Getting there: Logistics Part 2
The first field season in Greenland is officially here. In about an hour we will pack up our rental SUV and drive out to Newburgh, New York to the Stewart Air National Guard base. Monday morning we board a C-17 from the 105th Air Lift Wing of the Air National Guard. The C-17 will fly us to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. From there we spend a day getting ready to fly out to the first field site on the Greenland Ice Sheet. To access the first site we will use a Twin Otter aircraft similar to the one on the left. ...
read moreGetting there: Logistics part 1
In my “Welcome” note (see top Nav bar) I mention that students at Milton Academy will be contributing content to the site and blog. The following interview was conducted, and written up, by Jonathan Chan, Class III. Jonathan is interviewing Robin Abbott who is the Greenland Science Project Manager for Polar Field Services. Polar Field Services handles all the logistics for National Science Foundation funded projects in Greenland. 1) How do the researchers get themselves and their equipment from the US to Greenland? There...
read moreDress for Success
It is one week until we head out to Greenland. Spring has finally arrived in Milton. As I write, crocuses are in bloom and the tulips in my yard are pushing up. But in Illulisat, Greenland it is 5°F, and that is at sea-level (our field sites will all be considerably higher). The highest the temperature will get there this coming week is 37°F with several days that won’t get above 10°F. In those kinds of temperatures what you wear and how you wear it can make all the difference between a pleasurable (or at least tolerable) day outdoors...
read moreGlacier Travel training next weekend
Next weekend (Presidents’ Day Weekend) the east coast members of the research team will be doing a glacier travel training in North Conway New Hampshire with a guide from International Mountain Equipment (IME), a mountaineering guide service. Most members of the team have worked on glaciers before; however, it is always a good idea to brush up on the skills required to travel safely on a glacier. The upper 50m or so of glacial ice is brittle and cracks open as the glacier moves over uneven bedrock. These cracks, called crevasses, are...
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