Noora Partamies describes experiences from a substorm school in Iceland, part of IPY project 63; ICESTAR/IHY. Once again the space physics group of the University of Bergen put together a substorm school for Master and PhD students in space physics. This time the course was organised together with Finnish Meteorological Institute. Six students and two lecturers from Norway met three students and two lecturers from Finland for ten days in late November to learn, observe and discuss substorm related processes in the near Earth space. The course location was a small Fosshótel Nesbúð in Nesjavellir about 80 km east of Reykjavik, a few kilometres off the shore of the Icela...

3591 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: -24 °C to -38 °C We were prepared for temperatures down to -50 degrees C before we left out on the expedition. The minimum temperature that we have recorded so far reached down to -46 degrees C. The lowest wind chill temperature was -64 degrees C. The three first weeks, nighttime temperatures dropped steadily below -40 degrees C. The last week, however, both daytime and nighttime temperatures have increased by about 5 degrees. We think we see the first signs of the summer… This change in temperature is making the conditions much easier for personn...

Written 11 December, 2007 We are at our Science Site 1, at approximately 2400 m elevation along Latitude 75. Just when we reached it, a strong snow blizzard came in from west resulting in both wind-blown precipitation and snowdrift. Due to the weather almost all outdoor activities have been postponed, giving us an opportunity to rest, compile data and do maintenance on vehicles and equipment. The one-day storm has formed 2-metre high snowpiles on the leeside of vehicles and living modules, so instead of being totally flat, the camp is now difficult to cross. Tomorrow we will take off towards the Kohnen station. It is a 300 km drive, and will take some days. The scientific work which we cannot do now will be postponed to the return trip in mid January. This is...

3591 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: -22 °C to -30 °C Environmental regulations and standards in Antarctica follow the Protocol of Environmental Protection under the Antarctic Treaty. All activities are evaluated in accordance to these standards. Our project has reported the wide variety of activities that we carry out in an initial environmental evaluation. The evaluation was approved by the Norwegian Ministry of Environment prior to departure. The most severe impact from our project is burning of fuel due to the long distances we travel. In total, we will consume about 5...

On a day as today, when winds are blowing the snow around, large snow drifts may form over night. If we parked our vehicles randomly, we may get large drifts that need to be removed in the morning. Or perhaps snow drifts would made us become stuck when starting out for driving the next morning. Also, the order of how the vehicles are parked has been carefully considered. In the front, our main generator delivering power to the whole camp is placed. Both the living/kitchen module and the sleeping module, which are next to each other for practical reasons, receive power from the main generator. We keep the upwind area clean and this area is designated for science. ...

On a day as today, when winds are blowing the snow around, large snow drifts may form over night. If we parked our vehicles randomly, we may get large drifts that need to be removed in the morning. Or perhaps snow drifts would made us become stuck when starting out for driving the next morning. Also, the order of how the vehicles are parked has been carefully considered. In the front, our main generator delivering power to the whole camp is placed. Both the living/kitchen module and the sleeping module, which are next to each other for practical reasons, receive power from the main generator. We keep the upwind area clean and this area is designated for science. ...

Written 8 December, 2007 3604 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 29 °C to - 36 °C Yesterday’s breezy conditions evolved overnight into strong winds with a lot of blowing snow, making today’s conditions the worst for visibility that we have experienced since our departure from Troll. Our goal for today is to travel all day and make good progress toward our next drilling site. Fortunately, with GPS navigation and no known obstacles between here and the drill site, we have been able to push ahead in spite of the poor conditions. The wind makes a striking difference on the ice sheet. Thursday morning it was -30 C, with clear skies, almost no wind, and walking and working on the ice sheet was pleasant. Bare cheeks were fin...

Written December 7, 2007 3589 meters above sea level Minimum temperature: -45 °C When drilling ice cores, one important task is to establish a precise dating of the core, i.e. know the age of the ice at certain depths. There are several methods for dating an ice core including using fallouts from the nuclear test bomb explosions as horizons of known age. We are drilling down to 7.5 meters to capture the well known radioactive reference layers from 1955 and 1965. These are later identified in the laboratory by measuring the Total ß-radioactivity. This contribution is from the log of the Norw...

Written 6 December, 2007 3589 meters above sea level Minimum temperature: -41 °C One of the associated projects that we accommodate on the traverse is to collect samples for studies of concentrations of black carbon in the snow pack. Black carbon originates from the industrialized parts of the world and is transported to the Polar Regions through the atmosphere. Presence of black carbon efficiently reduces the surface albedo, i.e. how efficient the surface reflects solar radiation. The lower the albedo, the more solar energy is absorbed at the surface which in turn can reduce the albedo even more by changi...

Written December 5, 2007 3585 meters above sea level After traveling all day, tonight we set camp at a location where satellite imagery told us we would experience very different snow structure across an expanse of several kilometers. Standing outside the vehicles and looking out across the expanse of the ice sheet, on casual inspection it looked pretty much the same in all directions; very small surface roughness with evidence of shifting winds, including occasional patches of shiny wind-induced surface polish. Yet our crevasse-detection radar had recently begun showing signs of unusual vertical fe...