June 27, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Life at the Top, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
I haven’t reached the point where I “X” off days on a calendar, but I am starting to look forward to getting out of here. Most of the group that I arrived with left this morning and will be back in the U.S. on Saturday, but a few of us are sticking it out for a couple more weeks.
A full one-third of the Danish parliament showed up for a whirlwind 1-hour tour+breakfast on Wednesday, but I wasn’t involved with the meet and greet. A high school science teacher from MT, who was chosen to participate in this research campaign by PolarTrec, has a little more insight if you’re curious.
Additionally, there is a group of individuals who are driving across most of Greenland to gauge whether or not it would be feasible and practical to resupply Summit by land instead of air. Craig has to do a lot of reporting, I’ll let him tell the story since I was too busy working to make the walk back to the Big House.
Pushing 230 again, so there is only time for a few photos and then it’s off to icy slumber. If you are sick of the pillar/sundog shots, then feel free to tune out now. (I just can’t get enough of them, so I’ll keep taking photos) To give you an idea of how vivid the colors are, the third shot was from indoors and I’d say brighter than most of the rainbows I’ve seen.
To cap this off, I’ll switch gears and show off some temporary art that I created after dinner tonight…yup, I’m still trying to have fun up here:) -Jeff
Quick update June 24, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Going to be over 50 people in camp tonight, so I’m guessing the internet is not going to be much of an option for the next couple days…so I will dump one more pic out here and probably won’t post anything until this weekend. Got up a little early again and was able to catch a few wave clouds just to the left of the Swiss Tower, which was a nice way for me to start the day. -Jeff
The morning after June 23, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Life at the Top.2 comments
Stayed up until about 3AM working to get some numbers out to my advisor and it’s pushing 4 as I type. It’s been a long night, but I almost feel like I’ve shifted back into the weather gig where I was working rotating shifts. The sun, as usual, is up right now and I’m toying with the idea of staying up all day. Part of that may be due to the 15 mph wind and -5F temp waiting for me outside…probably not a lot warmer in my tent right now. We had a little squall go through as I was walking back to the big house. When I got half way I couldn’t see the building in front of me or behind me, meaning visibility was briefly below 1/4 mile. Still feels strange for me to be experiencing this type of weather when almost everyone I know is sweating through summer.
Haven’t had a new photo in a couple days, so here’s one of the sun after I got back:
So talking about Greenland’s national holiday last time makes me think I should follow up on how it was handled up here. Unfortunately I missed out on the main event due to my need to work. I did get back to the Big House for dinner, which included lobster tails, center cut steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, and some other good stuff. This was a special meal, but we do eat real well up here on a daily basis. I haven’t gone around and taken notes on all the offerings, but I can show you what we had for dinner a week ago Friday (the day it was my turn to wash dishes and clean up around the place):
(apologies to the current camp cook, whom I caught off guard when she turned around to cut just as I snapped this photo) A wonderful roast on the left, potatoes and other veggies, some crusted tofu, a hot mushroom dish with pastry crust, and of course a big salad.
As for Saturday night, there was the typical fun and some more unusual stuff like hanging from the ceiling drinking out of a rubber chicken
Well maybe I’ll venture out into the cold after all. I figure a few hours of sleep would probably be a good idea since this will be a busy week. There are people leaving Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but many more are coming on Tuesday. I heard there will be 50+ people here for a couple days and some Danes are still scheduled to pass through too. That’s it for now. Hope you’re well and feel free to let me know if that’s the case. -Jeff
Meh. June 21, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Camp life, Frustration.1 comment so far
Just a quick note to say that it’s Greenland National Day, so I hope you did some celebrating. More frustration yesterday and a little bit today…but the important thing is that I’m half way home. All downhill from here and before I know it I’ll be sweltering in the northeast. During all the struggles I have made a point to remember that this is a once in a lifetime experience and it should be enjoyed for what it is.
Apparently a contingent from the Danish parliament will be dropping by camp for lunch on Wednesday, so there’s something to anticipate. Of course I’ll probably be sitting out in my remote location doing ‘work’, so maybe I’ll catch it on the news.
Time for dinner now, so that’s it from here. -Jeff
It was a good day. June 20, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Camp life, Feelin' fine.1 comment so far
Got some work done and potentially cool data, which I will share after doing a little more work on it. Then, we finally got that soccer game in tonight. A little more than an hour after dinner we got the game in, which was a pretty good time (as far as playing soccer goes:) I’m not sure how far I ran, but I’m down to a slim 140 so I’ll have to do a better job gorging in the next few days. Saturday is pizza night, so that will help!
The soccer game featured no out of bounds, 360-degree scoring, and no goalie (meaning no one could use their hands). The older folks lost, but it was a good effort and there’s always the rematch on Sunday. Here are a couple shots of the game, one of a radiosonde being launched tonight, one of a window replacement in the Big House earlier today, and another of the inside of the IC box that has the mist chambers…oh, and it looks like I’m on for tomorrow night (or at least a couple of my pictures), so check it out if you’re bored tomorrow night and online:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/index.php
(look at the solstice link tomorrow night)
-Jeff
A few more photos June 19, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Sorry, but not the kind that you might have been expecting. There was a lot of talk around lunch and the field was being prepared:
Unfortunately, the weather did not not coopperate (though some of us suspected it might not:) It got pretty windy during the day and that’s not something you want when you’re kicking a ball around on a sheet of ice.
The boxes sitting in the snow are a SODAR instrument that I think someone from NOAA is operating. You can tell it’s working by the “beep”…”beep”…”beep”…that echoes across a small section of Greenland.
So tonight I ended up doing a little work and caught yet another sun pillar. Sorry if it’s repetitive, but I think they’re cool and didn’t realize that it’s almost a nightly occurrence. This one was noteworthy because it really lit up the ground at the horizon and there were sundogs that did the same. (if we were talking in person, I’d make a comment about the sun’s rays being more focused close to the pole, but I figure it wouldn’t be as funny) I couldn’t get it all in one shot and, as usual, the photo doesn’t do it justice:
Sundog:
There was someone in the Big House tonight who was doing a check for a video conference with people at the South Pole and the Exploratorium in San Fransisco. The conference will be Friday night and I might get a speaking part…I’ll have an update tomorrow, but in the meantime feel free to bookmark:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/index.php
It’s the solstice one, so that would be 11p central, 12a eastern. -Jeff
June 18, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in Frustration, Life at the Top.add a comment
Well that was another long, frustrating day. Things were supposed to be nice and easy today, with the big instrument running on its own, me working up a little data, and then looking into the question of atmospheric transport for a couple periods of interest from last year. That would be it, then off to bed a little early and all would be right with the world. Of course after lunch I had the pleasure of seeing this bad guy go down
Left side is the back end, right side is the front…the syringe pump on the right failed this afternoon, so that was the cause for about 8 hours of
consternation. The box itself is over 5 feet tall, but there isn’t a whole lot to the analytical system. There are air and water pumps, IC columns for the samples, and syringes (with pumps) that inject the samples and can move water around. I like the old-fashioned push buttons (yellow numbers) and toggle switches. Having said that, I was not happy to have spent most of the day sitting around watching Luke trying to get the system up and running. (He is a PhD candidate at UNH and was up at Summit doing this work last year, so he has to make sure I can function after he leaves next week.)
Well, long story short is that it was a software problem and the syringe got to a position it didn’t like and just sat there grinding away any time another command was input. Things are back up now and I’ve been checking on the temperature remotely for the past hour. Unfortunately it’s almost 3AM yet again and I am the last one in the Big House. I do enjoy the quiet time by myself, but I really should be getting more sleep. There’s a big soccer match this evening, with the teams divided up age-wise. I just missed the cut and get to be the youngest on the old team instead of oldest on the young team…should be interesting. I’ll try to get a picture or two posted.
Let me know if you have any specific questions. I was thinking of doing a Q&A post later this week to cover some of the things that people have already asked about. Now that it’s after 3, I’ll wrap up with a few more pics. Top two are from Summit, the bottom left is meltwater from the ice sheet that I saw during my layover at Kangerlussuaq and the name of the hotel where I spent the night before heading to Summit. Hope you are well. -Jeff
More on the things that I do June 16, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in General Information, Life at the Top.1 comment so far
So it looks like all the things are up and running smoothly, so there won’t be any more headaches for the next 4 weeks. (yeah, right) The bulk of my time spent working revolves around use of ion chromatography to determine the concentrations of certain species in various types of samples. The main focus is air samples, but analyzing firn air (at about 10 cm depth) and aerosols (i.e. really small particles in air) are also part of my job description. Yesterday I posted a couple photos of the interior of “Sat Camp” and one of the IC systems, which is the building in the distance of some previous images. The building is where I spend most of my time, thankfully not always working on that apparatus. Here is an interior shot:
The pen in front is for scale. A liquid sample is placed in the small brown bottle to the left of the pen, drawn into the system by a syringe pump at the back of the box, and then sent through either an anion (negative charge) or cation (positive charge) column. Fortunately it isn’t as complicated as it looks and I won’t make it sound too technical. Luke, the other UNH student who is up here for a few weeks and training me on everything, summed it up to me by saying that we are basically glorified plumbers. In a sense it’s accurate, since my biggest responsibility is to get the liquid from one end of the system to the other. The internal pressure is generally from 1500 – 2000 psi, so leaks can and do happen, but I don’t have to worry about making integral parts.
Here are a couple more pictures to fill out this post.
Here’s the view out of the back door of the building after most of the drifting was done. I’ll leave you with a cool shot from outside so those of you sweltering in summer heat can cool off for a bit.
I see now that it’s around 2am, so that should be it for me…as usual, there will be more to come. -Jeff
Another day, another dollar June 15, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in General Information, Life at the Top.2 comments
Made it through the big storm today. Forecast worked out alright with high of 21 (guessed 23) and peak wind of 28 (guessed 30). As promised, I will get into a little what I’ve spent my time doing up here…first, a couple shots of my home away from home away from home:
This is the larger building that you can see in the distance from ‘The Big House’ (as seen previously). I get to hang out in the lower right-hand corner of this frame. Here’s a direct shot of one of the ion chromatography systems that has been confounding me:
I’ll get a shot of the innards tomorrow…
The other spot I spend most of my time is a little way beyond this building. Here’s what it looked like through the back door this evening:
It’s the “building” on the right. In case you were wondering, it was as cold as it looks in this photo. In fact, I almost got frostbite on all 10 of my fingers tonight. Part of my job description is to collect surface snow samples twice a day. This requires using 2 pair of thin poly gloves, scraping up snow using a sqaure of plastic, and using a funnel to put in in a 175 ml bottle that I washed a couple months ago. Well, those glove are not very warm and after handling and filling 3 bottles tonight (doing this in the ‘clean’ area), I ran back indoors and used anything I could find to warm up my fingers. They were all purple to the second knuckle, but 3 hours later only 2 are numb. I would have taken a picture, but at the time I just couldn’t make the camera work. (Sorry Mom, I’m not trying to scare you:)
Here are a couple more shots of the conditions today:
This is another one of my patented ‘where is the horizon?’ photos
A prof from the University of Houston and a HS teacher from Billings, MT planting flags out by where they fly the tethersondes
One of the more athletic people who can get around on skies that he brought. The rest of us who work out at “Sat Camp” walk back and forth a few times each day. It was pretty challenging tonight since there was a strong headwind and the path was hard to see and had plenty of drifts. Some of the weaker ones had to stop for some refreshment on the way:
Just to impress everyone who thought my thoughts about the mild 12 degrees was cool, here’s what my hand looked like after I walked back to The Big House (about 1/2 mile) drinking a brew…between the cold and the low pressure, it was kinda foamy and my glove looked like this:
Now I’ll sit back and wait for the comments on what’s in my hand…
It’s beginning to look a lot like Greenland June 14, 2008
Posted by summeratsummit in General Information, Life at the Top.1 comment so far
So after a handful of calm and foggy days it looks like a storm will bring some wind and snow to camp. I don’t have much to say, but wanted to let people know that I’m still here and working away. Like I have said previously, I will get some pics and descriptions of a typical day on here…soon. In the meantime, here’s a fogbow:
You know what? I think that photo is good enough to stand by itself. Assuming my “forecast” works out, I’m expecting to have a few minutes on my hands this weekend so there will be more later. -Jeff
