Perhaps the bear thought this Iridium antenna, part of an autonomous monitoring site in Greenland, was an ice cream cone. Photo: Bo Madsen

Technicians visiting autonomous instruments on Greenland’s northwest coast last week found more evidence that polar bears have a taste for science.  An American and a Danish scientist conducting maintenance on GNET stations south of the Thule Air Base found one had been “aggressively damaged” by a bear, wrote Finn Bo Madsen of Technical University of Denmark (DTU).  The Danish institute is collaborating with U.S. National Science Foundation-funded researchers led by Mike Bevis (The Ohio State University) to maintain a network of more than 45 Global Positioning System (GPS) and seismic monitoring stations that ring the perimeter of the world’s largest island.

GNET is part of the larger Polar Earth Observing Network, or POLENET, which has also instrumented Antarctica’s ice sheet with autonomous monitoring devices.  Scientists study the data collected by these instruments to monitor the mass balance of the world’s great ice sheets. Seismic information, combined with very precise GPS measurements, tell scientists about regional changes in melting or accumulation on the ice sheets, information that helps them to explain how the ice sheets are responding to changing climate.  The GNET system also records earthquake activity believed to be caused by post-glacial rebound—the land bouncing back under the lessening weight of Greenland’s shrinking ice cap.

This map of Greenland shows the sites where GNET installations are located. On the northwestern coast, technicians repaired polar bear damage at ASKY last week; to the north of ASKY and Thule Air Base, site KAGZ has been visited by bears twice. Image: GNET

Though GNET planners avoided areas known to be frequented by bears when they selected project sites, this is not the first time a polar bear has left its mark on a GNET monument. In 2009, a maintenance team visiting a site north of Thule Air Base found suspected polar bear damage on instruments and solar panels used to power the site during the summer. They repaired the damage, but the installation stopped sending data to scientists back in their labs shortly thereafter. A repeat inspection in 2010 revealed that bears “may have rubbed their backs on the monument, been chewing on cables or have given the equipment a thorough pounding with their paws,” reported Bo Madsen at the time.

This time, Madsen speculates that the bear was “perhaps scratching its back on the solar panels,” as a panel, antenna and cable were damaged. Technicians armed with repair kits spent more than five hours repairing the site, improvising additional ways to make the site less interesting to bears.  Madsen mentioned that the team would later assess how much data the site had collected in the interim.

Rare sight: this polar bear wandered down a path near Kangerlussuaq.

Meanwhile, a polar bear spotted on the edge of town was the talk of Kangerlussuaq, where CPS personnel staff the NSF’s logistics hub in Greenland. Polar bears are known along Greenland’s northern coasts, but are rare to the south, where Kangerlussuaq is located. Locals recalled that this was the first bear spotted near Kangerlussuaq since 1998; prior to that, the last bear was seen in 1957.—Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Jul 08 2011

Like something out of a science fiction movie...ARCLITE LiDARs shine a light on Earth's atmosphere against the backdrop of the Aurora Borealis. Photo: Jeff Thayer

In grade school, most of us were taught that Earth’s atmosphere was layered, like a parfait (as Shrek’s donkey would say).  We memorized the names of these layers and probably thought of each as a discrete entity unrelated to the others – Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere, Exosphere.

Turns out, the atmosphere is a lot more dynamic and complicated than a parfait (or even an onion).  Professor Jeffrey Thayer’s (University of Colorado, Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department) ARCLITE (Arctic LiDAR Technology) NSF-funded project uses remote sensing techniques to figure out just how much more complicated the atmosphere really is. Located at the Sondrestrom Upper Atmosphere Research Facility (affectionately known as Kellyville after SRI’s John Kelly, a renowned incoherent scatter radar expert who established the facility), ARCLITE uses cutting-edge technology for studying Earth’s middle and upper atmosphere above the Arctic.

“We don’t yet have whole atmosphere models to describe how matter and energy are transferred across atmospheric layers. LiDAR technology allows us to study the atmosphere across its layers including the region between 35 and 80 km, which is difficult to study using other meteorological methods like weather balloons or satellites,” explains Thayer. “We study the Arctic atmosphere because there are processes unique to the polar regions which may tell us something about climate change.”

Operated by CPS partner SRI International for the National Science Foundation and the Danish Meteorological Institute, Kellyville is located north of the Arctic Circle near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. The facility is centered on a 32-meter steerable dish antenna. Relocated from Alaska in 1982, the radar was designed to measure parameters characterizing the aurora borealis. The large radar system drove Kellyville’s original infrastructure toward upper atmosphere research, which continues today. Thayer established the ARCLITE project at Kellyville in 1992 and served as principal investigator of the Kellyville facility for seven years (1998-2004), which continues to develop with NSF funding.

“Kellyville currently demands a year-round staff of four or five people for facility and instrument maintenance, various associated engineering projects, and ongoing data operations for about 20 universities at any one time,” explains Thayer. “Over the last several years, we have been upgrading the ARCLITE system to measure more atmospheric parameters. Eventually, the system will be more autonomous to make routine measurements from the upper troposphere and stratosphere through the mesosphere (5-90 km above Earth’s surface) with remote operations. We already have an application that allows us to control our LiDAR at Summit Station using an iPhone. We’re trying to move in that direction with our Kellyville instruments as well.”

A sunny day at Kellyville. Photo: Michael Pederson at sondestrom.com

Sondrestrom houses four slightly different LiDARs. Three “green beam” and one “yellow beam” LiDARs transmit inch-wide green and yellow laser light straight up into the atmosphere. A sensitive Newtonian telescope sees and records the properties of the light reflected back to the Earth’s surface in much the same way as your eyes see (and your brain records) dust in the air in front of a slide projector or flashlight. In this way, Thayer’s group extracts a wide range of information about the middle and upper atmosphere such as density, temperature, aerosol content, and amount of the water vapor.

But Thayer says LiDARs have their limitations as well as advantages.

“Satellites can look at the upper atmosphere, but only in certain configurations. Similarly, for our purposes of looking at the middle and upper atmosphere, LiDAR systems work only in clear weather. We can measure as frequently as weather permits since the LiDARs can’t see through clouds. We schedule about 5-8 hours of observation time each week. Once in a while we get lucky and have longer observation periods in winter, often once Disko Bay freezes over and the winter weather pattern stabilizes. We provide really detailed measurements of the Earth’s atmosphere, just not as frequently as we would like.”

The green beam with the most energy characterizes aerosols, ice clouds, fine particles like smoke, dust, and volcanic ash in the atmosphere all the way to the edge of space. Two others use polarized light to examine aerosols.  The yellow beam ‘resonates’ with sodium atoms in the atmosphere and is used to study the 90-120 km region of the atmosphere where meteorites ablate and leave a shell of calcium, sodium, iron, and magnesium atoms.

Several atmospheric phenomena are unique to the polar regions and Thayer’s group studies all of them. During the winter, a powerful circulation called the Arctic polar vortex occurs in the stratosphere (~20-50km above Earth’s surface). Dynamical changes in the vortex alters the entire polar system and can modify atmospheric chemistry contributing to ozone depletion in the northern hemisphere.

The Thayer team also studies the Aurora Borealis, a natural northern latitude light show resulting from the collision of charged particles with Earth’s magnetic field about 100km above the surface of the earth. Scientists study not only how aurorae form, but also how the aurorae, in turn, might affect the middle atmosphere.

Jeff Thayer tinkers in his garage. Photo: Jeff Thayer

Thayer has been a part of a science investigation to study polar mesospheric clouds using LiDAR. These clouds, also called noctilucent clouds, occur only in the polar regions during the summer. They are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, forming at about 83 km.  Typically, noctilucent clouds are difficult to see except at twilight as the sun reflects on them from below the horizon.  Noctilucent clouds, Thayer says, may be harbingers of climate change, but their role remains unclear.

“We see clouds because of water vapor and cold temperatures in the atmosphere. It’s tough to get water through the troposphere, where we live, to the middle atmosphere because temperatures at the tropopause are very cold and cause the water to freeze out and fall back to earth.  So we don’t expect to see clouds as high as 83 km. But water can be created in the middle atmosphere, the mesosphere, by the presence of methane. At higher altitudes ultraviolet light breaks down the methane and forms water vapor which leads to cloud formation. If we see more clouds, then we may be getting more CO2 in the upper atmosphere as well. The role of CO2 in the mesosphere actually cools the region in contrast to its warming of the troposphere. The cooler temperatures can further support polar mesospheric cloud formation and we can use the clouds’ behavior as indicators of change associated with CO2 and methane. However, we still have a great deal to understand about our whole atmosphere and all of the exchange processes that occur across its layers.”—Marcy Davis

Comments (1) Mar 14 2011

Part of the 2010 UW Clean Snowmobile Challenge Team. All photos from the University of Wisconsin Snowmobile Team website

We recently spoke with Jay Meldrum, Director of the Keweenaw Research Center at Michigan Technical University, about the annual Clean Snowmobile Challenge (CSC) in Houghton Michigan, and the conversation left us wanting to know more about what it’s like to participate in the engineering contest.

To find out more, we talked with Ethan Brodsky who participated in the Clean Snowmobile Challenge while a graduate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison during the early 2000s. Now a staff scientist in radiology and medical imaging at his alma mater, Brodsky became the “unofficial advisor” (Glenn Bower is the official advisor)  to the school’s CSC team in 2008. He offers a unique perspective on the past, present, and future of the Society of Automotive Engineers Clean Snowmobile Challenge competition.

Ethan Brodsky and the University of Wisconsin zero emissions snowmobile, the Silent BuckEV, at Summit Station.

“Participating in these student vehicle competitions was one of the highlights of my college career,” relates Brodsky. “Each event culminates in a week-long competition that is exhilarating like nothing else I’ve experienced. It’s a sleep-deprived rush that can only end in two ways: either you win and it was all worth it, or somebody else does, and those weeks of late nights in the garage were all wasted.”

Brodsky said most students participate as an extracurricular activity out of personal interest, although some receive independent study credit. Brodsky became the pseudo-advisor to UW’s Clean Snowmobile Challenge team in graduate school. The team consists of about 15 students who spend the year tweaking snowmobile engines to reduce emissions without sacrificing performance in preparation for the competition.

“Most students do it a couple of years for fun or as a resume builder or to help get into grad school,” explains Brodsky. “But some people really get into the leadership roles and stick around for their entire college career.”

Today Brodsky is one of UW’s CSC team advisors who has helped lead the team to championships for gas-powered snowmobiles in 2009 and 2010. The zero-emissions snowmobile won the 2008, 2009, and 2010 competitions.

The Silent BuckEV at competition in the Zero Emissions category of the Clean Snowmobile Challenge.

“The UW College of Engineering has had a tradition of excellence across our automotive student design projects dating back over a decade. We’ve won five hybrid vehicle competitions, taken home seven first-place trophies at the CSC, and won a number of other national SAE events.  A lot of the credit goes to Dr. Glenn Bower, the senior student vehicle projects advisor—his dedication to the projects and the students is immeasurable. He expects a lot from everyone and drives the students to do their best.

In 2008 Brodsky was invited to bring the winning zero emissions snowmobile to Summit Station, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research station on Greenland’s ice sheet summit, where it would be rotated into the station’s snowmobile fleet (The NSF has supported the zero-emissions competition for years, most recently through this NSF grant.  It was a whirlwind trip—three days in which he tested the snowmobile in the harsh Greenland environment. At Summit, Brodsky did a lot of test-driving. He also taught Summit staffers to run, handle, and maintain the retrofitted machine. In all, the staff learned how to take the snowmobile apart and put it back together, how to charge the 350 volt batteries and keep them running, and how to download data (how many miles driven) from the attached data logger. In 2009, UW again loaned its winning snowmobile to Summit Station, where it was used all summer.

“Greenland was the most other-worldly place I’ve ever been,” says Brodsky. “Just the white landscape as far as I could see against the blue sky.  It was a very lonely-feeling place, far from everything, very alien. It was an awesome trip!”

Looking ahead, Brodsky says he would like to see opportunity for riskier design in future Clean Snowmobile Challenges. When the competition began in 2000, students’ snowmobiles were better than anything sold in the market. In the interim, snowmobile manufacturers have adopted myriad changes and cleaned up their machines. Meanwhile, the rules of competition have changed very little in the last 10 years. Teams are allowed only to alter the engine but Brodsky says this is somewhat limiting now in terms of innovation as many technologies developed in the last decade may not yet be applied to competition designs.

The UW team prepares battery packs.

So, Brodsky says in the meantime, his zero-emissions team will focus on trying to build a more robust snowmobile that’s more useful in Greenland and, hopefully, Antarctica. The next step, Brodsky says, is to develop a better battery management system with batteries that can run all the way down and that can better handle Greenland’s cold temperatures.  He would also like to develop battery packs that can last five years. In any case, he’s still having fun.

“It’s funny—because of these projects, my friends seem to get younger and younger. Or, I guess I’m just getting old. We still stay up all night working together on snowmobile designs. It was the most exciting part of my college experience and of my life in general.”—Marcy Davis

For more, visit the Clean Snowmobile Challenge website.

Comments (0) Mar 01 2011

PolarTREC teacher Jim Pottinger does the hokey-pokey at Summit Station. All photos: Jim Pottinger

“Sleeping in a tent in the Arctic was a new experience for me. Temperatures dipped below 0°F and the winds were consistently blowing against the tent.”– Jim Pottinger, 2010 PolarTREC teacher

Jim Pottinger enjoys cold weather, so living at Summit Station’s Tent City on the Greenland ice cap for a week was fine by him. Camping atop 3200 meters of ice was one of several new experiences for the Pennsylvania native who travelled to Greenland last summer as part of the PolarTREC Program. Pottinger’s team, which is led by PI Konrad Steffen (CIRES), travelled to Summit to maintain instrumentation for the NSF-funded BSRN – Compatible Irradiance Measurements and the Stable Boundary Layer

At Summit Station, Pottinger worked with Karl Schroff and Hansjoerg Frei (from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and Nikko Bayou (UC Boulder).

After a long day of shoveling snow Nikko Bayou reaches the APTU at last.

Their first task was to locate and retrieve an Automated Temperature Profiling Unit (APTU), which started its mission recording high altitude weather data in 2007.

“After a four-mile bone-chilling [snowmobile] ride, we arrived at the site. It was a beautiful location in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet. The sky was blue, the terrain was white and there was nothing as far as the eye could see,” Pottinger wrote in his August 14 journal.

They located the unit by GPS. Only two feet of the ten-foot tall APTU tripod was sticking up out of the snow. It took six hours and digging down about twenty feet before they freed the tripod and data logger using snowmobiles and ropes.

Elevating the Automatic Weather Station - turns out it looks tougher than it is.

The team’s next task was to elevate Summit’s AWS, one of eighteen such stations in Greenland. First, the scientists attached cable extensions to accommodate the station’s new height. Next, they erected a tripod over the station, attached a rope to the top of the AWS, and lifted the station ten feet while inserting an extension tube to the base. Once the station was secure, they removed the tripod and later verified data transmission. The entire data transmission process only took one hour!

Next, they dug a 140-centimeter deep snow pit next to the AWS. Pottinger recorded the pit’s snow structure, making notes of density, snow crystal shape and size, layer thickness and volume  every ten centimeters. These measurements will help ground-truth the AWS and ensure that sensors were working properly over the two previous years.

Pottinger becomes an old hand at snow pit measurements.

Pottinger also assisted in elevating and calibrating BSRN instrumentation and learned about ongoing NOAA weather experiments.

Pottinger’s visit coincided with Summit’s transition between seasonal crews. This meant a busy couple of days while winter preparations were made. Following a great end of season dinner, Pottinger spent his last night in the Big House and flew out with a jubilant summer crew the next morning.

Summer crew kicks back at the end of the season party at Lake Fergueson.

Pottinger, who has a background in geology, coordinates the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. He acts as an academic advisor, making sure students are on an academic path consistent with their post-secondary goals, and as a science teacher, giving periodic guest lectures in science classes.

Pottinger hopes to return to Greenland’s Swiss Camp next May with Steffen. He will again be involved in systems maintenance and hopes to learn more about how the collected data is being used in various science projects. In the meantime, he’s keeping busy sharing his experience with students, teachers and community. Pottinger hopes he can begin to correct some of the misconceptions people have about climate change, the Arctic, and the people who live there.—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Jan 20 2011

“Erik Born told me to be sure to look up every couple of minutes and check for polar bears. The last documented fatal attack of a polar bear in Greenland was an artist in the 1920s. I didn’t want to be next”—Maria Coryell-Martin

Snapshots of the Sand Island team. All images by Maria Coryell-Martin.

She did it! Our favorite expeditionary artist, Maria Coryell-Martin, spent three weeks last summer working with Danish scientist Erik Born (Greenland Institute of Natural Sciences) and colleagues on Sand Island, a tiny island off the remote east coast of Greenland in Northeast Greenland National Park (the world’s largest National Park) tagging and collecting genetic samples from the summer walrus population.

Coryell-Martin raised the nearly $8000 that enabled her to join the field party through tax-deductible donations made through the Allied Arts Foundation, a Seattle nonprofit that supports local artists and artist organizations. Sponsorship supported the first phase, the field phase, of Coryell-Martin’s project, High Latitudes: Science and Art in the Arctic. Her goals included documenting as much science as possible, gathering plenty of material for studio paintings, and having fun—all three of which she easily accomplished.

Coryell-Martin first travelled to Greenland in 2005 as part of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship which allowed her to spend a year traveling to and painting in remote areas following her graduation from Carleton College. (The National Science Foundation supported her with a trip to Greenland’s Summit Station, which she documented via sketches, notes and paintings available on her website; she also wrote a story for us that you can read if you click here.)

Since then, she has traveled to Antarctica twice and has painted glaciers in the Northern Cascades. Through her art, Coryell-Martin brings awareness of climate change to the public through exhibitions at a number of national galleries and museums as well as community education events in her hometown, Seattle.

Coryell-Martin packed light to avoid baggage fees.

For last summer’s trip, the team met in Copenhagen, then traveled together to Daneborg Station (74°N), a jumping-off point for field research, historical trapper hut preservation efforts by the North East Greenland Company, and headquarters of Greenland’s SIRIUS Sledge Patrol, a faction of the Royal Danish Navy that patrols northeast Greenland by six dogsled teams. At Daneborg, Coryell-Martin and colleagues spent a couple of days organizing the last of their supplies and field gear before the fifteen-minute boat ride to Sand Island.

On Sand Island, a dynamic 200m x 500m pile of sand—the subaerial part of a terminal moraine at the mouth of Young Sound fiord—the group set up camp, five personal tents and one kitchen tent, and got to work.

Aerial view of Sand Island looking east down Young Sound.

“I knew it was going to be a small island, but when I saw it from the plane…,” Coryell-Martin says, “I really respected him [Born] for taking someone sight unseen for three weeks in the field!”

During the summer months, male walruses (who separate from females and calves in summer) feed on Young Sound clams. The walruses spend a couple of days at sea filling up. Sand Island beaches provide a convenient haul-out adjacent the summer feeding grounds where the animals can rest and molt. Sometimes there would be no walruses at all for a couple of days and then, suddenly, a group could grow to more than 35 walruses all sleeping on the beach. Different groups cycled though during the three weeks the team was in the field. The island is also a predator-free sanctuary for Arctic Tern, Sabine’s Gull, and Eider Duck colonies.

The science party’s main objectives were to tag every walrus that hauled out on the beach and to collect samples from the entire population for genetic information, building on a database started in 2002.

“They wanted to take skin biopsies from every walrus. Apparently, walruses don’t like vertical figures which meant that they had to be approached first by crawling on hands and knees and then by belly-scoot. All this while carrying a cross-bow to take skin biopsies. The cross-bow arrows had small cylinders at their tip that took small cores of walrus skin when fired. After shooting, the arrows could be retrieved with a fishing reel attachment,” explains Coryell-Martin.

Sand Island treasure map inspired by those of yore.

Coryell-Martin spent her time observing and helping out the team where she could.

“This was a great project to be an artist on. There was lots to do, but it was a small area. And the scientists were really respectful of what I was there to do—paint,” she says.

During her two weeks in the field, Coryell-Martin created more than 100 field sketches. The images not only record the life and science of the team, but are also studies of the colors, wildlife, and icebergs particular to the Greenland coast. These sketches will become the basis for larger watercolors painted in Coryell-Martin’s studio. Her largest piece, now 5 separate 10” x 30” sketches, will be compiled into a 360° panorama which she composed from the middle of the island. This she plans on making into a large installation piece—something akin to a giant lampshade into which people can step and be completely immersed in the world of Sand Island.

Coryell-Martin also experimented with sound recordings using an Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM, a handheld digital recorder about the size of a cell phone. She used it as a nightly audio journal, and also recorded interviews, and natural sounds that she plans to use as a compliment to her artwork.

Listen to Sand Island’s Arctic Terns:

terns

Coryell-Martin's field painting of Sand Island's Arctic Terns.

“I want to create large atmospheric studio paintings that illustrate elements of the polar environment that are vulnerable to climate change, contrasting the stark, rugged landscape with smaller details of life: marine mammals, birds, and even the tiniest of wild flowers.”

Coryell-Martin and husband Darin Reid, an independent web developer, are currently settling in to a new house in Seattle after a year in rural Twisp, Washington. Her polar paintings will be featured in upcoming shows at the Washington State Convention Center and she is also the Featured Artist on Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website. Her next painting expedition will be to the Grand Canyon this February. For more information, on upcoming exhibitions and expeditions, visit expeditionaryart.com.—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Nov 19 2010

“Birds, and raptors in particular, have long served as indicators of environmental change.  With our research in Greenland, we aim to both increase our knowledge and understanding of species breeding in the High Arctic as well as looking at the possible effects climate change is having on bird populations.  We hope that our results will provide scientists and lawmakers additional data to create better environmental policies in the future.” –Kurt Burnham, President and CEO, High Arctic Institute

The team takes genetic samples from an eider duck. Photo: Jennifer Burnham

When Kurt Burnham’s mother was in labor, his father was on the phone telling an assistant how to gently help a Peregrine Falcon chick from its egg. Two weeks later, the two wee ones shared one of their first baby pictures, taken from baby Burnham’s crib–a propitious moment, perhaps, for the now-ornithologist, raptor conservationist, and President and CEO of the High Arctic Institute (HAI).

A Family Affair

Burnham founded the HAI, a non-profit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of birds in Greenland, in 2007.

The HAI continues Peregrine Falcon and Gyrfalcon research started in the early 1970’s by the Greenland Peregrine Falcon Survey. This research began in response to declining Peregrine populations across the globe as a result of the pesticide DDT. In 1974 research efforts transferred to The Peregrine Fund, the organization over which Burnham’s father presided for twenty years.

Conserving Greenlands Raptor’s

Burnham first visited Greenland with his father as a field assistant in 1991 when he was just fifteen years old. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in biology in 1997, he began managing The Peregrine Fund’s Greenland Project and became their Director of Arctic Projects in 2003.

A young gyrfalcon from Cape Parry. Photo courtesy Kurt Burnham

Following his father’s death in 2006, The Peregrine Fund decided against continuing arctic research efforts.  Instead, the organization handed over its small boat and field gear to Burnham, who had recently graduated with a DPhil from Oxford and was keen to absorb the project under his new non-profit, the High Arctic Institute.

The HAI monitors Gyrfalcon and Peregrine Falcon populations breeding in the Thule and Kangerlussuaq areas.  Relatively small birds of prey, falcons have characteristically pointed wings, talons, and tough flesh-ripping beaks, all good for hunting multitudes of other smaller, tasty little birds.

Gyrfalcons, the world’s largest falcon, live across the Northern Hemisphere, but breed only in the Arctic. Peregrine Falcons live in a variety of habitats between the arctic and tropics and are the fastest animals on the planet with vertical hunting dives clocked at more than 200 miles an hour. Rather than building their own nests, falcons tend to take over abandoned nests (especially of Golden Eagles and Ravens) or scrape shallow depressions into rocks on cliff ledges where they lay their eggs.  Both species are also very sensitive to environmental changes and are good bio-indicators.

Devoted Staff

Burnham relies on a small, close-knit field team including wildlife biologists Dr. Jeff Johnson (University of North Texas) and Bridger Konkel, and Burnham’s wife, Dr. Jennifer Horwath Burnham (whom he met in Thule), an assistant professor of geography at Augustana College in western Illinois. This summer marked Burnham’s twentieth consecutive Greenland field season.

Burnham (in red) and his team take samples from captured birds. Photo: Jeff Johnson

Adventurous Fieldwork

Each year in the Thule area, the group visits a number of offshore islands using an open 25-foot boat, often working 24-36 hours at a time to maximize the rare windows of good weather and perpetual summer sunlight. They survey steep, rocky cliffs from the water looking for protected nesting sites on grassy ledges, which they log into a handheld GPS. Next, one or two people repel down the steep cliff face to the nest where, gloveless, they band young while collecting egg shell fragments (pollutant monitoring), blood samples (pollutants and genetics), prey remains (diet), and molted feathers from the adults (genetics).

Focused Research

Each summer includes a project particular to the year. Last summer, Burnham’s team spent a month examining the Common Eider population. In other years, they’ve tested for avian influenza for the United States Geological Survey. In 2005, satellite telemetry units helped the HAI track birds in three areas of Greenland. For several years they cored Gyrfalcon nesting sites in Kangerlussuaq and Thule with guano a meter thick for carbon dating, and found one site in Kangerlussuaq that has been occupied for over 2500 years!

Consistency and Longevity

By returning to nesting sites year after year, Burnham’s team keeps tabs on how Gyrfalcon and Peregrine populations are changing with a warming global climate. As temperatures warm, species of birds that never lived in the Arctic are likely to be moving in. The result will likely be more competition for nesting sites and food since both Gyrfalcons and Peregrines fill a similar ecological niche. It’s too soon to say what the long-term effects of this ecological contest will be, but Burnham’s team will be watching.

Support The High Arctic Institute

The High Arctic Institute is supported by tax-deductable donations. For more information or to make a contribution, contact Kurt Burnham (kburnham@higharctic.org 309-526-3355).—Marcy Davis

Comments (0) Oct 11 2010

A statue of Hans Egede keeps watch over Nuuk, Greenland's capital. The Scandanavian missionary brought modern colonization to Greenland in the 1720s--for good and ill (literally). Photo: Jason Buenning

As the U.S. summer research support program in Greenland came to an end last week, agency representatives assembled in Greenland’s picturesque capital of Nuuk for two days of meetings. The goal: to further coordinate U.S. research activities on the island, especially focused on changes resulting from Greenland’s increased self-governance effective in June of 2009 (an island in the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has gained increasing autonomy since voting for self-rule in 1979).

Leaders from several Greenlandic agencies met with program managers from the National Science Foundation’s arctic division, officers from the New York Air National Guard’s 109^th Airlift Wing, and CH2M HILL Polar Services staff to discuss Greenland’s permitting policies, safety, field travel, and environmental regulations.

From left: Aviaja Marsilie Neumann Andersen, Dept. of Spatial Planning; Naja Holm, Section of Nature; Thomas Nielsen, Section of Nature; Brad Stefano, CPS safety; Maj. Paul Bernasconi, ANG; Mike McKibben, CPS head; Talea Weissang, Section of Nature; Sandy Starkweather, CPS Greenland management (outgoing); Stan Wisneski, CPS Greenland management (incoming); Elmer Topp-Jørgensen, Section of Nature - Special Advisor; Jason Buenning, CPS Greenland science planning. Photo: Brad Stefano

Though it’s home to only about 15,000 people, Nuuk is a thriving metropolis compared to other Greenland communities, more than doubling the population of the next-largest community.  “Nuuk is pretty crazy compared to anywhere else I’ve been in Greenland,” Jason Buenning wrote.  “Kanger it ain’t.  Even Ilulissat doesn’t really compare when it comes to amount of traffic and larger buildings…!   All the food we had was quite good, ($90USD dinner anyone?) and generally we drank beer that was brewed there in town (besides the random Carlsberg or Tuborg) and it was tasty and expensive.”

Jason Buenning captured this photo of fog burning off Stor Melina, the only time the sun appeared during the trip. "Within an hour, though, we were socked in again."

The quick trip afforded little time for sight-seeing, but Jason was able to squeeze in a quick peek at Santa's mailbox, located next to the hotel. Postmarks from 1996 are clearly visible in the window. Photo: Brad Stefano

–Kip Rithner

Comments (0) Sep 02 2010

Note: We were doing a little housekeeping and came on this update on the Arctic Circle Traverse written back in June. It holds up as a nice view into what it takes researchers to “collect data,” so here you go. We hope to hear more from Box when he returns from Greenland after retrieving data from his time-lapse cameras observing the Petermann Glacier.

Even the best planned plans can go awry. So it went in April and May, when a series of mishaps beyond their control kept the five-person team led by Jason Box from heading out to the field for their Arctic Circle Traverse (ACT), a National Science Foundation-supported study of snow accumulation on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

While awaiting a break in conditions, the team assembled their gear in Kangerlussuaq. All photos courtesy of Jason Box

Snow storms, the eruption of the  Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland,which prevented airplane flying, and aircraft problems grounded the crew and originally dashed their hopes of getting out on the ice.

“Our biggest challenge was getting into the field,” says Box. “We learned that the traverse, while labor-intensive, is more likely to succeed than depending on flights, especially in east Greenland.”

Just when things were looking their grimmest, the team got a window of clear weather and set out for 13 days.

Home away from home: camping on the ice sheet.

Sleeping under “turbulent” Aurora Borealis at night and blazing trails during the day, they successfully traversed roughly 700 kilometers. Over the journey, the team gathered the necessary information to map snowfall rates across the ice sheet, Box said.

Posse, Greenland style. Getting ready to ride.

They measured snow depth using radar, and took ice cores as well. Isotopes in the cores allow scientists to identify annual snow accumulation; radar and coring used in conjunction provide more specificity than either technique would alone.

As they traversed, a NASA P-3 airplane flew over their line and collected radar data that measured the layering structure of the snow, providing “virtual ice cores.”

Every successful coring operation warrants a celebratory drink. Jason Box prepares to open the bottle.

“It’s nice to have the P-3 data, as it will cover a much larger area,” says Box. However, the airborne radar doesn’t replace actual ice cores, he says.

“So far there is no way to efficiently remotely sense the vertical profiles of density,” says Box. “Cores remain necessary in-situ observational data.”

The research aims to provide an accurate analysis of snowfall on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Box and his collaborators, Rick Forster (PI on a related NSF grant that seeks to fill holes in the snow accumulation data), Evan Burgess, and Clément Miège (University of Utah) are measuring annual snow fall to better understand how much of the ice sheet volume change and, in turn global sea level, is due to changes in snowfall or due to changing melt rates.

“We know that melt rates have increased in recent years,” the group writes on their blog. “Yet, we also know that as climate warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture and consequently, more snow is delivered to the ice sheets. Our project will help better understand the effect on the mass budget of changing mass input from snow accumulation variations in the past 30-60 years. We’re like auditors, with really thick parkas on.”

Those parkas kept the crew warm as they worked and camped in temperatures as low as -35 C (-31 F) at night and up to -5 (23 F) to – 25 C (-13F) during the day.

Now that they’re home, they’ve hung the parkas in the closet and begun the long task of analyzing the data, says Box.

“The core just made it off the ice sheet, and it needs to be put into the core melter to get the isotope and other chemistry data,” he says. “A graduate student, Clement Miege, will spend much of the summer identifying layers in the ground radar data.”

The team will present preliminary results at the AGU meeting in San Francisco this December.  —Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Aug 27 2010

Modeling climate’s complexity: This image, taken from a larger simulation of 20th century climate, depicts several aspects of Earth’s climate system. Sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are shown by the two color scales. The figure also captures sea level pressure and low-level winds, including warmer air moving north on the eastern side of low-pressure regions and colder air moving south on the western side of the lows. Such simulations, produced by the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, can also depict additional features of the climate system, such as precipitation. Companion software, recently released as the Community Earth System Model, will enable scientists to study the climate system in even greater complexity. Image courtesy UCAR

The latest version of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model (CESM) includes for the first time ever the capability to project how climate change will affect the ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland. The model, released August 17, will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It replaces a version of the same model released in 2004.

Specifically, the new model’s advanced capabilities will help scientists better understand some of the critical mysteries of global climate change, including:

• What impact will warming temperatures have on the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica?

• How will patterns in the ocean and atmosphere affect regional climate in coming decades?

• How will climate change influence the severity and frequency of tropical cyclones, including hurricanes?

• What are the effects of tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, on clouds and temperatures?

Available On The Web

The CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The CESM and its predecessors are unique among these models; a broad community of scientists developed them. The model is free to researchers worldwide and can be downloaded here.

“With the Community Earth System Model, we can pursue scientific questions that we could not address previously,” says NCAR scientist James Hurrell, chair of the scientific steering committee that developed the model. “Thanks to its improved physics and expanded biogeochemistry, it gives us a better representation of the real world.”

How Models Work

Climate models, like weather models, rely on a three-dimensional mesh that reaches high into the atmosphere and into the oceans. At regularly spaced intervals, or grid points, the models use laws of physics to compute atmospheric and environmental variables, simulating the exchanges among gases, particles, and energy across the atmosphere.

Because climate models cover far longer periods than weather models, they cannot include as much detail. Thus, climate projections appear on regional to global scales rather than local scales. This approach enables researchers to simulate global climate over years, decades, or millennia. To verify a model’s accuracy, scientists typically simulate past conditions and then compare the model results to actual observations.

Improved Forecasts

Using the CESM, Hurrell and other scientists hope to learn more about ocean-atmosphere patterns such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which affect sea surface temperatures as well as atmospheric conditions. Such knowledge, Hurrell says, can eventually lead to forecasts spanning several years of potential weather impacts, such as a particular region facing a high probability of drought, or another region likely facing several years of cold and wet conditions.  —Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Aug 25 2010

About a week after students and teachers from Denmark, Greenland, and the United States bid one another farewell in Kangerlussuaq, the synergy and camaraderie of the 2010 Joint Committee “Science in Education” week continues to grow, as evidenced by promises to continue their new collaboration via Skype, a Google Web group, several blogs, and plans to learn each others’ language.

Sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, and the New York Air National Guard, the “Sci Ed” week fostered a tight-knit group that shared a love for science, the cold, and adventure.

“The students were all very interested and engaged in the science,” said Polar Field Service’s Robbie Score, who accompanied the crew during the week, July 19-27. “They asked a lot of questions and all really liked each other. They quickly became like a family.  A functional family.”

Family Portrait: The 2010 SciEd group just wrapped up a week on the ice. All photos Robbie Score

Welcome to the Ice

The team consisted of 15 students and teachers from Greenland, Denmark, and the United States. Convening  in Kangerlussuaq on the west coast of Greenland, they were indoctrinated into the ice their first full day, July 20. After a morning spent gathering all the cold weather gear they’d need for the week, the team drove to the trailhead and hiked to the ice sheet.

Teacher Marti Canipe blogged about her impressions and said the first site of the ice was incredible.

“To say that seeing the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet is spectacular doesn’t begin to convey what this experience is like,” she wrote. “The wall of ice is massive and at this point it is only a fraction of the thickest part of the ice. To stand there and look at the ice sheet stretching off into the distance and to know that it is covering the vast majority of Greenland is an awe inspiring moment.”

To Summit Station

The next day the group flew to Summit Station and were surprised to find the research outpost full of international scientists and experiments, said Score. Even the Greenlander students had little idea of the scope and size of Summit; indeed the students said they felt like tourists.

So they set about sight-seeing. With a trip to the Flux facility and a presentation on unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV) by scientist Rune Storvold, they learned about instrumentation that measures albedo.

The crew learns about Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) from Rune Storvold.

They also explored two snow pits where they examined the myriad layers. Next up was a trip to the Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory (TAWO) where they learned how  scientists at the station measure, record, and track blacck arbon, CO2, and other particles and gases in the atmosphere.

Andy Clarke and Marie McLain take the group to the Flux facility at Summit Station.

Finally, they had the opportunity to launch a NOAA balloon from Summit’s Mobile Science Facility. These balloons  help scientists study clouds in order to better understand the atmosphere and improve climate pattern models. The scientists  use sonar, radar, and lasers to figure many different aspects about the cloud altitude, height and structure, and the students listened attentively to all the presentations.

Snowed Out

On deck the next day was a trip to observe the ice core drilling at NEEM, but a four-day blizzard made travel impossible, much to the dismay of the students. Nonetheless they were good sports, playing scrabble and other games as they killed time while the trip organizers came up with Plan B: back to Kangar.

They were not to be disappointed. In Kangar the PI from NEEM gave an overview of the science and drilling operations, and the next day the group went to Kellyville and also hiked to a glacier where they did some experiments of their own (see photos below).

Six students, two from Greenland, two from Denmark, and two from the United Sates take pH measurements at Russell Glacier.

A NEEM Daytrip

On July 25 the weather cleared and the group flew to NEEM, much to their extreme delight.

“The Denmark and Greenland students kept saying they couldn’t believe they were actually at NEEM,” said Score. “They were very animated.”

Success

In all, the week was a tremendous success, said Score. In addition to being exposed to a wide variety of science disciplines, the students met field staff at the research stations who have unique careers that the kids might never have known about. Meeting and making friends from other countries also expanded the students’ horizons, and all of the teachers reported learning much and returning home with renewed energy to teach once school starts this fall.

And who knows? Perhaps in a few years the students will be back as researchers themselves! —Rachel Walker

Comments (0) Aug 03 2010