In the morning on the 19th of May, we – the Arctic Circle Traverse 2015 – found ourselves in a great dilemma; to stay or to go? On our check-in conversation with the KISS crew, we were informed that an east front from Kulusuk was expected to hit our location up on the ice sheet …[Read More]
How do you get a hot water drill onto an ice sheet? The Subglacial Access and Fast Ice Research Experiment (SAFIRE) uses a hot water drill to directly access and observe the physical and geothermal properties where the ice meets rock or sediment at the glacier-bed interface. Here, SAFIRE principal investigator Bryn Hubbard and post-doc …[Read More]
Climate records from ice cores have helped scientists understand the past changes in climate.The GISP II (Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two) ice core was more than 3km long and was drilled during a five year period in the 1990s. After the drilling ended the casing of the borehole was extended above the surface, so that …[Read More]
This image is from the west coast of Greenland and it shows several glaciers flowing towards the sea (upper part of the image), transporting ice into the ocean. The colours show the velocity of the ice. As the ice gets nearer to the coast it speeds up reaching speeds over 15m/day. The velocities were calculated using two …[Read More]
Moving 150 tonnes of equipment more than 450km across the Greenland Ice Sheet sounds like a crazy idea. In that context, moving a 14-metre high, dome-shaped, wooden structure seems like a minor point, but it really is not. I do not think I realised what an awesome and awe-inspiring project I was part of, until …[Read More]
Last summer we got the chance to participate in an incredible Arctic expedition. The mission was clear and yet unclear at the same time: Bring your fanciest laser technology on a wooden schooner. Then cross the Atlantic and sail to the fjords of southern Green land and conduct science throughout the journey. During most of …[Read More]
A story about CO2 -fluxes between sea-ice and the atmosphere What’s it all about? Whenever I have had to describe my PhD research project to people outside of my research community, I have always found it useful to use an analogy most people are familiar with, namely beers. Now that I have the full attention …[Read More]
– In fieldwork, you have no average. You just have extremes. When Daniel spoke his mind out loud we were facing a bright sunny day coming in from the opening of our tent. We were very glad to see that and ready to engage with our glaciological tasks. Our camp site was at the immediate …[Read More]
In the summer of 2014, our group at Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge decided to pursue an ambitious but exciting field campaign in West Greenland. The aim was to survey Store Glacier once a day using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (see photo above for a view from the UAV on its …[Read More]
