Moving the TAWO Tower

 over the past two weeks I've been helping the tower riggers take down and rebuild the TAWO tower in a new location.

The finished tower! I have a time lapse of the whole process but it's a bit big to upload just yet. 

Retrieving Ice Cores by Plane

 Yesterday I got to go on a twin otter flight 190 miles away from station to help dig up some ice cores and empty gas jugs from a ice core traverse that has been snowmobiling around the west of Greenland for the past 7 weeks.

 Station from the sky!

 Landing on ungroomed snow in the middle of no where.

Dug a hole to retrieve the things left behind. It was a really fun afternoon trip! The flight back was a bit cold, because you can't turn the heat on in the airplane if you are carrying ice cores, you don't want them to melt!

Happy Mid-Summer!

Mid-summer isn't a huge deal as mid winter is down south or even mid winter up here. But it's still a good reason to take a crew picture and mail it to all the stations in Antarctica celebrating mid winter today. 

Sun Dog

It's been a very busy first couple weeks. There has been a couple storms but mostly really nice weather. Wind under 10 knots, temperatures between -15 and 15 F.

We are in the process of moving the TAWO tower that was built too close to the TAWO building. To do this two tower riggers were flown up to take the tower down and rebuild it in a new location. This is the riggers and medic man hauling the base of the tower out into the clean air sector. We had to drag it by hand to not disturb the clean air science going on at TAWO.

While taking turns hauling the base of the tower and the anchors of the guy wires a fantastic sun dog appeared.

Best one I've every seen.

Lots of different effects were displayed including, the parahelic circle, Perry's Arc, infralateral tangent arcs of the 48 degree halo, lower and upper tangent arcs and the 22 degree halo.  It was hard to get everything all in one picture.

Arctic Fox

This morning we had a visitor from the coast. We have been seeing lost birds a few times a week but today we found Arctic fox tracks. 

Tracks outside the Big House.

Tracks checking out the trash pallet.

And a little later someone spotted the fox running to the east! I ran outside with my zoom lens and was able to catch it before it ran too far. It has a very long journey ahead of it if it is to make it back to it's hunting grounds 200-400 miles to the east.

First ICESAT of the Summer phase

ICESAT traverse is a 7 miles traverse about 4 miles off station. It's helps make a set point for a NASA satellite project that measures the height and accumulation of icecaps both in Greenland and in Antarctica. We tow a highly precise GPS and measure 120 flags for there accumulation of snow since the last traverse.

It was a beautiful day, about -15 F and 5 knots of wind (pic-nic weather).

Summit in the Summer

In the summer Summit camp has a higher population (27-50 people). The fluctuation of population is from the scientists coming and going. Most of the projects I helped sustain through the winter will be coming up to do upgrades and changes to their equipment.

Temperatures are warm enough to melt snow on darker surfaces and we end up with interesting icicles.

This is an firn ice core that was drilled during my first week back on station. These scientist are looking at snow density and compaction in the firn layer. The firn layer is where the snow has not been compressed into hard ice yet. Solid ice forms about 40 meters down.

Another science group to pass through already is the German seismograph guys. We dug a huge hole for them (2 meters x 2 meters x 3 meters) so they could relocate their equipment closer to the surface (the old trench was getting too deep).

Here is the new trench. 

Some of the seismic equipment. This can detect icebergs calving off the Greenland ice sheet as well as earthquakes all around the world. 

The mouth of the seismic trench.

Weather has been pretty good after last weeks wind storm.

The greenhouse has been unburied from its winter drifting (and now you can actually see it).

It's been very warm (-10 to 10 F) and the food has been fantastic (there is a cook in the summer and she is awesome)! More updates to come now that the busy first week is over!

Day in Kangerlussuaq

Today we had a general safety meeting and we were issued our extreme cold weather gear.

 The old air force barracks have been renovated into hotels, offices, and a restaurant.

 One person's pile of ecw.

Not pictured: wall of boots, goggles, hats, neck gaiters, and artic weight parkas. And the whole other section of warehouse for sleep kits.

Then we went for a walk to visit the local sled dogs and see the river running into the Søndre Strømfjord.

 They are very big!

Scalloped bedrock on the bottom of the river bed. This will be under the summer melt water when I return through here in August. 

We are scheduled to fly to Summit tomorrow morning so this will be the last of liquid water and rocks for a about 4 months. Very excited!

Hello from Kangerlussuaq!!

Hello everyone! After not quite 3 months away, I'm back in the polar regions and that means hopefully semi regular updates again.

I'm currently in Kangerlussuaq, which is situated on the west coast of Greenland.

 I flew here today from an Air National Guard base in upstate New York on a LC-130. The L means it is ski equipt but so far we are still landing on the wheels. The skies will be needed to land at Summit Station, where I will be spending the rest of the Summer with 30-50 people - a big change from 3 months ago in the same location.

In the summer months ANG flies passengers (pax) and supplies to Summit via Kanger.

Here's some pictures from today!

 Palletizing cargo.

 ANG

 Boarding.

 Skiis.

 Packed flight.

 The flight from New York is about 6.5 hours. I played a game of "what does that lake look like" to pass the time.

Can you spot the winking polar bear?

 There's a boat!

 

Half of Kangerlussuaq 

Looking forward to another great arctic season!