Greenland Ice Sheet8

One of the events that Thule looks forward to hosting each year is Armed Forces Day. The festival attracts several hundred people, both Inuit families and Air Force personnel. Held on the ice of North Star Bay, the events include broomstick hockey, snowmobile rides, helicopter rides, children’s craft activities and dog sled races. The dog…

Taking off amidst snow flurries we are headed completely across the Greenland ice cap to the northeast corner of of the country. This flight will differ from most of the DC-8 flights during the Ice Bridge 2010 Greenland campaign. The DC-8 flights are mainly used to measure sea ice or surface mapping with high altitude…

We have flown three flights in the last week, with a fourth postponed as winds were too high for take off. Two of the flights have focused on sea ice in the Arctic. The first was flown north of Canada’s Ellsmere Island, where thick multiyear ice tends to accumulate. We examined the thickness of that…

Our ICE Bridge team of 34 scientists and NASA personnel has piled mounds of equipment, luggage, and emergency Arctic survival gear into the DC-8, setting off just before midnight for Thule, Greenland.All but two of the seats are filled, and every possible open area has been piled with our supplies for the next few weeks.Our…

Jim Cochran, Geophysicist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory ICE Bridge scientists gathering at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) in Palmdale, CA for our upcoming Greenland mission were greeted in true California style. We were awakened by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake in the middle of the night! Although small by California standards the event was centered only about…