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.
It's 8:00 AM and the students are sleepy
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.
Glacier goo is a popular activity in Ice, Ice, Baby
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...
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!)
New NEEM team members arrive and others depart
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...
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.
Every place you looked was brown, all different shades of brown
Evidence of glacial rocks were everywhere you looked.
This was one big boulder left by the glacier
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.
Soon the fields will be covered with these flowers
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.
The ice picks up a lot of earth as it pushes its' way across...
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!
Penguin hangs out with drilling buddies
Not much help with clearing the skiway
No driving around for fun in camp,sorry!
Waiting to be pulled!
Needs to hurry in!
Lou and Sarah like the penguin!
JP had to constantly answer a lot of questions
Hope the plane heads south...
Nice guard members staff the camp flights
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.
USe binoculars to determine how high it gets before it's gone
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...
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!
Smaller and slightly heated!
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...
<div class="standalone-image" style="width: px"><img src="/files/members/cheri-hamilton/images/sciencetrench-.jpg" alt="An Icy Room for Science" title="All core tests at NEEM will be done here" /><div class="caption">All core tests at NEEM will be done here</div></div>
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 snow reflects blue at...
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....
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.
In 2008, this dome took all summer to build
It is heated by the waste heat of the generator that powers the camp.
This powers it all and the waste from this heats the rest
This waste heat also heats the snow melter that makes water for the camp.
All water that is not for drinking
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...
I arrived at NEEM camp with the Crown Prince of Denmark and Norway, and the Crown Princess Victoria from Sweden. With them came many members of the press from each of their countries and their body guards. There were so many people in this group that some of them had to be flown to the nearest city ,Thule, as there was not room for them to sleep here! Every spot in the camp was a place for pictures and interviews so it was hard to know where to go.
The press traveled with us and took pictures and interviews every moment
We could not see them on TV or in the newspaper at NEEM camp, but Denmark, Norway and Sweden did! This kind of visit is good for science because it calls attention to the work that is being done here.
JP and Dorothe are married and change places. When one comes up, the...
It’s Saturday morning and we were to have our luggage on the wooden pallet by 10 AM. All of our bags were marked with duct tape with our name in magic marker. Can you find mine on the pallet? My bag is made out of rubber and has a zipper like a zip lock baggie.
Snow can't get in my rubber bag.
Everything in a cargo plane is strapped down.
Kangerlussuaq Internaltional Science Support,"KISS"
The pile of bags grew so I wondered how all of these would get to the airport. Look at the picture below!
Moving the luggage to the airport
Remember how the back opens up on a cargo plane?
The plane opens up in the back for cargo
Finally the pallet of bags is on the plane.
The pallet is on a metal floor with rollers underneath
Check out the wires and the...
10:30 AM-Our original take off time delayed due to weather at NEEM camp
LC-130 Cargo Plane
10:45 AM-Weather clears at NEEM so we are given yellow earplugs and prepare to board
11:00 AM- The load master takes 10 passengers at a time for loading
Randy loads us. He is part of the U.S. Airforce, 109th Tactical Group, Scotia, NY
11:30 AM- The "skier” (cargo plane with skis) really takes off!
This is called a skier!
12:00 PM -Journaling begins!
Cheri writing in her new journal from Justin
12:30 AM- Box lunch with musk ox sandwiches!
1:00 PM- Northern Greenland views from the back windows
View of Greenland from the window at the back of "skier"
2:15 PM-Land with a thump and ski to our camp sight
Our plane skiied for 2 and half miles before stopping
2:25 PM-Load sleds with...
Last night Dorthe and Maggam brought pizza home for us. There were four different kinds, all with a dark brown meat of some kind on them. Everyone was speaking Danish so I just had two slices and listened to see if I could understand anything. The only word that did sound like English to me was "musk ox". Hmm, was that the meat on the pizza? I could not stop thinking about the animals I showed you pictures of when I got back from Alaska!
Yum, musk ox!
Wish I didn't know what these guys looked like!
I just saw ice in the water outside my window in the airplane! I took a picture since this is the first time I have ever seen ice in my life. There is so much of it that I thought I was looking at white clouds. Look at the picture closely. Do you see the reason I knew it was ice?
Sea ice near northern Greenland
Next you will see my first look at Greenland's land. The sky was really cloudy so we could not see much of it until we landed. Look at the huge plane I came on!
The airport is small in Kangerlussuaq and passengers walk off the plane onto the runway.
I was picked up at the airport and taken to my hotel. It is a place for NEEM scientists and staff who are going to the NEEM camp.
International Kangerlussuaq Science Support is where all the people stay that work at NEEM
Check out...
Hey Climate Pathfinders, my hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark is doing many things to help the environment! All 4 of their hotels are carbon neutral. Do you know what that means? It means that they have added up the energy their hotels use to find out the amount of CO2 their hotels produce. They buy CO2 shares on the stock market that invest money in green energy. Can you think of what kind of energy is considered "green" or environmentally friendly? Wind mills and wind farms make energy we can use without using fossil fuels like coal or gasoline, so they would not harm the environment. I saw some windmills far off in the distance here. Maybe this hotel chain's stocks bought some of the windmills I see. See if you can find them in this picture I took of the Copenhagen skyline.
Can...
It is fun getting ready for such a trip! It is a bizarre place to visit so I get lots of interesting questions. One that is on everyone's mind is, "How cold is it in May and early June?" I wonder that myself since there isn't a way to look up the forecast because the NEEM research center is not a city on the map. If I could only "google" the weather forecast! I have to rely on past May and June temperature readings from people that have been to this camp before. Most remember temperatures below freezing, but the sun is shining almost all of the night as well as the day which makes it feel warmer. One can only hope...
The students and I have been watching Dr. Mary Albert's video titled "Reading Ice Cores". This is an interesting 8 minute video about ice...
I just received a 97 page manual for my trip to the NEEM field camp in Greenland. This document begins with the history of the camp and the ongoing research. It explains that NEEM means** **North Greenland Eemian Ice drilling. I can’t wait to see the drilling! The manual also includes the 100 team member roster, the schedule for the 2009 field season and a picture of the camp.
NEEM Camp, Greenland 2008 by Thomas Overly
I must admit after reading many pages, the information that caught my eye was about food, water and shelter. I know we sleep in large red tents. The manual says, "Beds will be either bunk beds with foam mattresses or foldable beds.” What? Did it say beds?!!! I was so excited to read about sleeping in a bed. Then I read, "In May and early June temperatures in the quarters...
Wednesday evening we visited the Ice Park in Fairbanks and toured the BP World Ice Art Championships. This year's theme is "Frozen Memeories-50 Years of Statehood". Talk about Ice, Ice, Baby! We discovered more than 100 works of ice nestled in the tall evergreen trees surrounded by snow every where. If you were wearing white you could have disappeared!
The artists have 60 hours to finish their masterpieces. So when we arrived, we saw sculptors from around the world using chain saws and drimmels carving their blocks of ice. In the Single Block Classic, teams of up to 2 persons work on a 3' X 5' X 8' block of Fairbanks ice that weighs about 7,500 pounds!
Tools of the trade
Many of the details weren't added to the carvings yet so parts of the sculptures were sitting on tables...
The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race finish line was just blocks away from our hotel! The news reported that the first team of dogs would be crossing the finish line at 9:30 am so we bundled up and hurried down the snowy streets to the Yukon River. In our wait for the first team of dogs to appear, I learned that this race starts in Whitehorse, Canada and ends up in Fairbanks, Alaska which is 1,000 miles away! We were able to speak with last year's winner Lance Mackey and he told us that this is the hardest dog race in Alaska because there are only 10 stops along the way and some of the stops are 200 miles apart. I also found out that there is only one sled driver for each team called a musher. Fourteen dogs can be on the team, but only 8 can race at a time. A team cannot add any...
Hello Kansas scientists!
I'm here in cold Alaska to learn how to survive in Greenland on the ice this summer. You should see the giant banks of snow along the roads! You know how we have been waiting to make snow cones in Kansas? We could make a lot of snow cones here. Wish I could just get the snow home!
Last night at dinner I learned what a dry cabin is. In Alaska, there are many people who live in these. They are homes without running water. How can you live without running water? In Fairbanks this is no problem! Here you'll find the Water Wagon!
With six pumps, residents can take a five gallon or a twenty gallon container to haul water or use their own truck with a 200 gallon tank. There is a trick to this, however. New Fairbanks residents need to know which of the 2 pumps are used...
This is my last journal entry from Fairbanks, Alaska. Here are a few memories of my trip. Soon I will be back in the classrooms teaching Ice, Ice, Baby. In a few short months, I will be off to Greenland!
This was the first of many surprises for me in Fairbanks. Never in my life have I seen poles with electrical outlets in a parking lot! When you park your car, you plug your car into an electrical outlet. Alaska cars are sold with heaters in their engine blocks, batteries and oil pans because it gets so cold here. Some people even have battery blankets!
Parking lot at our Fairbanks hotel in February
The dry, beautiful snow was everywhere in this town. We use sand or salt for traction on Kansas snow. They use gravel! Some homes had snow up to their windows and narrow paths to get in...
