Greenland 2005 Journal

Tuesday July 19, 2005

Today the weather continued to provide excellent working conditions, and ended up being a very productive day for all the teams in camp. The PRISM team got the Tucker and sleds wired together, and worked on calibrating the radars. Two multiplexers that switch the antennas malfunctioned, and since they are not critical components, Torry and John decided to run the SAR radar without the components. This will reduce the cross-track resolution a little, but this will not impact the goals of the SAR survey. Tim, Pannir and David conducted two separate runs (morning and afternoon) of the plane wave radar sled along the �ATM� accumulation line. This is a flagged route along which snow accumulation is measured frequently. In the midst of all of this, David managed to fit in a tele-conference called a �Webinar� that was sponsored by ARCUS! Several libraries and individuals logged in and participated by asking questions about what the scientists were doing and their living conditions in the field. He spoke over the telephone while people watched a previously prepared presentation from their remote locations using specialized software provided by ARCUS through a dedicated website. The webinar lasted a little over an hour, and there was excellent interaction with the participants.

The cooks prepared excellent meals as usual, but due to the Anchorage team lifting the Big House, the water was turned off for most of the day, and we ate off paper plates and had grilled hamburgers or veggie burgers for dinner. Don, one of our cooks, injured herself this evening. While she was preparing avocado�s, her knife slipped while removing a pit and went into her hand. She had a very deep cut that should have received stitches, but with our limited medical expertise and facilities, she was bandaged up and giving some pain relievers. She is feeling much better and the healing process will be closely watched. The Big House raise is going quite well, and so far the house has been lifted the more than four feet! Once they lift it to six feet they will do some bracing and more work under the house, add the 25 foot extensions to the stilts and raise the house another ten feet. The end goal is to raise the house 20 feet so that it is out of a hole and about 8 feet above the snow surface.

The Wisconsin drilling effort is going well, with their goal depth being 100m, they are currently at a depth of 87m. It seems with this outstanding weather that progress is being made through out the camp and that everyone is working hard while the weather is cooperating.

We are all looking forward to starting the grid between Summit and the GRIP site. If all goes well between now and Sunday, the entire team will leave here on July 28 flights back to Kangerlussuaq. If not, some of the team will stay for another two weeks to complete the radar survey.

NOTE: This was entire journal entry, not just page 1.

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