Last Blog for Awhile

Well here is the final blog for my Greenland 2007 Season. There have not been many blogs this season and the final one is being writen from my warm office back in Seattle.

With all the complications I had little time, or energy, to do much outreach. I have added two links for outreach blogs that were done while I was at Summit. They are excellent Blogs. The Greenland Photochemistry Blog, by Jack Dibb’s group, sums up all the science and happenings at Summit Station. The Voyaging Teacher Blog, by Mike Pastirik, tells of Mikes first experiences in Greenland as a high school science teacher. Mike also was a great help to our Nitrate sampling experiment. He helped monitor the misters and bubblers while I was completing other science, so I will slip a quick thank you to Mike in here. These Blogs cover all the science and happenings at Summit while I was there.

During my time at Summit were we able to get atmospheric nitrate sampling up and running. This equipment will continue to run until mid August. Here is a picture of the misters and bubblers which are sampling the HN03 and NO2


I was able to complete my radar studies. I used a new luneberg lens technique in two 2-meter snow pits to get extinction length measurements at 37 GHz. Here is a picture of one of the pits where I am placing a snow saw at a specific snow layer. I also took multiple radar traverse lines to characterize layer variability over 100 meter traverse lines. Robin, one of the Summit mechanics, came along during the traverses to help lift the radar, the mount system is too high for me to lift the radar, and drive the snowmobile while I monitored the radar from the sled.




I took 48 snow samples for a soot study Steve Warren and Tom Grenfell are completing. This was a fun assignment because we had to get away from camp to get clean snow. Steve, the science tech, Sarah Wheller, a writer, and I took the snowmobiles out 40 km to do two 1-meter pits and gather snow samples. It was a beautiful ride with fresh sparkling snow on the ground and the sun shining.



Well here are a few things I learned this season: Things Break but there is generally someone who can fix it, Never have a non-automated 24 hour sampling method and There is always someone around to help. Which brings me to a few Thanks You’s. This season had many unexpected circumstances. When Dan left I was all alone trying to complete a job for two. Lots of people around camp helped fill in for Dan so I could complete our science goals. Special thanks go out to Kathy, Steve, Lance, Mike, Jack, Katrine, Barry, Robin, Bella, Brad, Jake, Robin, Sparky and Tyler. I couldn’t have done it without all your help.

Heat Wave

I peaked out of my tent today expecting to see a white out. I was pleasantly surprised to see the sun. The wind was still blowing but had calmed down from last night. I had to put my earplugs in last night in order to sleep; the wind was rattling the tent walls so much it was impossible to sleep. Since the wind was still blowing today I decided not to do my radar pit and to take my turn as the House Mouse. The House Mouse is the person who does the camp dishes, helps the cooks, cleans the bathrooms, vacuums the dinning room, makes coffee, etc. Everyone at Summit has one day when they have to do the House Mouse choirs. I did mine today since the weather in the morning was not ideal to have the radar electronic out in. Mousing also gave me another day to rest a bit and be indoors with warm hands from the dishwater. Here is a picture of the Big house where you House Mouse.


Didn’t really need to be warmed up much today. The temps hit –5 C or 25 F. This is really warm for Summit. The sun stayed out all day and the winds quit around noon. It was a beautiful day. After I had finished my choirs for the day I went for a ski. Here is a picture.


I will sleep well tonight and dig a two-meter pit in the morning. I set the radar sled up this afternoon, so it is all ready to go. I am excited to finally be starting on my science. I got an update from Dan today. He is feeling better and will leave Thule on a flight for the US on Friday.

The cooks made some incredible peanut butter pie for dessert tonight. It was so good I just had another piece to keep me warm tonight though I doubt I will need it with all the sun.

Oh The Drama

Well it has been quite dramatic here on the ice sheet the last few days. On June 7th, Dan and I were able to get the nitrate sampling up equipment up and running. We waited to turn on the sampling until the last C-130 flight left. Sampling started at 2:30 pm in the afternoon. Dan had not been feeling well on the 7th and was pretty tired after his first night sleeping in a tent. I took the first shift of babysitting the nitrate equipment to make sure it ran properly, to establish evaporation rates so we would know when to refill them and to watch for freezing. I was going to stay up until 2:00 am and then Dan would come on at 5:00 am. Around 1:00 am, Dan Skyped me to let me know he was not feeling well and was going to see the medic. I meet with Dan and the medic, Tyler, around 2:30 am on the 8th. I was told that Dan’s mouth was swelling from where his wisdom teeth had been removed, a requirement to come to Summit. At first we though he would be fine if he had some time off and some good sleep. I said I would take over Dan’s 5:00 am shift. I slept about 2.5 hours.

I stumbled out to Sat Camp at 5:00 am to find that some of the nitrate equipment had frozen. I fixed it and started sampling again. I went in for Breakfast at 8:00 am to find out that Dan was doing worse. By lunch there was talk of medical evacuation to Thule Air Force base. I called Eric and Julia at UW and filled them in on the situation.

I made it through the day checking the instruments every 3 hours managing a few 1.5 hours naps. After dinner I went back out to Sat camp. Katrine had volunteered to check our equipment through the night of the 8th so I could get a night’s sleep. I showed her how to fill our mist chambers and bubbler and thanked her profusely. I was looking forward to some sleep when they called me to the office on the radio. I walked back to camp to find out that an immediate medical evacuation had been called for Dan. The swelling in Dan’s mouth had continued and they were worried his throat could swell closed. A twin otter was scheduled to come in and pick him up.

There was still more drama, the twin otter pilots were in Nook which had 60 kts winds. The plane could not take off. Apparently the doors were almost blown off the hanger when they pulled out the plane. The plane was suppose to arrive at 11:00 pm on the 8th. It did not arrive until 5:00 am on the 9th. Kathy and Steve stayed up all night doing hourly weather observations for the plane while I got 5 hours of sleep. Kathy woke me up around 4:30 to let me know Dan was doing worse and the plane was arriving. I again stumbled out of my tent and stumbled some more on my way to the green house where I found Dan hooked up to an IV. I was told that Brad would fly with Dan to Thule air force base for medical treatment. I was glad that someone would be accompanying Dan. I walked with Dan out to the twin otter. I will post some great pictures later of Dan walking to the otter IV bag in hand. (Tyler the medic designated me the photographer for the evac so he could document it all.) The plane took off around 6:00 am and I headed out to Sat camp to check the instruments. I was exhausted. I knew I had to complete the sampling period which ended at 3:00 pm on the 9th. I took another 1.5 hour nap and couldn’t wait for 3:00pm. Finally 3:00 rolled around and I collected the samples and shut down the equipment. We had decided to shut down sampling so I could do my radar work. It is impossible to do both.

I came back to camp took a warm shower and put on fresh cloths. This made me feel much better. I had a good dinner and went to bed at 8:00 pm. I woke up today at 9:00 am. A great night’s sleep! I feel much better today and got the radar set up to do a pit tomorrow. Don’t worry though, because the drama has not ended. This evening after dinner the winds picked up to 30 kts. The snow is blowing like mad. If this weather continues there will be no pit tomorrow, too much blowing snow for the electronics.
What have I learned from this ordeal: it is not wise to take out your wisdom teeth to go to an ice sheet, never study anything that requires 24 hour sampling and, what I had already learned at Taylor Dome but am having drilled into me again, I HATE THE WIND. Feeling a little lonely on the ice sheet with out another UWer around. It is a first for me. Hopefully by my next post there will be a lot more data gathered and better weather.

Here is a picture of my tent with my skis outside. Hopefully when everything clams down I can use them a bit more.

At Summit

Well I have been at summit now for about 36 hours. Everything with science has been so busy I have not been able to keep up with blogging, e-mailing or skyping. I am currently exhausted but am going to bust out a quick blog on what I have been up to. On June 2nd I woke up in Seattle at 4:00am to catch a plane to Albany, New York. I was traveling with Dan, a science technician from the Isolab at UW. We arrived New York, checked our science gear to make sure it was intact, and went to bed. Woke up at 3:30 am to catch a taxi to Scotia Airbase and then a C-130 to Kangerlussaq. When I arrived at Kanger I immediately started to see familiar faces. It was fun to talk to people and catch up on what they had been doing for the past year. I went for a hike up to the lake to look for Musk Ox. I was not disappointed; there were two lazily grazing by the lake. After my hike, I went to bed and appreciated my last night in a real bed.

One the 4th we took another C-130 to Summit. Mr. Mike, who I had just spent a few months with in Antarctica, greeted me getting off the plane. It was great to see him but he was leaving on the same flight I came in on which was really sad. There many more familiar faces at summit that made me feel right at home. I wanted to catch up but had too much work to do. The altitude adversely affected neither Dan nor me so we went straight to work hauling around our heavy boxes and getting them out to Sat Camp. Sat Camp is the satellite camp that is a quarter mile from the main summit camp in the clean air sector. We walk out to Sat Camp to keep the air clean for all the atmospheric sampling that occurs there. We will be using Sat Camp to sample Nitrate in the atmosphere for our friend Julia’s dissertation research. The first day we got our gear sorted and lab space set up. We had a great dinner and organized our tents for bed. We sleep in Arctic Oven tents at Summit.

I was all ready for a cold night. I got in my –20 degree bag with my snickers bars to eat for warmth in the middle of the night. I love sleeping in the cold because you can eat candy in bed all night and it is actually recommended. That in itself is a reason to go to an ice sheet. Anyways I got in my bed and did 100 sit ups to warm up my bag. I was so hot by the end that I had to get out of my bag. I put on my spa mask, thanks Wendy, to block out the light and fell asleep. Never waking up to eat my snickers. My alarm woke me in the morning for morning briefing. I got out of bed, put on my boots and walked all the way to the big house and up the stairs without falling. This is a big improvement over mornings in Antarctica, where I my morning clumsiness was often made fun of. I must admit though that my tent is the closest tent to the big house, the kitchen/dinning area at summit, a nice hook-up from Kathy. I didn’t get a heated sleeping unit this year because it is all boys this year in the Jamesway with no patrician. I am hating a bit on boys right now because the Jamesway is all boys and the C-130 Loadies didn’t put down the toilet on our flight to Summit because there were only 2 girls and lots of cargo in the way. So the boys could use the bathroom but the girls could not. This was particularly bad because I drank two liters of water at breakfast to stay hydrated for the altitude at summit. Yucky boys.
Today, after morning briefing, Dan and I went right to work. We got the nitrate sampling equipment set up with a few skype calls to Julia over a bad internet connection. We also started doing surface snow sampling a 0:00, 6:00, 12:00 and 18:00. This will also be our time schedule for checking the nitrate and doing the snow samples. Speaking of which, I need to get to bed. It is already 10:30 pm and I have the 6:00 am snow sample. I will ski out to take it. I am not looking forward to 6:00 am but I am looking forward to the ski. I hope it is another warm night. It has been windy and snowing all day but not too cold, -12 C about 10 F. Oh and sorry no photo's for this blog. Somehow I managed to put my camera in the bag that got palletized for the C-130. I will get some photo's posted in a few days when the science routine settles down.

Back to Greenland

It looks like I will be headed back to the Ice one more time. Today I was deemed medically qualified to return to Summit, Greenland in June. This will be a quick trip to the ice, June 2-22, 2007. During this trip I will be making sure our labs nitrate sampling equipment is set up properly for the summer season and taking a few very shallow radar measurements. Check back in a few weeks for updates on the trip.