We flew up to the EastGrIP site today (EastGrIP is now the official name for the “NEGIS” site). We had perfect weather and the Danish crew there offered us fresh chocolate cake from the oven right when we arrived. They invited us into their famous “dome” for lunch and conversation. The NEEM project was a Danish deep-ice-coring project in North Greenland that they completed last year. This Spring they just moved the entire site (including hauling the entire dome across the ice sheet) to the new EastGrIP site for a new deep coring project at the head of Greenland’s huge Northeast Ice Stream. The drilling will last until 2020, spanning five years. They just finished moving their camp two days ago and we were their first visitors! Several of the scientists there are legends in the ice-coring world. It’s a really great collaboration to have!
The only work we have left to do is to install the station here at Summit and to log the cores from EastGrIP and Summit. Three more days of work and we’re done! Our crew is tired, the equipment is tired and we’re ready to be done, but it’s been an extremely successful campaign.
We’re definitely acclimated… it hasn’t gotten above 0˚F at any time day or night since we arrived here at Summit, but when the sun’s shining it feels downright balmy out. We’ve actually kept our “heavy” layers in the tents and have been working in lighter jackets in the subzero temps. It’s amazing what your body does when given time to adjust.
-Mike
NEEM dome arriving at EGRIP. Source: neem.dk
