Modeling of the ice flow suggests that the annual layers in the Eemian ice are about 7 mm thick. It will therefore be possible to investigate on an annual basis how the previous interglacial started and ended.
Posted October 16, 2009 - 4:11am by Robert Harris
Have your classes follow PolarTREC Expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic by creating posters.
It is back to work for me at the University of Kansas! Today 26 students and five chaperones from Eaton Academy Charter School in Eastpointe, Michigan visited us at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets.I gave them a brief presentation about our center and the research we do.
I also showed them a few of our Ice, Ice, Baby activities. Since I am just coming off the ice myself, I had many cold weather experiences to share with them.
The Detroit-area students have devoted the past year to fundraising for KU's Audio-Reader, which provides services for the visually impaired. By selling candy canes over the holidays and holding raffles, the students have raised money for the Audio-Reader program throughout their junior year.
I'm off to Elizabeth City, North Carolina next week for a middle school workshop. There are many beaches nearby so I hope to see them! Just two weeks ago I was looking out the window of the cargo plane and saying a last goodye to Greenland!
It's 3:30 PM and we all are waiting for the plane to land. The whole camp is out here to help load, say goodbye and greet the new team members. Seventeen new people arrived in camp and eleven departed. Our camp did have 24 members. How many does Sarah have to cook for now? (Answer at the bottom!)
There are many sad goodbyes for the friendships made at NEEM. "Will you be back next year?" I hear them asking. I imagine I will never see this place again.
When watching the plane land, we all witnessed something amazing. The plane "floated" one pallet of cargo on the skiway when it landed. That means they just opened up the back and while they were moving, let it "float" out onto the skiway. I guess the forklift operator will have to go clear out there and get it once the plane leaves.
Once the plane came to a stop, the forklift loaded 3 new pallets of cargo in the back of the aircraft. Now it was time to unload and load the passengers.
At 4:30 PM, the passengers loaded the LC-130 to go back to Kangerlussauq. It is a two and half hour flight so we should arrive around 7:00 PM. The aircraft starts moving down the skiway and tries to lift off, but nothing happens. The pilot makes a wide turn and tries again. No luck! We turn around again and seem to go a little faster this time. We bounce a little above the snow and all of us look at each other like "we are going to lift this time". No! The flight crew starts unstrapping the last pallet of cargo and opens the back door while we are moving. We float the cargo (that was just put on the plane) right into the snow! The back door closes and we try again. Fourth try and we still cannot get airborne. Now we are looking around at each other and are afraid we might not be flying today. We have had 37 centimeters of snow in the last two days. It is hard to get traction in soft snow so we may have to wait until it is colder. Will we try again?
Now the flight crew move the pallets back in the cargo area to see if that helps us get off the ground. We only have so much fuel in the plane so we can't try many more times to fly today. This time it seems like we are really speeding up. Yes, we've got lift! Instead of arriving at 7:00, we will get there at 8:30 PM.
Answer: Sarah has to cook for 30 people!
Have you ever been on a plane that takes off 5 times before it gets off the ground?
Lars Berg Larsen, the Field operation Manager of NEEM took us on a field trip on our last day in Greenland. He said we were going to the "ice edge". At first, we saw so many giant hills of rocks and a lot of boulders.
Evidence of glacial rocks were everywhere you looked.
Every once in a while there was a small patch of purple flowers peaking out. He said the whole area will be purple in a week or so.
We drove about 30 minutes and saw something white on the horizon. It looked like clouds from a distance. This was the first sighting of Russell Glacier.
Does it look like it's growing or retreating?The whole area of Kangerlussuaq is very dry and dusty. Can you find evidence of that in this picture?
We stopped and had a picnic and this was our view. Fabulous!
Next Lars wanted to show us another glacier that is calving (breaking off). We had to drive on a sandy, windy road and I was worried we wouldn't make it. Another 30 minutes later, these pictures are what we saw!
Get out! I'm not in Kansas any more!
Thank you Lars for taking us on such a great field trip on our very last day!
I just saw my first ice crevasse!
Why is it odd that camp members kept seeing a penguin in their camp? It's on the ice, isn't it? Oh, penguins don't live in the north! They live in Antarctica!
There's a penguin in Greenland!
It’s 9:45AM Thursday and the camp launched a weather balloon! It is a red balloon filled with helium that is just let go in the wind. The sky is so grey today and we need to know if the cloud ceiling is too low for the plane to land. The cloud ceiling needs to be 2,000 feet or higher so a pilot can put the plane down. They also need two miles visibility which means the pilot must be able to see for 2 miles before he can land the plane.
Today this measurement is important because many of the camp members going home have a flight out of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland tomorrow. If they don’t get home before 12 PM on Friday, they have to spend the weekend there. Air Greenland does not have any flights on the weekend from this town. Many of them have been here for several weeks and are anxious to get home.
So how do they get the ceiling height from launching a balloon? They know the weight (30 grams)and diameter (53 cm) of the helium balloon. They know the vertical speed of the ballon is 150 meters per minute. They check the time it is launched and watch the balloon until it disappears. The balloon could not be seen at 2 minutes and 40 seconds. So now they multiply the minutes by 150 meters to get the ceiling height. So the ceiling was 400 meters,or 1,312.33 feet. Wait, did the observer use binoculars? The scientist using binoculars could see the balloon longer and got a measurement that made the ceiling high enough to fly.
Other factors also determine if a plane lands here. Are there cross winds? Yesterday it was too windy so it couldn’t land. Today it is not windy at 8 knots. What is the temperature? Today it is -13C and the temperature is coming down. That means there will be less vapor in the air so some of the clouds will clear. JP the field leader, has to make this important decision. If the plane cannot land, it makes a $40,000 dent in his budget. This a very expensive flight!
Is the skiway ready? Lou has been out in the Piston Bully for 2 hours making the skiway smooth for the plane.
She clears this for every possible plane landing so she often does this for no reason! The skiway is two and a half miles long and she smooths the part of the runway that is closest to camp.She goes up and back to make her trip 20 miles long for a runway that these big planes can land on.
JP told them to come, so the plane will be here in 3 hours!
After two nights of sleeping in the very cold girls’ tent, JP and Sarah suggested I move to a smaller, warmer tent. This tent had a portable radiator heater in it for Princess Victoria when she spent the night a few days ago. I was feeling a little wimpy about this until I entered the tent. What a difference! Who cares about being a wimp? The temperature had to be 20 degrees warmer!
One noticeable difference was that my water bottle was not an ice block when I woke up. So it was above freezing in this new tent! I still slept in most of my clothes, my hat and my sleeping mask. It doesn’t matter where you sleep, what time it is or what the weather is, it is still very bright because of the snow’s reflection. The mask really makes you think it is dark out when you are trying to sleep.
The worst time of the day is getting out of your sleeping bag. Some people here have told me they put their clean clothes for the next day in the sleeping bag so they will be warm. I don’t like lumps in my bag so I just put them close by. It is best to try to dress as much as possible in your bag and then jump out and dress quickly. Once that is over, the rest of the day seems warm!
Talk about the royal treatment!
Why are scientists drilling ice cores anyway? The history of climate can be found in ice cores by a process called fractionation. Now that’s a spelling word! This just means that they break apart the oxygen molecule that they find in the bubbles in the ice core. They use an instrument called a Mass Spectrometer which separates the oxygen atom into 3 types: O16, O17 and O18. The O18 is heavier so it is left to tell climate history.
The oldest ice cores drilled in Greenland are 123,000 years old. In Europe the Eemian period (about 130,000 years ago) was about 5 degrees C warmer than today and sea levels were around 5 meters higher. So if scientists knew what happened during this time, they might be able to predict what will happen in our warming world today. Therefore the goal of NEEM (North Greenland Eemian ice drilling) is to obtain a complete ice core record from the Eemian to compare with our present climate. This will not happen this season, but they hope to reach a steady routine of drilling 170 meters per week. They also hope to pass the brittle zone (750m – 1250 m when the gas pressure of the bubbles cause it to break the ice) this season.
Today I went down in the drill trench. To get to it, I walked down an icy ramp to a doorway (a piece of plywood) and slid the door open. Now I was underground surrounded by ice walls, an ice and wood ceiling and an ice ramp.
I was amazed that it had all been dug out. A few steps down and I was in the drilling room.
The scientists are testing the different drills they use and have drilled 200 meters so far this season. I watched a 2 meter core drill and saw it pushed out as well.
Do you think the drilling room needs to be cold? It is -25C or -13 F, but it doesn’t feel as cold because it is not windy. There is another room in the underground which has a lab for analyzing some of the cores and stores the cores they drill. Two drillers showed me around, Krissy and Hans Christian.
Tonight all the camp went down into the trench to watch the new drill on its maiden voyage. This drill can make an ice core that is 3.5 meters long. That is a whole meter(39 inches) longer than the one they have been using. The drilling can go faster with this longer drill. The drillers were successful with their core, but they had problems getting the ice core out and a damaged cable. Tomorrow will be a repair day and another test run.
How did they build an underground science lab like this? Many hours of snow blowing and chain sawing made the entrance, drill chamber and science trench. The ceiling of the structure is mainly plywood, but the ceiling in the hall that connects the drilling and science rooms is snow. They needed to test the snow to see if it was dense enough to support a ceiling and here is the hole they drilled almost to the surface.
The metal room in the back is a science lab.
This is the coldest library in Greenland! If you look closely, you can see the ice cores in the slots.
One third of the ice core will be packed in boxes and stored at NEEM. It will be cut in 7 separate pieces for analyzing isotopes, gases, volcanic particles, dust and physical properties, among other things. The scientists called loggers and processors will begin doing this soon. So much history to be told!
See the underground science trench!
Buildings
Life at NEEM begins and ends at the big black dome. This permanent building is 3 stories high, with a first floor kitchen, bathroom and dining room.
It is heated by the waste heat of the generator that powers the camp.
This waste heat also heats the snow melter that makes water for the camp.
The second floor is like a study hall and lounge. There are tables for working on computers, 3 couches, and 6 bunk beds (that are in a heated dome!). Here you will find many computers clicking in the evening, though there is very limited internet connection. There are also satellite phones here, but this morning I heard the field leader say one of the Iridium satellite phones is not working either. Communication to others can be difficult when you are at the top of the world!.
Climb the ladder and you will be on the top floor.
This is the field master’s “roost” where he does most of his communication with the outside world. I climb this everyday to find out the weather on the display. The view from this floor is amazing as you see white ice until your eye meets the horizon!
All of the tents are used for sleeping, storage or experiments. Much of the science equipment is left on pallets or drums outside, elevated so it won’t get buried under the snow.
There are also large white tanks which hold enough fuel for the camp to last one month.
Sleeping
A few people sleep in the heated dome, but it is noisy from people coming and going all night. The rest of the camp sleeps in tents which have heaters to keep them
dry and relatively frost free, and NOT to create warm room temperatures inside.
I have slept two nights in Dome 2, the girls’ tent. Both nights the temperature was -20 C (-20 X 9 divided by 5 +32= Fahrenheit). Do the math and look for the answer below!
So my first night I took off my heavy boots and snuggled down in the sleeping bag in my clothes I wore that day, even my hat.
I put a hot water bottle down at the bottom to keep my feet warm. After about an hour, I felt like my socks were a little wet so I brought out my water bottle to check it. Yes, the stopper was leaking! I changed my socks and threw the bottle under the bed. (Hint for Fahrenheit temperature: the next morning the water bottle was frozen solid).
Last night I put my hot water bottle in a zip lock bag to prevent any leaks. I also slept in most of my clothes again and pulled the sleeping tight so my head was inside the bag.
(All my roommates do this and I don’t know if they are in their beds or not!) After a few hours, I woke up with my back and fleece bag liner feeling wet and cold because I was dressed too warm and my body perspired. In below freezing temperatures and in the middle of the night, I had to get out of my sleeping bag and take out the liner and change my clothes. This morning the liner and my clothes were frozen solid!
I think tonight I will figure this sleeping out!
Eating
The cook, Sarah, makes wonderful food for the 24 people here at camp. Breakfast is on your own from 7-8 AM, lunch is served at 1 PM and dinner is at 7 PM. She cooks for people from 6 different countries. She told me she has been cooking for research centers in the Polar Regions for 11 years!
Sarah was talking about two tomatoes outside. Tomatoes, in -16C? She told me that was her tent she lives in since she is here all summer long.
Work
The main work of the camp is the ice core drilling, but the camp doesn’t run without everyone pitching in. Here is a list of duties I found on a kitchen wall:
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House Mouse- assists the cook, makes runs to the refrigerator tent for food, sweeps floor, cleans the kitchen, dining tables and bathroom, and takes the garbage out.
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Drinking water-checks and refills by shoveling snow into the cook’s snowmelter at least 3 times each day.
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Main snowmelter-checks and refills (by shoveling snow) for water that is not for drinking 3 times each day.
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Dishwasher-puts dishes in the dishwasher and puts them away after all meals.
Last night the second floor watched a movie and ate popcorn on a big classroom screen!
Answer to my first night’s temperature:-5 degrees Fahrenheit
Not your normal Girl Scout camp!
