Greenland8
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Switchyard Project: A Very Successful Year
The 2011 field season has been a very very successful year, in fact the most successful one we have ever had. The weather has been great, the equipment proved to be mostly reliable, the people have been great and the samples are plenty.
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A Focus on the Thinning Northwest Greenland Glaciers
Blog by Hakim Abdi, LDEO Satellite measures showing thinning ice on the Northwest Greenland glaciers prompted Operation IceBridge to include annual flights over this region. The area runs along the Baffin Bay coast, which is often covered in fog and low lying clouds forcing delays and reschedules. With the end of our season in sight…
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Measuring Gravity From a Moving Aircraft Requires a ‘Gravi-God’!
From: Joël Dubé, Engineer/Geophysicist at Sander Geophysics, OIB P-3 Gravity Team One of the instruments used in Operation IceBridge (OIB) is an airborne gravimeter operated through a collaboration between Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and Sander Geophysics of Ottawa, Canada. People from other instrument teams have been heard to call it a gravity…
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Switchyard Project: Melting Ice, a Fresher Arctic
The freshwater content of the Arctic Ocean is increasing as the Earth’s climate warms. Chemical analysis indicates that the source is both melting ice and the Pacific Ocean.
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Witnessing time – from 445 million year old rocks exposed in the Fjords to ~4 thousand year old small ice caps
By Hakim Abdi, LDEO. My first flight on the P3 and the scenery was nothing short of breathtaking. The science mission involved flights in the north over the Steensby glacier that passes through Sherard Osbron Fjord, and Ryder glacier constrained by the Victoria Fjord. In northeast Greenland we overflew the Hagen glacier and the Flade…
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Switchyard Project: New Sampling Record
On May 10, we celebrated the sampling of our 10th station yesterday. These are more stations than we were ever able to get water samples from. Because of the ongoing good weather, we will certainly get one more station today, and hopefully many more during the next couple of days. So watch the posted video and celebrate with…
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Dealing with Mother Nature
Working in the poles we are constantly reminded of our dependence on meteorology, and this project has dealt us a variety of different weather considerations. The most obvious is the weather we experience at the base. Storm season in Thule lasts from the 15th of September to the 14th of May; in other words encompassing…
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Switchyard Project: Sampling Success
The past 1½ weeks have been very successful. Our team from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory was able to obtain water samples from eight stations, while the team from the University of Washington has already broken their all-time record of the past years of 18 stations. Today (May 7) is actually the first day we can’t fly…
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Transporting Ice From Greenland’s Deep Interior
The North East Ice Stream is a fast-flowing glacier transporting ice from deep in the interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet out to the coast (see image showing a deep penetration into central Greenland). When it reaches the coastline it feeds 79 N Glacier. This area is heavily crevassed, evidence of the rapid ice flow.…
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