23 June 2008 Summit Staff

Journal

June 23, 2008 – Monday – Summit Staff

It has been about 20 days since the last Air Force cargo plane flew out of Summit. In the next three days we are expecting three flights! You know what they say, when it rains…it pours! A few of the Summit Camp staffers are leaving us tomorrow on the first flight out and 7 members of the research team are leaving as well.

The Summit staff is a hard working bunch who loves to endure the extreme. Many of them spend the northern hemisphere’s summer working atop the ice sheet in Greenland and then chase the sun south for the southern hemisphere’s summer in Antarctica. They are an eclectic group with diverse talents and are able to sustain a research facility in one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Many of the staff arrived here at the end of May and will live and work here until the end of August! Can you imagine how excited they get when care packages from home arrive with the cargo!

Some spend their days cooking, others run the machinery. A few attend to science projects day in and day out and others provide medical attention. It takes a lot of hard to care for a place like this…we are indebted to them.

Craig Clements (San Jose State University) has been working the night shift; running the tethersonde up and down as the midnight sun burns brightly. The night before last at about 6:00 am he wandered outside to see one of the greatest treats of the Arctic, a full halo around the sun. After some creative photography, he was able to get some amazing shots like the one below; I’ve posted another in the photo gallery. That reminds me, the research team has been keeping a blog as well, check it out for another perspective on life up here: http://www.greenland-2008.blogspot.com/ .

Diamonds in the Sky — If the conditions are just right, falling "diamond dust" (ice crystals) can produce this amazing site which fills the entire sky. The technical names are 22 degree halo, Parhelic circle, and Parhelia! Craig Clements was able to position the tethersonde in front of the sun so the camera could capture this. (photo by Craig Clements)

I tried out a little experiment of my own today. I have been very anxious to send my camera up half a kilometer in the sky attached to the tethersonde. So, today I built a harness out of zip ties, parachute cord and electricians tape. After a few trial runs, I was able to get a great movie of what it is like to attach oneself to a balloon and fly up to 500 meters! I’ve attached the video below. It gives a nice panorama of Summit Camp. If you watch it you can see just how far away Balloon Island (and Sat Camp) is from the main camp. The left hand part of the screen is the trail to our camp (you can barely make out people walking), off in the distance is Big House, Green House, Tent City, Mechanic Shop, Balloon Barn, Swiss Tower, and other landmarks. ENJOY!

Short Video

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On different note, here is the first paragraph of a very special "Ask the Team” project I have been working on. If you are interested, follow the links to learn more.

Mrs. Beals (my mother, not my wife!) 5th grade class from Bitterroot Elementary in Billings, Montana sent me to Greenland with a plan. They were interested in finding out how the length of a shadow in Billings compares to the length of a shadow at the top of the ice sheet in Greenland.

I have followed their instructions as written and…

(learn more here: http://www.polartrec.com/node/4485)