Staff return to Summit Station's Big House during a spring storm. Photo: Katrine Gorham

Due to high winds and low visibility on the ice sheet, a scheduled flight to Summit Station, Greenland, has been cancelled today. The flight would have brought additional personnel and supplies to the outpost to prepare for the busy summer research period. An advance team arrived on Thursday and has begun turnover with the staff of five who have been maintaining ongoing experiments since early November.

Saturday’s forecast calls for improving conditions, though continued high winds may keep the staff grounded in Kangerlussuaq for another day. Stay tuned.

Comments (0) Feb 03 2012

A sumptuous feast, including Beef Wellington, marks the end of Phase II and the beginning of Phase III winter operations at Summit. Clockwise from front left: Katrine Gorham, Tracy Sheeley, Ben Castellani, Lance Roth (in the knit cap), Phil Austin, Christy Schultz, Tommy Cox (or Tommy's hair anyway), Ben Buchwald, and Shannon Coykendall. Photo: Ben Toth

A Norland Air Twin Otter plane on skis landed at Summit Station today, delivering staff, materials, and fresh fruit and vegetables. A staff of five, isolated at the station since early November, welcomed the advance team to the remote research outpost on Greenland’s icesheet.  It’s “a full Big House,” commented station manager Ben Toth, referring to Summit Station’s iconic main building. “It’s nice to have some new faces around.”

Let the transition begin! This Norland Air Twin Otter brought Summit staff (and freshies!) to the station. Photo: Ben Toth

The Twin Otter paused only long enough to deliver passengers and cargo before flying on to Kangerlussuaq on Greenland’s west coast. Additional CPS staff are waiting there to assist with Summit’s transition and/or staff the station until it opens for the summer research period in April. Weather permitting, the Twin Otter will fly this team to Summit tomorrow before flying back to Iceland.

Summit Station is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation in cooperation with the Government of Greenland. It is managed by CH2M HILL Polar Services.–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Feb 02 2012

What light through yonder window breaks?

Dawn breaks at Summit Station for the first time in 2012. From left, in the distance, the Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory, Swiss Tower (on which instruments are mounted), Science and Operations Barn, the Green House, and the Big House. January 31, 2012. Photo: Ben Toth

Our friends at Summit Station welcomed the sun yesterday. “I could almost even feel its warmth on my face…. almost,” wrote station manager Ben Toth.

The sun is returning, and so is a small plane, which should approach the station via Iceland tomorrow. It will drop off fresh veggies and an advance team of staff, then fly to Kangerlussuaq to pick up the remaining staff waiting to get in to Summit.  It’s time for a fresh crew to prepare for the busy research season ahead.

So far, the forecast is favorable, so cross your fingers. Meanwhile, here’s another picture of the dawn.

The Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory blocks the sun, which helps reveal the Yukimarimo (snow doodles) in the foreground. Photo: Ben Toth

Comments (0) Feb 01 2012

Yukimarimo. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

A late December bedecking of Yukimarimo around Summit Station seemed like “a present befitting the season,” wrote Ben Toth, whose team is keeping the NSF-funded research station and its ongoing experiments running through mid-winter.

“These little snowballs occur when fine frost layers form on the snow surface at cold air temperatures,” Ben explained. “These balls form due to weak wind conditions and become mobile, like little tumbleweeds across the surface, collecting in pockets sculpted by drift or in footprints.”

Ben says the team of five “finished off the year with a productive week sandwiched between the two holidays. Christmas Sunday was celebrated with the requisite Christmas tunes, a lit tree, decorations, and a Kiwi-style meal of “good tucker.” Rack of lamb and pavlova was on the menu as was roasted squash (the very last) and amazing maple syrup pies.

“New Year’s Eve was celebrated [with] a plethora of appetizers. . . . The tapas-themed meal segued into a comfortable evening counting down to 2012. All hands made it to midnight but retired shortly thereafter, rising somewhat later than usual on New Year’s Day to spectacular light and clear weather bringing in the new year.”

For more on Yukimarimo, visit http://homepage3.nifty.com/takaokameda/index.html)

Tumbled snow or Yukimarimo at Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

Comments (1) Jan 02 2012

 Frosty Freeze

The walk back from the atmospheric watch building seems a bit longer on cold winter days. From this point of view, Summit Station's science and operations building nudges the iconic Big House, with its roof-perched radome and welcoming porch light. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

We were glad to read that cold north winds, which for several weeks had been dominating the weather reports from Summit Station, subsided last week. A welcome relief to deep freeze conditions reported earlier. “We hit a wind chill of -107F earlier today and the ambient temperature is around -67F…it doesn’t take much wind to make it bite!”, wrote Shannon Coykendall on 30 November.

The moon rises over a winter storage berm at Summit Station. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

In addition to bringing the cold, north winds can blow exhaust from station generators into the pristine sampling zone. Ongoing atmospheric and snow chemistry measurements are impacted when the station’s emissions mix into the signal. So, during periods when the winds blow from the north, station personnel avoid activities that create exhaust.

Twice during late November and early December, the staff had to fire heavy equipment to collect snow to resupply the station’s water supply during north wind conditions. Each time, the science technicians followed protocol and notified the research community.

Heavy equipment stored outside at Summit Station in Greenland gets a nice layer of frost. Photo: Shannon Coykendall

Finally, last week, “Summit crawled out from underneath the north winds that have dominated the past few weeks. Bringing clouds and warmer weather, the southerlies created an opportune chance to catch up on making water and for the science techs to perform their non-north wind tasking,” wrote station manager Ben Toth. “The winds also gained strength this week, reaching sustained speeds of 15.5 knots. Temperatures this week ranged from a low of -60 C on Tuesday to a high of a balmy -34 C on Saturday.”–Kip Rithner

Comments (4) Dec 15 2011

Halloween 2011 at Summit Station, Greenland

On the floor, from left: Sonja Wolter, Ben Toth, and Brad Halter. Next level up on the couches from the left: Christina Hammock, Tommy Cox, Lance Roth, Ken Keenan, Russ Howes, Ed Stockard, Katrine Gorham and Tracy Sheeley. Standing from the left: Shannon Coykendall and Ben Buchwald.

The team halted turnover activities temporarily last night at Summit Station to celebrate Halloween, and as the pictures attest, folks were clearly in the mood for a costume party. “We dined on a lovely Halloween themed-meal, complete with pumpkin ghoulash and mashed potatoes with sculpted ghosts,” wrote Tracy Sheeley, Summit manager of operations.  “Quite a celebration!”

Those who’ve enjoyed reports of optical phenomenon at Summit during the early winter phase might note that CPS science technician Christina Hammock (far left) is dressed up as a sun dog.

“Everything is going smoothly for turnover,” Tracy wrote. “We got in one day late due to weather, but are moving through everything steadily.  Temps are chilly (-55F/-48C, windchill – 93F/-69C, as I type) with 16kt winds. Great group of people for both phases.”

CH2M HILL Polar Services operates Summit Station, near the highest point on Greenland’s ice sheet, for the U.S. National Science Foundation, which manages the station in cooperation with the Government of Greenland. Summit houses instruments that provide year-round, long-term measurements for monitoring and investigations of the Arctic environment.  The station is open by invitation to visiting scientists during the summer, and is accessible via ski-equipped airplane and tracked vehicle. During the winter period, which lasts from September through early April, the station is closed; but a team of five maintains the station and its ongoing experiments. CPS breaks this winter period into three, roughly 10-week phases, and conducts resupply and intense training activities during staff turnover between each period.

“If all goes to plan, we will send Phase I out on Saturday and Russ (Howes, CPS’ Greenland maintenance manager) and I out on Sunday.” wrote Tracy. Good luck to the incoming Phase II team, and thanks and warm wishes–literally–to the outgoing Phase I team.–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Nov 01 2011

Green Sky Over Greenland

September 27, 2011: Aurora and star trails over Summit Station, Greenland. Photo: Ed Stockard. Originally published on Spaceweather.com

Several folks sent a link to Spaceweather.com today because another image by Ed Stockard (long-time colleague and frequent field notes contributor) was featured on the site. Ed shot the image, republished above, earlier this week at Summit Station during a period of intense solar wind activity.

This image got me to thinking about the man behind the curtain. How’d he do that?

Ed says he used a Photoshop program that digitally “stacked” a group of photos into one image. He tinkered with the results, adjusting “contrast, levels, size, sharpening,” and so on.

“It did turn out pretty good,” Ed writes from Summit Station. “It was 133 photos of several hundred in a time-lapse I made that night. The time-lapse is really cool (in my opinion) but it is so large I can’t share that over the Internet. . . . I’ve done a few time-lapse, one last night at -40, the camera and timer survived but I’ve also been working on that aspect too—little tricks to keep batteries alive and equipment warm, etc. Fun stuff that keeps me out of trouble!”

Ed and four others are currently at Summit Station, up on the Greenland ice sheet, ushering the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded research station into the winter period.

Spaceweather.com says that Earth’s magnetic field (which responds to the charged particles emitted by the sun) will remain “unsettled” for the next few days. Keep that camera warm, Ed!—Kip Rithner

Comments (1) Sep 30 2011

In an image taken with a 360-degree-view fisheye lens, Ed Stockard stands observing a full-sky show, a circular halo called a parhelic circle along with 22 degree and 46 degree halos. Also present: a circumzenithal arc, an upper tangent arc, and a faint Parry arc. Visit http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm and view the frequent and infrequent links on the left. Can you find them all? Photo: Ed Stockard

Marko Riikonen visited South Pole in 1998-1999 to film and study the optical effects of ice crystals in the atmosphere, which manifest visibly as halos across the sky. He was part of a team on an NSF grant led by Walter Tape, a mathematics professor from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. On January 11th, 1999, the team hit the optical jackpot. An exceptionally bright halo display, which included several frequent and rare halos, appeared in the sky. Marko recalled that it lasted almost an hour—an unusually long time for such a magnificent display—and a good number of station folks came out to watch it. He termed the display an “exhausting experience.”

Riikonen had had his share of discovery prior to his trip to the South Pole; in Chile he witnessed the so-called Lascar display which had at least five new halos, and is still unexplained. Says Marko, “We tried to explain it with cubic ice, but that’s not the answer.”

Meanwhile, in 1999, a few months after Riikonen left South Pole, I found myself heading to Summit Station, Greenland, for the first time. In mid-March four of us went to open the research site after a winter hiatus.  Although I had seen some polar halos in Antarctica, I was totally unprepared for what I saw one day while grooming the skiway.

From Oct 15th 2001: Skiway flags salute a nice 22 deg halo with a sunvex parry on top. The wider “v” below is the upper tangent arc. Completing the photo is the partial parhelic circle and associated parhelion or sun dogs. A very faint helic arc is visible to the right. Photo: Ed Stockard

Looking out from the Tucker I saw two halos around the sun and a variety of arcs that I had not a clue about. I stopped the machine and got out. Looking around I could see what I know now is called a parhelic circle encompassing the sky. Literally, turning around in 360 degrees I could see this halo. I started talking to myself. I said words I can’t repeat in this article!

I climbed back in the Tucker but could only drive a short distance before I had to stop, get out and repeat to myself the words of absolute amazement. I didn’t know at the time how the arcs and halos formed. I don’t remember all of the individual sights I saw but that day stuck in my mind.

Fast forward, this time 12 years, to 2011 and I am now spending August to November for the second consecutive year here at Summit. I have spent quite a few years working for PFS/CPS in Kangerlussuaq, which is the logistics hub for the U.S. National Science Foundation’s research program in Greenland. I’ve been a frequent contributor to this blog from my photographic work there. Kanger, as we call it, has remarkable auroras but I’ve rarely seen halos in Kanger like those on top of the ice sheet at Summit.

A typical but beautiful 22 deg halo marks the first phase of 2011-2012 winter operations at Summit Station. Photo: Ed Stockard

A 22 deg halo with faint parahelion or sun dogs. Marko suggested I use a sun blocker, which I made from the lid of a 5-gallon bucket on a 12-ft piece of old bamboo. The blocker keeps the photos from washing out and being over-exposed. Photo: Ed Stockard

Marko Riikonen found my photos in 2010, after they showed up on Atoptics.co.uk and on my flickr.com site. He picked one to include in his new book on halos. He has mentored me in optical photography through this current phase here at Summit, often emailing with obvious enthusiasm. It has been a delight and inspiration having his insight and tips on photographs, as well as his explanations of the phenomena I’m witnessing and documenting.

Halos and arcs can be seen worldwide, but the varied and rare phenomena mostly occur at the higher latitudes.  In some remote places in the Arctic and Antarctic, scientists have to rely on the eyes (and cameras) of others. My work here at Summit Station during the early arctic winter has allowed me a unique vantage point to photograph atmospheric optics in detail, for enthusiasts and scientists such as Riikonen to gather more knowledge about them.

Halos can occur by moonlight too. Here, a fairly complex 2010 lunar halo display. Present and easily visible are the 22 deg halo, parahelic circle, parahelion or moon dogs in this case, the upper tangent arc and parry arc along with a lower tangent arc on the horizon. Photo: Ed Stockard

As this correspondence has developed Riikonens’ comments have introduced me to a new vocabulary: Wegener, Schulthess and Kern arcs; Tape infralateral arcs; and all kinds of halos. Riikonen says, “When the temps fall below -30 C, you probably will get some odd radius displays, like last year.” He also says my photos have advanced the field a bit: “The Greenland ice cap halo skies have been a question mark until your photos started coming along. You have already written you name in the halo history.”

Cool.

Riikonen himself is well embedded in halo history, living in Finland in an area that often sees halos. On the night of December 7 /8 2008 in Rovaniemi, Finland, five new halos were revealed. “It was a great night. The display was created with [a] spotlight in diamond dust. The diamond dust was so thick that the moon did not shine through, so the only possibility to see halos was to use the spotlight. The cystals were huge. You could look at them with [the] naked eye. I had never seen a high-quality diamond dust like that.”

Riikonen’s travels in search of halos have taken him to Resolute Bay in Canada and “the pole of cold” in Oymyakon, Siberia.  At Oymyakon, in 1997, the optics were found to be rather typical. In his words, “We went to look for halos in the extremely low temps. Well, they were nothing special. When it gets too cold, it is mostly just 22 halo.”

I asked Marko about climate change and the effects it may have on these optical elights. He answered, “The high cloud halos in Finland have gotten markedly poorer soon after we entered new millenium. We used to have a so-called ‘halo spring’ in April-May during which numerous good, high-cloud displays were observed, but now there has been no halo spring for almost a decade. The Finns have been observing halos since the beginning of [the] 1980′s, so it is three decades of data now. That is of course way too small of a sample to say that climate change is responsible for the better quality high-cloud displays famine. Maybe the first two decades were exceptionally high-quality and now we are back to normal. Or maybe that was the norm and due to the climate change high-cloud halos have become poor.”

The above links and the halos mentioned are only a partial list of what Riikonen has seen. Marko hopes others will also photograph the world’s wonderful sky and provide shots of little-seen and possibly never-photographed optics. To all in the Arctic, Antarctic and around the globe:  Keep the camera ready. . . Jot down a few facts with the photos—temperature, clouds and winds may help.  Share in Marko’s enthusiasm and put forth some good data with remarkable photos. You might even hit that optical jackpot.—Ed Stockard

Comments (0) Sep 29 2011

Summit Station Images Featured on Atmospheric Optics

Greenland Glory. Photo: Ed Stockard

The above photo, and the one just below, have been featured recently as the Optics Photo of the Day on the Atmospheric Optics website (http://www.atoptics.co.uk/). Ed Stockard shot both images at Summit Station on Greenland’s ice sheet, where he is working this fall.

The Atmospheric Optics website is devoted to explaining and exploring the visual results of light playing on particles in the air–ash, dust, and in Ed’s case, ice. The rainbow-colored rings encircling the building form a “glory,” explains website curator Les Crowley, the result of “sunlight diffracted almost directly back along its path by very small fog droplets.” Click the picture for a better view. Glory indeed.

Visit the Atmospheric Optics website to learn more about optical effects in the atmosphere, and to find out when, how, and where you might be able to see some in person.

A short description of the science behind the optical effect accompanies each image. You may also visit Ed Stockard’s flickr page, which he is updating with more lovely images from Summit (http://www.flickr.com/photos/coastaleddy/ ).–Kip Rithner

Greenland Halos. Photo: Ed Stockard

Comments (0) Sep 12 2011

Laura Lukes, teacher and arctic adventurer! Photo: Laura Lukes

For science and geology teacher Laura Lukes, witnessing the moment a student’s face lights up when a new discovery is made or a confounding problem is finally solved is one of the most rewarding moments of teaching. And this summer Lukes experienced those moments time and time again with an international group of two-dozen students at the Kangerlussuaq Field School in
Greenland.

2011 marked the summer field school program’s inaugural semester. For Lukes, it was the culmination of a year of hard work that began as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Office of Polar Programs. While a fellow at NSF, she took the U.S. lead role on the Joint Science Education Project (JSEP). Her mission: to help organize a field school to bring together students and scientists from the U.S., Greenland and Denmark for hands-on scientific and cultural experiences.

“I really love the ‘aha moments’ where somebody finally understands something or learns something and it completely changes the way they feel,” Lukes said. “To me those are the best moments and with programs like JSEP, you have those moments constantly.”

The JSEP group puts their map-reading skills to the test. Photo by Hans Christian Sivertsen

Teaching Hands-on Science from Arizona to the Arctic

Before joining NSF, Lukes taught science and geology at a community college and high school in Scottsdale, Arizona where she first started coming up with ideas to take science from the textbook to the field. One of those initial ideas was a museum of minerals featuring displays tied to materials the high school students were studying in the classroom.

Lukes noticed there were several stock science samples from previous teachers collecting dust in storage. Since builders had just finished a new addition to the high school, Lukes had a bit of an “aha moment” herself. She and some students quickly got to work planning and building the mineral museum exhibits together.

“Although I’m no longer with the school, the long-term idea was for the students to help create rotating displays for the museum.  It would be like a class project for them,” Lukes explained.

A Door to Teaching in the Arctic

After five years as a teacher in Scottsdale, Lukes applied for, and was awarded, the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship that started her on a path to the Arctic. The opportunity to develop the fledgling Greenland field school piqued her interest because she recognized the value of field research experience in a young person’s life and thought the JSEP field school could be a huge success.

“From talking with scientists over the years, I’ve informally figured out that a lot of them have had some sort of field or research experience themselves early on and that’s what got them interested in it [science/research],” Lukes said.

Over the course of the next year, Lukes teamed with other teachers and scientists to create a unique educational opportunity for high school students around the county and the world. Not only would her experiences in Greenland change the lives of the field school students, but it would open her eyes to a whole new world of interests.

On Their Way

A 2010 planning trip to Greenland was Lukes’ first time in the Arctic. Just figuring out what to pack was an eye-opening experience. By the time late June 2011 rolled around, Lukes and 24 high school students were boarding planes for the tiny settlement of Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland.

Laura Lukes (far right) and some of the field school students are all smiles. Photo: Laura Lukes

Not Your Ordinary School Days

Lukes and her colleagues organized the field school so that the students would experience every step in the scientific process—from brain-storming project ideas and organizing data collection outings to analyzing data and presenting their findings. The students worked in research teams to get the feel for what it’s like to collaborate with people from different countries, backgrounds and interests.

“The students came up with the idea for their own projects. The teacher really served as a guide for their own exploration, meaning I helped them stay focused and instructed them on how to do research properly. But the students really drove the questions and how they were going to collect data to answer them,” Lukes said.

Along the journey several scientists already in the area collecting data stopped by to teach the next generation of scientists a thing or two.  Visiting scientists from various universities and agencies, including the Danish Meteorological Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, presented their research and invited the field school participants out for data collection field trips or back to their field research site for a tour.

Research scientist Julia Bradley-Cook (a Fellow in an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, graduate research program in polar studies called IGERT) gives the JSEP students a lesson on how to measure carbon dioxide in soil. Photo: Taylor Estabrooks

Two unexpected visitors were a particular thrill for the Danish and Greenlandic students. A change in the day’s flight schedule allowed the Danish minister of science and Greenland’s minister of education to pay a visit to the field school. “They happened to be stuck in Kangerlussuaq for a while so they stopped by to hear the students’ presentations! So the students really got a quality experience,” Lukes said.

Surprise! Denmark's Minister of Science (left) stops by to listen to student presentations. Photo: Laura Lukes

Teaching (and Learning) More Than Science

The once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring students from three very different cultures together was a big part of the field school experience. Lukes and the students were in a camp-like setting for roughly four weeks.

“Personally for me, the most meaningful moments were talking with the Greenlandic students and having them start conversations about their culture and watching them get excited about talking about their culture,” Lukes said. She recalled them being very shy at first, but as time wore on they came out of their shells.

Now, Lukes still keeps in touch with many of her students. Two of the students from the U.S. recently started their first year of college and decided to choose engineering majors as a result of their experiences at the field school. Still other students are presenting their findings at professional conferences—the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union—this fall and winter.

And what’s next for Lukes? The sky’s the limit. She is currently working on her doctorate at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. In between classes she still finds time to teach an online course at a community college in Arizona. She plans to remain involved and continue to grow the JSEP field school program now and in the future.

“Regardless of where I end up, I feel really passionate about student research experiences in the field and I really believe in developing this program and showing the evidence part of why these types of programs are so important.”

Here’s to great teachers!

To learn more about the Kangerlussuaq Field School and check out Lukes’ daily blog, visit: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/greenland-education-tour-2011. –Alicia Clarke

Comments (0) Sep 06 2011