page_title: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
section_title: Antecedents and establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory / History / Antecedents and establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: Cold room for studying frozen soil and ice at SIPRE (the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment) in Wilmette, Illinois (ca. 1951).
context_page_description: The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory 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. More recently, CRREL researchers have 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.
context_section_description: 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,
caption: Cold room for studying snow and ice at SIPRE
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "455", "Image ImageLength": "314", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "LZW", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "4", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2011:01:06 20:42:33", "Image Artist": "Stephen Flanders", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "426", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7301", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "455", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "314"}