to both of these problems, using conventional radar systems that could both detect and characterise an attack, while being located far to

7055-446: Was the longest off-road vehicle ever built at the time, with its six cars (including the locomotive) measuring a total of 274 ft (84 m). Each car was driven by four 7.3 ft (2.2 m) tall wheels and tires. The 24-wheel-drive was powered by two 400 horsepower Cummins diesel engines connected to a hub motor. It had a payload capacity of 150 short tons (140 t; 130 long tons), and could traverse nearly any terrain. It had

7140-482: Was the northernmost and most capable of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska. The first of these was the joint Canadian-United States Pinetree Line , which ran from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island just north of the Canada–United States border , but even while it was being built there were concerns that it would not provide enough warning time to launch an effective counterattack. The Mid-Canada Line (MCL)

7225-486: Was transferred from Air Force control to RCA Alascom and served civilian use until the late 1970s, when it was superseded by satellite communication earth stations. The last tropospheric link, from Boswell Bay to Neklasson Lake, was used until January 1985 to connect Middleton Island to the network. Vandalism, unsafe conditions and environmental concerns caused the Department of Defense (DOD) to remove physical structures at

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