Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Update! Still in Longyearbyen (Svalbard's version of civilization)



Hello everyone!
I want to give a special thanks to my friend Steven Dodrill who works at a local radio station back home in Marshfield, Massachusetts. 95.9 FM WATD. He has posted a link to this blog on their website. So if any of you are just linking to this from there, welcome! Please be sure to scroll down and read my first post, I tried to give a semi-brief but informative post on where I am and what I will be doing. Feel free to post comments or questions at the bottom of my posts. I will do my best to answer any and all of them as they come.

I am taking advantage of some of the down time we are having before setting off on a boat to Kappe Linne (a 25 mile boat ride from here) where we will spend our 12 days in the field. Now by field, we won't actually be camping and living primitively. From what I hear, we have a chef who will cook us breakfast and have dinner ready every day we get back from the field.




We will be focusing our work on three main sites, Linnevatnet, Kongressvatnet and Linnebreen. Linne and Kongress are common names of the sites and the suffixes -vatnet stands for lake while -breen stands for glacier. More on that later as we get into the field and I get some actual photos to show you what we will be doing! Since we only have 12 days in the field, our work is a little limited, we can't do any long term monitorings of the lake and ice dynamics. However, since last season the lakes have been probed and monitored extensively.




One of the really neat things we will retrieve up there are photos from cameras that are fixed on a hill overlooking Linnevatnet and the glacier. Once a day at the same time it snaps a photo. When we get there, we can download the memory cards onto laptops and create a time-series video of how the glaciers have moved and the melting/forming of ice on the lake. Then combining the available data of local weather stations (we also have a handful of those set up around our sites) we can try and quantify ice movement and melting relating to temperature, sunlight, rainfall etc.




This morning we awoke to snow flying in the air and the mountains across the way that had glaciers in the valleys were covered with a dusting of snow! Supposedly last week it had reached 50 degrees, but no sign of that yet here!




Today we had to be trained on shooting a rifle and flare gun. Every group must carry them at all times, because an encounter with a polar bear although rare, can occur. I'll have you know that since 1995 of all the University led expeditions (approximately 15,000 people since then), there has only been the need to shoot and kill one bear.




After that we were taken out to the fjord (an inlet with steep sides created by glaciers), changed into wet suites (not your typical wet suites, very fancy and I presume expensive wet suites) that keep you almost 100% dry. With ocean temperatures around 40 degrees, you can actually stay warm in them for up to 24 hours if necessary. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to jump into the Arctic Ocean but at least I can say I did!




There are some other very interesting things I have learned about the island of Svalbard that maybe I will type up in a later post. For now, check out some of the pictures I have taken here! Hope you enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Hey David, We loved all your pics, but we were trying to figure out which one is you in the orange suit. Look forward to more pics. Stay safe and warm. Oh, we picked up the car today. Getting use to it and yes we love it. Can't wait till you come home though, you will have fun with it.
    Love Mom & Dad

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  2. Hey David, I take it you didn't need the yellow boots. Love Mom

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