Science in Svalbard and the Adventures of Fjord

Want more NotRudolph?

2010-09-21T20:18:00.002+01:00

In case we've still got any readers here, since we're back in Cambridge we've stopped blogging. But, if you still want to get your Polar fix, try our new glaciers/outreach feed on Twitter.

Fieldwork Slideshow

2010-08-25T08:56:00.001+01:00

Longyearbyen

2010-08-25T08:48:00.004+01:00

As I think we mentioned before, Longyearbyen is the main city on Svalbard. With a population of a bit over 2000, it supports research at the University Centre, coal mining in the region, and a lot of tourism. The town isn’t huge, but it’s a great place to look around and there are lots of places to walk. Svalbard protects its cultural history, so there are lots of relics from past eras everywhere you look! So, here are some photos for in/around/near Longyearbyen from our visit there as well as the time I spent there in March while taking a course at the university.

Flower Correction

2010-08-25T08:47:00.002+01:00

Hey all, I’m settled back in Cambridge. And so I have a few more things to blog about. But first, a correction. On the trip to Ossian Sars with Inger, I mistakenly wrote that we were looking for a buttercup. In fact, we were searching for a cinquefoil.

Back at home, Inger was able to more closely analyse the samples we took under a dissecting microscope in the lab. The beautiful flowering sample we saw was in fact Potentilla x insularis, but a smaller plant was the Potentilla nivea ssp. Nivea that we were looking for.

Safely Home

2010-08-11T20:39:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post to let you all know the team (and the FieldSpec) made it safely back to the UK. Fjord is currently resting (he didn't get back to Cambridge until almost 3am!), but he will post a couple stories about Longyearbyen and the trip home soon.

Arctic Stonehenge?

2010-08-08T15:15:00.004+01:00

Whilst out searching the tundra for a tasty evening snack - to be honest I'm not a fan of the chocolate cookies that Allen likes so much - I came across a large area of these strange rock circles and wondered how they got here. Was it the holy site of an ancient tribe? The footprints left by extraterrestrial visitors?

In fact these landforms are completely natural and are produced by the annual cycles of freeze and thaw that take place in the arctic soil, which lift larger rocks to the surface then push them outwards until they gather in rings. I also found these distinct stripes which form by a similar process on shallow slopes.

Turning Botanist

2010-08-08T13:49:00.005+01:00

It's a rainy Sunday, so instead of a photo of the cloud outside of my window, I'll tell you about the trip we took on Thursday. Inger Alsos is a terrestrial ecologist based at the University Centre in Svalbard and the University of Tromsø. She was supposed to be on a flight out on Thursday afternoon, BUT Inger had heard that a rare flower was growing on some of the cliffs on Ossian Sars island in Kongsfjorden, and she couldn't resist the chance to find it, take some photos, and take some samples. She needed a couple extra sets of eyes to help find and identify the little flower, so Fiona, Gareth, Allen, and I all got to go along, too!

Our mission was to find a particular kind of Potentilla - basically an Arctic buttercup. The trick (of course there was a trick!) was that there are four very similar varieties of this plant in the Kongsfjorden area. We were looking for the ones with plain yellow flowers (no spots), and short white hairs on the underside of their 3-lobed leaves.

Inger led us to the right spot, and we struck lucky finding three patches of plants showing a range of flowers in bloom and dying! Mission achieved!

Gareth, Fiona, and Inger relaxing for a second after finding the flowers. The flowers like to grow on steep slopes - steep enough to catch strong sun and deter grazers but shallow enough to hold on to soil.

Although Ossian Sars is an island, reindeer and foxes cross over (mostly in the winter, but some swim in the summer, too). We saw a very cute little Arctic fox, but he was too quick for my camera. A reindeer below us, on the other hand, very obligingly stood near an iceberg in the ocean below.

I tried to convince the others that I could identify plants by taste, but was told off because it destroyed the (tasty) samples. It was very hard for me to not eat the flowers, but I did my best...

Inger maintains a very comprehensive website about all of Svalbard's vascular plants - check it out at www.svalbardflora.net. The photos from our trip on Thursday should be up in a couple weeks once DNA tests confirm the flower identification.

Newswatch

2010-08-07T09:51:00.002+01:00

If you were thinking that we're the only team doing cool research in Ny-Ålesund, then (although we might be flattered) you'd be wrong. Here's a cool article (Looking for the Coolest forms of Life on Earth) from ScienceDaily about a team of UK scientists using glaciers in the area to simulate what conditions life might have to deal with on Mars. They're even keeping a blog, so if you need your Ny-Alesund fix after we're gone, you can get it here.

Breaking News: Fjord goes for a run

2010-08-06T15:55:00.003+01:00

Seen here at the highly exclusive gym in Ny-Ålesund's Samfunshuset, Fjord gets a jog in since he has evidently been riding inside scientists' backpacks for a bit too long. Overheard from the reindeer: "I've just been eating too many Arctic wildflowers"

We have it on good authority that the shoes in the background belong to none other than grad student Allen Pope training on the rowing machine.

Tour of Ny-Ålesund

2010-08-06T14:14:00.005+01:00

A bit later, but as they say – better late than never. Ny-Ålesund is no regular town – it is the northernmost functioning community in the world and home to research stations from 14 nations, and there is scientific presence from more. We are hosted by the Norwegians at Sverdrup Stasjonen, but the UK Natural Environment Research Council has a very, very active presence here, too. The entire town and infrastructure is administered by King’s Bay AS – a company started long ago to mine coal in the area, now owned by the Norwegian Government in a logistic capacity. (Side note: they also administer Bjørnøya, the island halfway between Svalbard and northern Norway.)

Here is Ny-Ålesund from the plane as we flew in. The long, thin building on the bottom right is the Norwegian Sverdrup Stasjonen, the gray/black building cut off on the right side is the main King’s Bay building with the dining hall and common spaces, the red building next to that hosts the French and Korean stations, and the blue building in the middle is the German station.

Down the road are the post office, the ‘Samfunshuset’ where Jon and I have our rooms (and the gym and sauna are located), the Indian station, the UK station, the Dutch station, the bar, and eventually the port where tourist ships stop in with some frequency.

The Chinese station has two (very distinctive) stone lions out front. Fjord couldn’t quite overcome the reindeer-lion language barrier.

There is a large statue of Roald Amundsen in the centre of town (with a quite distinctive nose), commemorating his polar exploration and in particular his flight in an airship from Ny-Ålseund over the North Pole. Conveniently, it is right next to the Norwegian station which is in the background.

The Ny-Ålesund post office is a much-photographed location.

And the shop (or butikken in Norwegian) has a large range of souvenirs (mostly for tourists, but also for residents) as well as snacks and the liquor store (which, like all liquor on Svalbard is rationed because of very, very low tax levels – beer here costs one third of what it does on the mainland!).

As the settlement used to be a coal mine, they needed to move the coal around. As a remnant – here’s a random train in town.

The port receives the high volume of tourists that pass through as they briefly get off their cruise ships to see the station. Fjord likes it down there – evidently the rescue ring is a good place to rest.

Right next to the large quay is the harbor where the small research boats (for getting around Kongsfjorden and slightly beyond) are located. In the background you can see the Marine Laboratory, a first rate facility for all research having to do with the ocean.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the little photo tour. It’s a small place, but there’s a lot in it. Too much for one blog post. You’ll just have to come here some time to see it yourselves!

What is the similarity between glacier ice and broccoli?

2010-08-04T20:40:00.007+01:00

They both exhibit self-similarity; when viewed at different scales they appear the same, so that the whole surface is made up of a number of smaller versions of itself as can be seen by this striking photo of Romanesco broccoli.

This property has important implications for measuring the roughness of a glacier's surface, which fjord has been helping Jon to do on Mitdre Lovénbreen. The roughness measured will depend on the scale of measurement; to an extent the larger the scale over which the roughness is measured, the rougher the surface will appear to be.

Fjord has been helping Jon make measurements using two methods, each at a different scale. The first method, at a scale of 15m, involves measuring the distance to the surface along the length of a fixed horizontal length of cord.

The second method measures at a smaller scale of 1 metre, and is much quicker. Here fjord pushes a black metal plate vertically down into the surface. A photo of the plate will show the outline of the glacier surface along the line of the plate, contrasted against the black plate. Using image processing software the photo can be turned into an accurate representation of the surface roughness. Fjord prefers this method as it is much quicker.

Roughness is an important surface characteristic because its affect on the flow of air over the glacier surface influences the amount of heat transferred between the ice and the atmosphere and also because it is seen as "texture" in aerial and satellite imagery.

Belugas!

2010-08-03T18:38:00.006+01:00

A pod of ~100 belugas just swam down Kongsfjorden. On the way in they were on the far side, but on the way back past Ny-Ålesund they were only ~50m from the quayside!

Fjord learns to measure snow

2010-08-03T17:51:00.004+01:00

Along with all the spectral measurements that we are taking, we are also recording the physical qualities of the snow surface to match these up with the reflectance results. Mainly, this means measuring the snow grain size and density.

Grain size is really easy to measure – we scoop some grains up onto a card with 1 mm, 2 mm, and 3mm grids on it and see (with the help of a little magnifier) how big the grains are. Fjord says these were ~1mm.

Snow density is another very simple thing to measure with the right tools. Fjord demonstrates quite well here. First, you push a metal wedge (of known size!) into the snow, collecting the surface layer.

Then, when the shovel is full, you slide a cover over it so that the wedge is completely full.

You end up with a sample like this…

Which we now weigh…

Once we have a known size and a known mass, we can calculate snow density (density = mass / volume)!

With the help of this data we’ve already noticed that small grain size scatter light more efficiently and provide higher reflectance than coarse grains across all wavelengths!

Amundsen's Mast

2010-08-02T18:51:00.006+01:00

Fjord and Amundsen in the centre of Ny Ålesund

In the centre of Ny Ålesund, the bust of Roald Amundsen looks into the distance, not north or south, the directions which he faced for much of his life, but eastwards towards an old mast on the tundra just outside the station. It was from here in May 1926, that Amundsen, with 8 Norwegians, 6 Italians and an American, flew the airship Norge over the North Pole to Teller, Alaska, and became the first to reach both geographic poles, along with Oscar Wisting, who had accompanied him to the South Pole.

Amundsen's mast with Kongsfjorden behind

Amundsen had made an attempt using aeroplanes the year before, but was forced to land on the ice at 87º north and the party of 6 then had to build a runway over the pack ice on starvation rations in order to fly the one working plane, the N-25, back to Ny Ålesund.

In 1928 the Italian Umberto Nobile, who had designed and then piloted the Norge, was attempting to reach the pole again, with an Italian crew. The Italia had reached the pole and was returning to Svalbard when it crashed in a storm. On June 18^th 1928, Amundsen took off from Tromsø as part of an international rescue mission to search for Nobile. He was never seen again.

Shrinking glacier

2010-08-02T17:43:00.003+01:00

When Gareth was last in Ny Ålesund, he and a colleague used a technique called airborne LiDAR to make a very detailed map of the surface of Midre Lovénbreen. The snout (lower edge) of the glacier was very clearly visible in that map. We revisited the snout area a few days ago and remapped it by the very simple (but rather muddy) method of walking along it once in each direction, recording our location as we went using a GPS receiver. This showed that the snout has melted back by about 50 metres in the five years since we last looked at it.

Kongsfjorden Kruise

2010-08-02T17:33:00.006+01:00

Since we've been collecting data almost every day for the last week, today was a day in town to process some data. Except that the weather was too nice. So we decided to do a bit of reconnaissance around the fjord. You know, for future field sites. It was a lovely 2 hour boat trip.

Step 1: Survival Suits (in case we fall in...)

Step 2: Capture beautiful view of Midtre Lovénbreen

This is Fiona - one of the station managers of the Norwegian research base and also one of Gareth's former PhD students.

And now some scenic shots of birds, glaciers, mountains, a failed marble mine, and more...

Now to finish off with some sounds, too. Here, you can see the front of Kongsvegen and hear the clunnks of lots of little icebergs against the bottom of the boat.

And here, there is an outflow of water underneath the glacier. It stirs up sediment and plankton so the birds congregate to feed. Quite a scenic spot for a meal!

Looking into outer space

2010-08-01T19:59:00.003+01:00

This huge antenna caught our eye, even though it is not really anything to do with our research. It is located near the landing strip in Ny Ålesund, and it used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This is a technique where two or more of these giant radio telescopes, often on different continents, are used to observe the same radio source in outer space. By comparing the signals measured by the telescopes it is possible to measure the distance and orientation between them very precisely, and this has a lot of useful applications in mapping and, for example, in measuring the rotation of the Earth. We were impressed.

Ny-Ålesund Zoo

2010-08-01T19:44:00.005+01:00

One of the coolest parts about being in a remote area is that animals don't necessarily think they should be scared of humans. The Arctic has a surprising amount of biodiversity which we couldn't even pretend to be knowledgeable about. Instead, here are some of the cuter animals that's we've been lucky enough to encounter in and around Ny-Ålesund.

Svalbard Reindeer

Fjord finds tracks from his cousins.

This guy was not at all disturbed by three humans walking past. Stunning antlers.

Reindeer, fjord, and glacier. Can't beat Svalbard sometimes.

Arctic Terns

A closeup view of the Arctic Tern, also known as red-billed terns. They travel huge distances every year, from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere, following summer at each end.

Terns will dive for food, and if you go anywhere near their nests they will divebomb you, too!

Barnacle Geese

Families of Barnacle Geese wander through town all the time. They mate and breed on the small islands just offshore (safe from foxes!), but bring their families to land for a larger food supply. Although they move as a large group, family groups stay very distinct - in a flock it is easy to spot pairs of parents and the three or four goslings that go with them. The Dutch researchers here spend a lot of time studying these geese and their habits. The gosling hatched in late June and the photo below was taken last week. Just in the past couple days a lot of them have started to show their adult colorations, and by the end of August they'll be flying south for the winter.

Arctic Foxes

Possibly the cutest inhabitants of Ny-Ålesund, a couple Arctic Foxes actually have a den underneath the Dutch station. In the winter they have very thick white coats to blend in with the snow. In the summer their coats are much lighter (it's hot!) but they are tan and brown. The Dutch scientists have also been studying these foxes and how they interact with the geese - and most of them have tracking tags on their ears. The pups are just a couple weeks old and like to play around a lot.

Rainy Day = Data Day

2010-07-30T17:36:00.004+01:00

Today started out a little wet, so the FieldSpec had to stay inside. So, Fjord and Allen got to work on a bit of much-needed data processing. The main conclusion was that we need more samples to be more sure of any conclusions drawn about different reflectance of snow surfaces! This is not surprising. And good to know, seeing as we have 10 days left here...

On the up side, here's a pretty graph of some of the data so far. Each line is the average reflectance (without error bars) of different surface types. Going from top to bottom, they are Snow, White Ice, Semi-Saturated Ice, Slush, and Saturated Ice. Things are looking promising!

Percent reflectance on vertical axis, Wavelength minus 350nm on vertical axis

More sun, more research

2010-07-29T18:00:00.003+01:00

The sun was out for the second morning in a row – and we took advantage of it! After a nice hike out to the glacier, we stopped to take a few photos before work started…

Conwaybreen, across Kongsfjorden from Midtre Lovénbreen

With touristing over, we got to work. You saw the spectrum yesterday, but what does the data collection actually consist of? It’s pretty simple. Fjord monitors a light meter to make sure light levels are staying steady.

Fjord, taking his job very seriously

If the light is stable (whether clear or cloudy, the illumination just needs to stay the same between reference and measured target). The FieldSpec operator (here, Allen) then takes a measurement of the white reference panel (defined as 100% reflectance) and then quickly measures the chosen point on the glacier surface. Each reading takes about 15 seconds and is actually an average of 30 quick scans. For each point on the surface this is repeated at 10 times – we rotate the angle of view, too, because the surface doesn’t necessarily reflect the same in all angles.

Allen measuring an icy glacier surface; the computer controls the FieldSpec and shows realtime data to use for quality control

After the spectra are measured, then Jon measures the surface roughness (he’ll cover that in another post) and we also measure the density of the snow and size of the snow grains – both factors which influence the spectra. Processing of the data is underway, and I’ll let you know if we find anything cool!

Today’s hike also took us to a new part of Midtre Lovénbreen, onto one of the side tributaries. It was a bit steeper, so small crevasses start to form up there. We try to be safe of course, but small reindeer have to look for small crevasses…

Finally - Science!

2010-07-28T18:42:00.003+01:00

For the first time today we took the FieldSpec out to the glacier – and it went really well! The morning started very auspiciously. Unlike any other morning since we’ve arrived, it was bright and sunny outside.

As we arrive at the glacier, clouds covered the sun. Although this isn’t ideal for getting a strong signal with the FieldSpec, it did mean we didn’t have to worry about confounding reflections and we could get balanced spectra. Like the one below.

An example of how snow reflects light – we collected this data today!

On the horizontal axis is wavelength (color of light) and on the vertical axis is percent reflectance (how much of that color gets reflected back vs. absorbed). As you can see snow is very bright in the low wavelengths. This is the visible range, showing what we know – snow is bright white! There is a dip near 1000 nm where it absorbs some infra-red light, and snow is effectively “black” (absorbent, not reflective) at higher wavelengths. The big spiky bits near 1300 and 1800 nm are due to interference by water in the atmosphere.
The day was really productive, although I admit not the most interesting if you weren’t there. We established a good protocol for how measurements are taken and recorded and got spectra on at a couple different sites including water-saturated ice, semi-saturated ice, two areas of snow, and some slush. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get some more snow and unsaturated ice. Most importantly – we now know that we collected some reasonably and useable data!!

As we packed up to head back to town for dinner, the sun came out again. The scenery was beautiful and we just had to keep taking out our cameras to snap some shots. It probably added 30 minutes to our “commute”! Here are a couple – enjoy!

Our SHADOWS on Midtre Lovénbreen, looking across Kongfjorden

Bright and sunny – the nicest weather we’ve had yet

A view of Ny-Ålesund from the glacier, Kapp Mitra in the distance

Exploring Austre Brøggerbreen

2010-07-27T19:27:00.003+01:00

When choosing Ny-Ålesund as a research site, one of the reasons to come here was the immediate accessibility of a few different glaciers. So, today we went to check out another nearby one – Austre Brøggerbreen (the eastern Brøgger glacier, Brøgger being the name of the peninsula Ny-Ålseund is located).

In order to get to the glacier, we have to hike up the side of the valley for a ways in order to bypass a very large meltwater stream. We may have overestimated the necessary climbing height and so had a bit of an adventure in the screen. Of course, Fjord managed to find some Svalbard poppies while we were hiking.

We finally got down to the glacier and hiked around it a bit, exploring the area. We found some ablation stakes from the Norwegian Polar Institute, measuring the amount the glacier gains or loses in a given year. We also found a pretty cool medial moraine where we had lunch.

Unfortunately, we came to the conclusion that based on the amount of snow that had already melted this year, Austre Brøggerbreen isn’t really a good place to do our spectral measurements. Lots of slush and nothing that Midtre Lovénbreen doesn’t have. Adventure had, lesson learned.

On the hike back we checked out this huge meltwater stream some more. See photo and video below. The majority of the stream actually emerges from the middle of the glacier, forced up out of a tunnel through the glacier rather that at its edge. You can see some of the water bubbling up and the torrent which flows out later. Jon wants to come back with a kayak and try riding it…

Photo 1 Revealed

2010-07-27T13:32:00.002+01:00

It's a small glacier, up in a side valley which used to be connected to the main body of the glacier we're working on. Many of the dark lines we see here are layers (a bit like tree rings) formed each year by alternating snow in the winter (now ice) and dust blown in during the summer.

Mystery Photo 1

2010-07-25T19:40:00.003+01:00

What do you think this photo is of? Guess! In a day or two I'll post the zoomed-out version.

Why Ny-Ålesund is Ny-Ålesund

2010-07-25T18:17:00.004+01:00

Today on the walk back from the glacier, after helping Allen, Gareth and Jon collect their data I found this large chunk of coal and it reminded me of the rich history of Ny-Ålesund.

It was exactly 400 years ago, in 1610, that coal was discovered here by the English whaler Jonas Poole, who named the fjord Deer Sound, perhaps after meeting a few of my ancestors. The reindeer were left alone for 300 years until the Kings Bay Kull Company (KBKC) started mining coal in 1916. KBKC was based in Ålesund on the west coast of Norway, so the new mining town became known as Ny-Ålesund (New Ålesund).

The mining operation grew rapidly, extracting nearly 90,000 tonnes a year, but the mine was never very successful and the town was evacuated during World War II. After the war, mining operations were resumed but the work was dangerous and after a number of accidents there was an explosion in 1962 that killed 21 people.

The government decided to stop mining and in the late 1960s Ny Ålesund became the home to scientific research that it is today, still run by the Kings Bay Company.

Fjord Meets His Cousin

2010-07-24T15:11:00.002+01:00

He didn't tell us his name, but he was wandering just outside the station.

Testing the Spectroradiometer

2010-07-24T12:25:00.004+01:00

So, after our successful day of investigating the glacier, we thought we should make sure that everybody in the team knows how to use the spectroradiometer. This thing (aka the FieldSpec) is what we are using to measure how much energy a surface reflects across a wide range of wavelengths, all the way from infrared through the visible to the ultraviolet.

Here, you can see Jon, Gareth, and Fjord testing out the machine. Jon is holding a reference panel – this very bright white square tells us what 100% reflectance looks like so we can calibrate the FieldSpec. The sensor is on the end of the pole that Gareth is holding, currently measuring the reference panel. A fibre optic cable runs from the sensor to the detectors in the machine on Gareth’s backpack. All of this is controlled by the laptop sitting on the belly-board hanging off of Gareth’s next. Although it’s a bit of a hassle to get on/off, one it is set up you only need to hit the space bar to take a measurement!

We only measured some of the rocks and tundra outside the station, but hopefully soon we'll have some meaningful data on the glaciers.

Fjord Travels on a Glacier

2010-07-23T18:02:00.003+01:00

This afternoon we took the opportunity to do a bit of reconnaissance and see one of the glaciers that we’ll be working on – Midtre Lovénbreen (breen is Norwegian for glacier). ML is one of the most-studied glaciers in Svalbard and even all of Europe because of its small size, simple geometry, and proximity to Ny-Ålesund, and Gareth has been here a few times before.

Fjord rides a bike

The trip out of town starts on bikes, which we take a couple km to the end of the road before dismounting and hiking across some lightly vegetated tundra and the moraine. The moraine is made up of material that has been spit out of the end of the glacier in the past and is made up of everything from sand and silt to jumbles of pointy rocks – not the nicest thing to hike on.

Getting onto the glacier surface is fairly easy at the snount – just watch out for the streams of meltwater and the quicksand next to the ice. As you can see, the edge of a glacier is a dirty place scatter with mud, dirt and rocks.

Fjord deftly hops onto the dirty snout of Midtre Lovénbreen

It isn’t until you get higher up the glacier that the ice stays cleaner and there are even still bits of snow left from this past winter. Fjord seems to have found a clean patch to get a drink.

A clean, snowy part of Midtre Lovénbreen

Midtre Lovénbreen is a fairly safe glacier – the surface is not too steep, crampons aren’t necessary,a and there are few crevasses. What we do have to look out for are large meltwater streams which cut canyons into the glacier, complete with their own little waterfalls. Don’t fall in! Eventually, the tops of these canyons close back up with snow and ice and turn into tunnels which carry water through the interior of the glacier.

Fjord Plays in LYR Airport

2010-07-23T10:26:00.002+01:00

Welcome to Ny-Ålesund!

2010-07-23T09:11:00.004+01:00

After four flights over two days, we finally made it to Ny-Ålesund, the research station we will be calling home for the next couple weeks!

Leaving from London-Heathrow we had a short layover in Oslo and an overnight stop in Tromsø. Since Tromsø is above the Arctic Circle it means that we didn’t see darkness and won’t again until August 10th! From Tromsø we flew to Longyearbyen, the major city of Svalbard. There, Fjord encountered his first polar bear (stuffed, in the airport), had some fun on the luggage carousel, and boarded our final plane – and it was a small one! With pilot and co-pilot there were only 12 people on board.

Fjord's First Polar Bear

Even though it was only a 25 minute flight from Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund, the scenery was the most breathtaking we’ve seen yet, especially since the pilot nicely stayed below the cloud cover.

Flight from Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund

We landed! Gareth, Fjord, and our plane.

It’s 5°C and overcast here (but no rain – check out the weather anytime here), we’ve eaten dinner, and so far seen geese, Arctic terns and an Arctic fox. Fieldwork starts immediately, and we’ve also already been inducted at the Norwegian research station and gotten our kit together. A bit later on we’ll give you a tour of the town, but suffice it to say that Allen has already found the world’s most northerly rowing machine.

After a bit of training we’ll get out into the field as soon as we can!

FieldSpec Training

2010-07-15T11:29:00.008+01:00

Today was our first day of “field” work – not in Svalbard, but in Edinburgh (another glacially-carved landscape)! An early train, plane, and bus got us (Fjord & Allen) to University of Edinburgh, the home of the NERC FSF. Today was all about learning the theory and practice behind the star piece of equipment on the trip – the ASD FieldSpec 3.

The FSF exists to (among other things), provide training and user support, and to promote good practice in the application of field spectroscopy. I have to say, they are amazingly informative, helpful, and friendly all day.

So, what are we measuring with this thing? When the sensor (it fits in a backpack, controlled by a computer with a detector that looks like a small gun) is pointed at the glacier surface, the FieldSpec scans the entire spectrum from 350nm to 2500nm and, with the help/calibration of a bright white reference tile we carry along, tells us the percentage of light at each wavelength that the glacier surface reflects.

There are lots of things to consider when taking each measurement. The sky needs to be clear, because that is the condition when satellite imagery is collected. We have to stand so as not to cast a shadow or to reflect additional light on the surface. We have to take the measurement at multiple angles so as to produce an average spectrum. And, one more thing – this instrument is worth £55,000 - so we have to be very careful with it!

You’ll see more photos of the FieldSpec in action once we’re in the field. Less than a week away…

Fjord in Cambridge

2010-07-13T17:05:00.001+01:00

Although the weather in Cambridge is beautiful, I'm getting itchy hooves. I want to go North - and it will happen soon! We're heading to Svalbard on July 21 (with an overnight stop in Tromsø), so it won't be long now. Some of the packing has already begun and we have most of the kit we need.

The only major thing left is to get the field spectroradiometer - the one machine the expedition depends on! Allen & I are heading up to Edinburgh tomorrow to get it and to get trained. I'll let you know how it goes.

Under Construction

2010-06-01T20:45:00.004+01:00

Hey all, and welcome to my website! As you can see from the photo, I'm hard at work putting together a blog for my trip to Svalbard this summer. I've got maps, photos, video, and random facts all in the works. If you've got any questions or suggestions, just add them in the comments!

-Fjord the Reindeer