| Field Notes 2003 |
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The first year of field operations for the Freshwater Switchyard project was 2003. Mike Steele and Roger Andersen flew from Seattle to Schenectady, NY on April 27th. Early (too early!) the next morning, we took a taxi from the hotel to... |
The inside of a C-130 is a noisy (note the ear protection) and not particulary warm (note the sweaters) place. It's not really built for comfort... |
The sign on this building says "Kangerlussuaq International Science Support" a.k.a. KISS. It is run by VECO, a company vased in Boulder, CO that takes care of the logistical needs of polar scientist. This was our hotel for 3 nights... |
We has 2 fulls days to kill while the NYANG practiced polar operations. On the fist day, we borrowed some bikes and explored a bit. Kangerlussuaq is situated at the end of the longest fjord in Greenland. (Kangerlussuaq means "big fjord,"... |
This is a lake where the local rowing club practices in the summer. Well, it's not yet summer in late April, is it?! Actually, the snow/ice was melting... |
Here's Roger soaking up some warm arctic sunlight while leaning against the Rowing Club House. |
OK, our digital camera doesn't really have much zoom. If you look carefully you can see 3 dark blobs on this hillside, lower half of the picture... |
The second day also brought us wonderful weather. We took the bikes out again, traveling on the longest road, it's mostly gravel, in Greenland.. |
Here's Mike at the top of Big Sugarload Mountain, looking east to the Greenland Ice Cap (the whte stuff on the distance). You can see the road keeps going to the ice cap. |
Here's Roger on the way back down Big Sugarloaf Mountain, looking west towards Kangerlussuaq, which is visible at the water in the far distance. |
We are at the airport in Kangerlussuaq, about to leave for... |
This is the North Star Inn, our hotel for one night's stay in Thule... |
Thule was overcast, with temperatures at just about 0 C. The flat-topped mountain is called Dundas. It is only about 500 feet high, although it appears taller... |
Finally we are in Alert! We arrived May 2nd on the C-130 from Thule on a beautiful sunny day, with temperatures around -8 degrees Celcius . Alert is the northern-most human outpost... |
Sometimes the weather is not so good in Alert. This has led in the past to some tragedies. Here we see a memorial to those who did not survive the crash into the hills south of Alert... |
Our helicopter arrived later that day from Resolute, Canada. We were very lucky to get John Innis (on the right) as our pilot, a man with many hours of experience flying helicopters around... |
Finally on May 6 the weather cleared and field op's began. We flew ... |
Here's Mike at a nice small, clean lead. We tried to avoid big leads (waves, etc), thick ice (higher freeboard and possibly rough edges to deal with) and highly fractured areas (safety issues)... |
Here's Roger at another lead, deploying the CDT-O. You can see the very thin line that we use to lower the CTD-O heading down in to the dark water. We had to clear away a bit of... |
At the end of each day, Roger gave the CTD-O a nice freshwater bath back in Alert. It's nice to treat your instruments with respect! Especially after they've been hanging around in cold, salty... |
Here's Mike about to drop an XCP (eXpendable Current Profiler) ... |
Here's the floating part of the XCP, with the antenna on top and the actual sensor winding its way down to the bottom of the ocean. |
Roger is shown here recording the XCP signal that's sent from the floating unit's antenna (seen in the lead) to a digital radio reciever (in his hands). The sound signal is later downloaded.. |
Sea ice is really cool stuff. It's more flexible than ice that forms from fresh water, and as a result it can sometimes bend in beautiful ways. Here's a lead that's been "frozen" into a wavy... |
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All good things must come to an end. After 3 das of successful field operations and 1 extra day of packing... |
From Alert, we flew southwest over the Ellesmere Island icecap, with dramatic views of glaciers and mountains... |
