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Snow Photochemistry Experiment at
Summit, Greenland, March-May 2004
Question
and Answer page
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The photochemistry team at Summit in Summer
2003
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What would you like
to ask the Summit science team??
Email your questions
to: Nicola (nblake@uci.edu)
Questions
from Mrs. Palmieri's fourth grade class in Kennesaw, Georgia:
1. What type of houses
do you live in?
Like most of the science team now at Summit, I live in an Arctic Oven tent
(see question 8 later). Some of the people working up here for longer
time periods (3-4 months) live in 2 permanent structures called the Green
House and the Berthing Module. These are special trailers designed
to almost exactly fit inside one of the ski equipped LC-130 airplanes.
The Green House is actually 2 of these modules connected by a big room made
of super insulating panels. The Berthing Module is 3 "trailers" stuck
together.Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
The most of the guys are sleeping the tents, and the women are staying in
a large heated tent with cots to sleep on. We do have a regular building
that has a kitchen, bathroom, shower, and TV area. We do not get TV
but we can watch VCR tapes and DVDs when we have time. Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
2. How long does it take to do an experiment and
how long is the process?
In some sense, our experiment has taken from about March 22 until we quit
sampling this weekend (May 2). We are making the same kind of measurements
every day, and watching how the composition of the snow and the air change
as the sun gets higher and the air and snow get warmer. My measurements
take almost 30 minutes for each sample, and we collect samples 11 or 12 hours
each day.Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
Most of our experiments are 14 hours long. But some of the instruments
are running 24 hours a day. Some groups have to do tests with their
instruments before the start of the experiments so they have to get up early.
Other groups still have samples to analyze after the experiment is over,
so they get to stay up late.Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
3. Is there any restrooms?
The Big House and the Green House have indoor plumbing. We also have
3 outhouses near work areas that are pretty far away from the heated restrooms.
Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
We do have a restroom that we can use in the Main camp, but most of the time
we are out at the Experimenter's camp (also known as the Satellite Camp)
which is more than a half mile away from the restrooms. So when we
are out at the Satellite Camp, we usually use the Outhouse unless we have
time to walk over a mile to use the restroom.
Barry Lefer, National
Center for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
4. Do you face any dangers while you are there?
The biggest danger is getting frost bite, and that is becoming less of a
problem every day. Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
Not really. It is cold, so if you are not careful, you can easily get
frostbite on your fingers or toes (or on you nose). The first few weeks
we were here most of us got a little bit of frost bite on our fingers while
we were setting up the instruments. Only other dangers are getting
altitude sickness. Each year a couple of scientists do not feel very
good the first few days they are up here, from a mild case of altitude sickness.
If they take it easy for a few days, they are usually fine.Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
5. Have you ever gotten lost in the snow?
I have never gotten lost, but there have been quite a few times that I have
been glad that there were safety lines strung on poles to guide us from one
part of camp to another. Years ago we lived and worked 28 km south
of the camp. The route was marked with flags on bamboo poles 250 m
apart. Several times we could only see 1 flag at a time, so we would
go slowly!
Jack Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing
from Summit
Almost. A few weeks ago the wind was blowing over 35kts and this was
when it was still getting dark at night. I was working late and in
the high winds you could only see a few feet in front of you. To walk
most places we have a rope line that you can follow, but we forgot to put
a rope line to the tents. That night when I was on my way to bed, I
got a little off track, luckily, I found someone else's tent and was able
to figure out how to get to my tent. Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
6. Do you use weather balloons to help you with your
work?
We are not using balloons for this project, but we have done other projects
where tethered balloons were used to make meteorological and chemical measurements
above the snow. These studies have taken place both here at Summit
and at the South Pole (just this past December). The camp manager sometimes
launches balloons here, so that we can tell airplanes coming to camp how
low the clouds are.Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
Sometimes, but not this year. In the past we have put instruments on
weather balloons and gotten a bunch of measurements at different heights
above the snow. Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
7. Do you have to hunt for food or do you get it shipped
to you?
Hunting here would be very hard, since there is essentially nothing to hunt.
Our food comes in on the airplanes, and our wonderful cook Sarah Harvey makes
sure we eat very well.
Jack Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing
from Summit
Nothing to eat up here. No polar bears, no foxes, no plants, maybe
an occasional bird that gets lost. So we get tons of food shipped up
here. We have a fulltime cook that makes excellent meals for us and
we have plenty of food to eat. We do run out of fresh fruits and vegetables
after a few weeks, but really we have no complaints.Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
8. What is it like living in the Artic ovens?
The Arctic Ovens are great tents. Most of them are 8 foot by 8 foot,
though they also make bigger ones. Plenty of room for 1, or even 2,
people and all your gear. They get amazingly warm in the day, but do
get just about as cold as outside at night. I have 2 very good sleeping
bags, so have never been cold when sleeping, even when it got below -50 C.
Two inconvenient features of tent life on a polar glacier are that it can
be nippy when getting undressed to get into the sleeping bag, also in the
morning when getting dressed. The other problem is that you emit a
lot of water vapor from your body and your breath. At night this all
freezes, some in the sleeping bags but especially as frost all over the inside
of the tent. If you are not careful and bump the tent,
all the frost showers down on you when getting up!
Jack Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing
from Summit
When it is cold out, it is very cold in the Arctic ovens. Especially early
in the Spring when the Sun goes down at night. In that case, it is
the same temperature inside the tent as outside. In the summer when
the Sun is up all the time, it can get quite warm in the Arctic ovens.Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
9. Do you measure the clouds and how does it affect
you experiments?
Dr. Barry Lefer measures the light reaching the surface, so can tell when
clouds pass overhead. He also has an instrument that takes pictures
of the sky, so he can tell what kind of clouds are causing the light to vary.
Hopefully, he will answer this question in more detail. Jack
Dibb, University of New Hampshire (UNH) - writing from Summit
Clouds play a very big role in our experiments. Since we are studying
the interaction between the Sun and snow, if a cloud blocks the Sun, this
affects our measurements. So I have some instruments that measure the
intensity of Sunlight just above the snow (and at several depths in the snow).
In addition we have a cloud camera (http://www.summitcamp.org/transport/cloudcamera/)
that takes a picture every minute and then determines how cloudy the sky
is, whether they are thin or thick clouds, and if the clouds are blocking
the Sun or not. It is really helpful to look at the cloud image data
when we are looking at our results and not sure why the signal changes.
It is nice to know if the changes are caused by clouds or not. Barry
Lefer, National Center
for Atmospheric Research - writing from Summit
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