Putting a conversation on paper: Carl Benson in Witness the Arctic

In the summer of 2012, I had the fortune of meeting up with Dr. Carl Benson (see “Meeting people in Alaska …“), where we chatted about his previous traverses on the Greenland Ice Sheet and some of his current scientific endeavors. I was fascinated with his stories as my 2011 traverse with Thomas Overly and company was still fresh in my mind. As luck would have it, the Dartmouth IGERT community continues to interact with Benson.

It all started with a picture … Photo courtesy R. Benson.

In December 2012, while attending the AGU science conference with Chris Polashenski, I had the fortune of meeting Betsy Turner-Bogren from ARCUS (Arctic Research Consortium of the US), and we briefly chatted about an interview concept that reminded me of my August conversation with Benson. ARCUS has a newsletter it produces, Witness the Arctic (WTA), that provides “information on current arctic research efforts and findings, significant research initiatives, national policy affecting arctic research, international activities, and profiles of institutions with major arctic research efforts.” “Arctic Generations,” a series within WTA, is where an early career scientist gets to interview a scientist with “a long, distinguished career.” I could not pass up this opportunity to bridge the ground-breaking science, research techniques, and logistics accomplished by Benson and his traverses with the 2011 Greenland Inland Traverse. You can find the interview here. While we touched on some science, I was also intent on bringing out some of his personal memories of the traverse – my favorite anecdote is about the air logistics and, in particular, the French “free drops” along the 1955 traverse.

I’m not the only IGERT’eer chatting Benson up. Indeed, Chris is collaborating with Benson for his 2013 traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet experiment (known as “SAGE”: Sunlight Absorption on the Greenland ice sheet Experiment). Recently, Chris shared his experiences and some of his initial findings at an IGERT-sponsered talk here at Dartmouth. A blog of his 2013 traverse can be found here.

For me, this illustrates one of the neat aspects of snow and ice core science – its a very young science. What I mean by this is that many of the techniques developed and initial studies happened within the last 50-60 years, and many of those pioneering researchers are still pushing the envelope of knowledge today. The opportunity for a young scientist, like myself, to talk with giants in their field is unique.

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JSEP and IGERT at Summit: the meeting of the acronyms

While up at Summit camp, we were fortunate to overlap with students from the Joint Science Education Project (JSEP). The program provides high school students from Denmark, Greenland and the United States with the opportunity to travel to Summit Station and learn about the scientific research that occurs there. The ladies of Cohort 4 were eager to share our polar knowledge with the JSEP students, so we set up four different activities that revolved around snow and ice.

Summit flies flags from all of the participating countries in the Joint Science Education Project.

The first activity took the students out around camp to investigate snow albedo. We searched for snow that somehow looked different. For example, these differences could be due to compaction from heavy equipment, exhaust from LC-130 planes, or frost flower growth on the surface. We made measurements of albedo and used hand lenses to take a closer look at the snow grains and see how they differed from place to place.

Looking at snow grains through a hand lens.

One afternoon took us down to the beautiful backlit snow pit, where we discussed snow layering from different storm events and different seasons. We analyzed the snow stratigraphy, made density measurements and talked about implications for ice core studies, like the research done on GISP2 right at Summit!

Measuring density in the backlit snow pit.

Kristin led a hands-on exercise to teach the JSEP participants about glacial flow. The students made their own flubber from glue, water and borax, and they ran experiments to determine how their flubber “glaciers” would flow under various “bedrock” conditions. A wee bit messy, but worth the clean up!

Kristin explains the physics of glacial flow using flubber!

Our last afternoon at Summit fell on a beautiful, warm, sunny-sky day. The JSEP students broke into teams and set out on a scavenger hunt! Using GPS coordinates or clues about things around camp, the students were led place to place until they reached a final clue that could only be solved with input from all three groups. At last, they found the long sought-after buried treasure of Summit Camp!

The buried treasure of Summit Camp is found!

Coveted penguin stickers in the scavenger hunt prize!

When we weren’t sharing our love of science, the IGERT and JSEP teams enjoyed other activities around camp, such as singing songs together in the Big House or playing board games in the Recport. It was a fantastic opportunity for the IGERT students to share our science, to learn about science education in other countries, and to have a great time while doing it!

JSEP and IGERT groups after a successful scavenger hunt!

Learn more about the JSEP program at their website: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/joint-science-education-project-2013

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Blinding Whiteness

When you walk outside at Summit Station without your sunglasses, all you see is blinding white in all directions.  Snow reflects so much sunlight that sunglasses and copious amounts of sunscreen are necessities at all times.  The scientific term for reflectivity is albedo, or the fraction of incoming light that a surface bounces back.  The albedo around Summit Station is pretty close to one; almost 100% of the incoming light bounces back (towards our vulnerable eyes and skin!).

Alden in front of the great white expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

But ‘pretty close to one’ isn’t good enough for IGERT fellow Alden Adolph, who studies albedo in New Hampshire and, for the past month, at Summit Station.  During the month of June, Alden made albedo measurements every day at one location, to see how albedo changed over the course of the month, and to relate albedo to other variables like grain size and snow density.

While the IGERTs were at Summit, Alden took advantage of the extra hands to address a question she’s been contemplating: how does albedo vary spatially?  If she takes multiple measurements at just one location, is she capturing the whole picture?  Or if she moves a few meters away, would the measurement be entirely different?

To answer this question, we set out with our handy field spectrometer, a long tape measure, and a few flags.  We marked out a 50-meter by 50-meter grid on fresh, undisturbed snow.

Setting up our albedo grid

Alden, our trusty instructor, showed us how to use the instrument.

Learning how to use the field spectrometer.

Since albedo is the ratio of reflected to incoming light, each measurement has two parts: first we point the sensor toward the sun, then we point the sensor toward the ground.  The sensor is attached to a long metal bar that needs to be level to the ground.

The field spectrometer in action!

In the field, a measurement sounds something like this:

“Level up.”

“Ding!” (The computer makes a very satisfying sound when it has completed a measurement.)

“Level down.”

“Ding!”

Repeat two more times, move 10 meters along the transect, and repeat.  At the end of our grid, we had completed more than a hundred measurements that are currently waiting for Alden to process.  Although the surface all looks bright to our eyes, the field spectrometer will do a much better job at distinguishing small variation in the albedo at Summit.

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