TSP-Norway
launches new IPY-course in Svalbard and Greenland
14. August - 6 September 2008
Contact person for additional information: Hanne H. Christiansen
Text and photos by Hanne H. Christiansen
Drilling into the permafrost below the UNISCALM site in Adventdalen, Spitsbergen, with a handheld drilling machine.
14
August 2008; Svalbard-Greenland permafrost course
started !
In
the IPY spirit of international collaboration we have just started the International
University Course on High Arctic Permafrost Landscape Dynamics in Svalbard and
Greenland with 10 students and two lecturers. We are three Norwegian, three
Danish, one Icelandic, one German and two Swiss students, in addition to Prof.
Bo Elberling (University of Copenhagen & UNIS) and Ass. Prof. Hanne H.
Christiansen (UNIS) the two course lecturers. We are collaborating with a
Japanese IPY permafrost course run also at
Click here to read about the course (AG 333) structure.
We
are going to spend 3 intensive weeks doing field investigations of the
permafrost conditions in
The
aim is to provide data to models for quantifying the sensitivity of maximum
active layer depths in different landforms with respect to climate change and
the corresponding changes in soil element cycling, including emission of
greenhouse gasses. The main goal is to integrate field-based teaching and key
research questions addressing current and future sensitivity of polar permafrost
landscapes to climate changes and to produce datasets that are relevant for
teaching Earth system science.
We
will have at least 11 days of fieldwork. First 6 days in Svalbard in Adventdalen
next to Longyearbyen and at Kapp Linne close to Isfjord Radio, and then 6 days
in Greenland at the Zackenberg station. These sites both holds relevant
monitoring data that we can use in addition to the data we collect during the
course. The course will end with a 3 day workshop in
Saturday 16 August was our first fieldwork day in Adventdalen. We are working in two groups and both did active layer registration in the UNISCALM grid, which holds data of the active layer thaw progression since 2000. So we can study how this summer 2008 fits into the thaw depth variation of the last 9 years. Both groups also did profile studies in two pits of the active layer and obtained cores from the lower active layer and top permafrost down to 2.4 ms depth ! We are very happy the drilling technology worked almost as we had hoped....
Only thanks to funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers, the TSP Norway IPY project and UNIS are we able to run this course.
Obtaining
the first permafrost core is intensive and hard work !
19-21
August 2008;
Fieldwork
at Kapp Linne, the west coast of Spitsbergen, Svalbard
Today we also had visited the TSP solifluction station and the nearby rock glacier, both close to the Griegaksla mountain. At these sites permafrost temperatures and soil movement data are being collected. On our way back to Isfjord station, a polar bear suddenly crossed our path just some 200-300m away.
Polar bear in front of our group at the moment when it suddenly showed up from nowhere. Photo: Arild Bakke.
By
now we have studied the active layer thickness, permafrost conditions and
sediments in a loess terrace, low-centered ice-wedge polygons in the Adventdalen
valley in central
The
AG-333 team and Japanese collaborating IPY permafrost course at one of the TSP
Norway boreholes at Kapp Linne right after installation of thermistorstring.
Photo: Hanne H. Christiansen.
21
August 2008: The polar bear day ! Our
large visiting polar bear just 100 m south of Isfjord Radio. Photo Hanne H.
Christiansen. Today
just when we were ready to leave for fieldwork in the morning the polar bear
showed up on the beach east of Isfjord Radio station. It simply walked straight
towards us at the station. We got inside the buildings, and had just 3 persons
outside trying to scare the bear away from the buildings. The same bear had
broken into a hut some km west of here last night. He did not react to us firing
the flare gun, but finally we managed to get him to turn around and not walk
into the station. So
this became a day without any fieldwork, as the unpredictable polar bear is
still on the beach about 1 km from us here. We have to leave Kapp Linne today
sailing back to Longyearbyen to do our laboratory work before leaving for
Greenland in the night to Monday ! Todays
permafrost joke, served at the breakfast table by Kjersti: So what does a
permafrost researcher do in his/her free time ? He/she goes to a CALM site.. And
another one..also heard today during the polar bear watch: Where does permafrost
researchers eat ? At the permafrost table !
Studying
the 2.4 m long core from Adventdalen in -15oC in the freezing lab at
UNIS. We have found very ice rich permafrost in our cores.
Photos: Hanne H. Christiansen.
After
describing, photographing, sub sampling our samples in the freezer, we moved to
the warm laboratory for deciding the ice content, pH and grain sizes of our
samples.
Preparing
samples for grain size measurements in the UNIS laboratory.
We
also searched for organic material from the lower parts of our samples to obtain
ages of the sediment studied. Samples will be dated using the 14C AMS method. We
also have collected several samples for OSL (Optically stimulated Luminescence)
dating, allowing us to date sediment directly.
Preparing
samples for grain size measurements in the UNIS laboratory (left). Searching for
organic material under the microscope (right).
Now we have almost finished the packing for the last 2 weeks of the course. Tonight we will travel south from Longyearbyen here in Svalbard to Oslo, then west to Keflavik and Akureyri both in Iceland, before we fly north again finally reaching Zackenberg at 74 N in NE Greeland according to our plan on Tuesday 26 August.
26
August 2008: Winter
approaching – stopover in
North Atlantic weather 26 August 2008. A deep low is centred over NW Iceland, slowly moving east. The warm front is moving north over the North Atlantic with precipitation, while cold air with showers is moving east, south of Iceland. Meteorological map to the left. Satelite picture (Dundee) to the right; East Greenland is seen to the upper left, Norway to the right.
The
first deep autumn depression is today located NW of Iceland with a very well
developed front running all the way from E Greenland to Norway. This cause
strong winds and a very wet runway in Constable Pynt in
You can check updated weather conditions in East Greenland and in the Arctic on the three links below:
-
Click here to open a map showing the latest surface wind and air temperatures in the Arctic.
-
Click here to open a map showing the latest surface air pressure and air temperatures in the Arctic.
-
Click here to open the gateway to satellite pictures from the Dundee Satellite Receiving Station. The service is free, but you have to register.
We
are flying Dash 8 within
This morning some Northern Bottlenose whales have entertained us in the fiord only a few meters from land, and so we now also met some of the larger arctic animals from the sea. See photos below.
Whale showing its tail. Part of the city Akureyri is seen in the background. Photo: Bo Elberling.
Svimming with the whales (left). Close up of Northern Bottlenose whale (right). Photos: Dominique Langhammer.
27-31
August 2008: Permafrost
coring in Zackenberg, NE Greenland
The Twinotter on the final approach to the small runway in Zackenberg. The mountains on Clavering Island is seen in the background. August 27, 2008.
For
two of us the flight to Zackenberg gave many good memories from the early start
of Zackenberg Research Station in the 1990ies. But for most of the students in
the Twinotter - this was the very first visit to
The group enjoying life outside one of the Zackenberg Station buildings.
28.
August our two groups made the first permafrost core drillings in
Probing the active layer thickness, with interested Muskoxen in the background.
Inspecting a sediment core from the uppermost part of the permafrost.
A
scientific nap after the hard drilling work.
Obtaining samples from the permafrost have long been a wish both from a soil scientific and geomorphological perspective, as such data in the future will provide information on landscape specific active layer development and permafrost ice content, as well as carbon and nitrogen dynamics in the permafrost with respect to climate changes.
Reaching a depth of three meters below the terrain surface.
Lecturing on carbon dynamics in permafrost regions.
Muskoxen
are everywhere and add to the excitement – more than 150 muskoxen are
scattered in the valley often in groups. This time of the year it is best to
keep a good distance, as the males are busy keeping control over the small
groups. However, the muskoxen seem to be attracted to our permafrost research
sites.
10
September 2008: Data - data - data and permafrost science !
Zackenberg Research Station in morning light in early September with new snow on the Clavering mountains.
Before leaving Zackenberg we all worked hard to get all the data collected both from the field and from the laboratory. Just as we got copies of the relevant data from the GeoBasis monitoring programme at Zackenberg. This monitoring programme, which has run for more than 10 years, provide us with important meteorological data and also more specific data on water content, active layer thawing from before we came to Greenland allowing us to compare this directly with the Svalbard values.
One
of the legacies of the IPY is the data. Therefore we have spent 3 days at the
Laboratory work on the obtained frozen cores were going on both outside (+2oC) and inside the laboratory buildings in the Zackenberg Research Station.
The
last day of the course we had oral presentations of all the data collected, and
we started to consider the scientific questions each of the participants will
study based on the collected data and the available background data. These
studies will form the final course report, which will finished in November,
consisting of individual papers on different scientific questions. Examples of
research questions to be studied are: How large is the meteorological control on
active layer thicknesses in
Some
of the students of this course have already collected enough data also for their
master or bachelor theses, or inspiration to include some of the data in their
coming theses. So hopefully we have started some new arctic researchers who want
to continue studying the permafrost of
Muskoxen were present in large numbers close to our working sites in the Zackenberg lowlands.
It
is difficult to describe how it feels to swim next to the whales… just an
amazing experience!! Dominik and I were waiting for the perfect moment to jump
into the water where the whales were playing just a few meters away from the
shore in front of
It’s
been such a great experience for me, to be able to join the AG-333 course.
I’ve
met and worked with some very nice people, and I think we all have done a great
work to contribute with expanding our knowledge concerning permafrost.
It’s
been a very great experience for me to see parts of
All in all, I must say that my time on this course has been a life experience for me. Something I will always remember.
