We’ve set up near the Fortress for stability, but I’ve often thought that there will be a potential break zone along the edge of the Fortress where there is a transition of ice types….. right where we have established our measurements, jutting out of the Fortress into the thinner ice of the new Arctic. And today, again, cracks. The same old crack near our tower opened again. But now also a thinner cracking finding its way right through the middle of our installations. It goes directly under a foot that supports the “swingset”, which supports downward looking radiation measurements made by DOE. It then extends over towards the Met Hut and very close to a precipitation imager made by Max from our group in Boulder. It meanders its way under the umbilical cord of data and power lines connecting our tower with the Met Hut. This is where things could get interesting….. if we have to rapidly disconnect all of our instruments. So far just a hairline but we will see where this goes!


Setting up a “trip wire” to protect workspace on the central floe, an area that includes Met City described above. If a polar bear pushes the wire, an orange signal light shoots into the sky as warning to anyone on the ice who might need to take action. Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Esther Horvath (CC-BY 4.0)

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