- Detaljer
Med alting dækket af et fint lag hvidt sne, er det nemt at komme i julehumør. Birgitte bestemte, at fordi vi skal forlade Grønland inden jul så var det ok at starte med at pynte op inden første december. Derfor startede vi faktisk med julepynten allerede i november - vi har endda købt et langtidsholdbart juletræ (læs plastik) i vores lokale butik. Vi har også medbragt lidt julepynt hjemmefra Danmark for at hjælpe med den helt rigtige julestemning. Efter dette, vil jul i grå, våde og stormende Danmark aldrig være det samme igen.
/ M
- Detaljer
Vi er heldigvis ikke alene heroppe og ville aldrig kunne udføre al vores arbejde uden en masse lokal hjælp. Her er en lille introduktion til vores kolleger.
Arktisk station har, foruden en videnskabelig leder, også en stationsforvalter, en kaptajn (til Porsild), to matroser og en rengøringsassistent. Alle, undtagen jeg, er lokale fra byen.
Akaaraq (nogle gange kaldet Kjeld) er vores stationsforvalter. Han har taget sig af Arktisk Station i årtier og kender stationen bedre end nogen anden. Uden ham ville der nærmest ikke være nogen station. Akaaraq står for den daglige drift af stationen. Han kan fixe ting der går i stykker, sørge for varme og lys, regninger og meget mere. Han er også den der udleverer nøgler til værelser og bestemmer derved, hvor man skal sove på stationen. Derfor kan det godt betale sig at være gode venner med Akaaraq.
Erik er Kaptajn på Porsild og Porsild er næsten som et barn af Erik. Ingen kender Porsild bedre end Erik og ingen passer bedre på hende. Takket være ham, er Porsild det flotteste skib i Grønland!. Erik er en passioneret jæger og har derfor også altid sin riffel (eller tre) med på tur. Man ved jo aldrig om en sæl pludselig dukker op.
Sidst men ikke mindst har vi Eli (venstre) og Pavia (højre) som er vores to matroser. De er især en uundværlig hjælp ved de månedlige indsamlinger af marine prøver. De sørger for at alt løber glat. At wire, lodder, spil med mere fungerer - at der kan taget vand og netprøver og meget mere. De kender oftest indsamlingen mindst ligeså godt som jeg. Derudover hjælper de til med at passe og pleje Porsild. Matroserne bliver også tilkaldt ved større arbejde omkring Arktisk station, og de har også flere gange hjulpet Birgitte i felten med at skovle sne eller transportere udstyr.
Uden disse dejlige mennesker ville vores ophold heroppe slet ikke være det samme.
/ M
- Detaljer
I midten af Juni plantede vi otte gamle kartofler som vi fandt i bunden af køleskabet på Arktisk station. Det tog flere måneder før der kom små spire op af jorden og de nåede aldrig at blomstre. Derudover, så havde vi aldrig rigtig tid til at høste kartoflerne, fordi vi arbejde hele tiden og havde en masse gæster på stationen. I midten af Oktober fik vi dog endelig taget os sammen til at grave de små, smukke, arktisk dyrkede kartofler op af jorden. Den samlede mængde af nye kartofler var nok cirka den samme som de plantede kartofler, men disse smagte helt fantastisk!
/ Martin & Birgitte
- Detaljer
I løbet af den sidste uge har vi haft find besøg af Ariston Comfort Challange teamet. Det er en gruppe mennesker fra det Italienske firma Ariston. De har interviewet de lokale omkring livet her på Disko og deres indtryk af klimaforandringer. Vi har begge haft travlt, men de mødte blandt andet op i laboratoriet imens vi var i gang med at kalibrere maskiner til BVOC målinger. I dag har vi tilbragt hele dagen sammen med dem. Her har de interviewet os omkring det at være forskere og hvordan det har været at rejse fra Danmark for at tilbringe et år i Arktisk. Spørgsmål blev stillet som, hvordan føltes det at forlade Danmark og Lyra derhjemme, og hvordan er livet på i en lille by på en ø.
Ariston har doneret den røde hytte forskerne på Arktisk station (den i baggrunden af billedet). Den ligger bare 3 minutters gang fra mit site i Blæsedalen og en lille times gang fra stationen. Teamet var også med os i felten og de lærte os blandt andet, hvordan man betjener hyttens varmeanlæg og generator. Vi ser meget frem til at få alt op at køre og bruge hytten - nyde dens varme og hygge imens alt er mørkt, koldt og helt vildt stille udenfor. Måske vi endda får set nordlys derude.
Kære Ariston Comfort Challange Team - mange tak for jeres fine besøg.
/ Martin & Birgitte
- Detaljer
One step forward - three steps backward...
I love being a PhD student working on the project about arctic subsurface gas dynamics! The project itself is interesting and I enjoyed the planning, logistics and installation of everything at my new site in Blæsedalen. However, I must admit that it is also hard (especially when you want to do everything to perfection). I found out that you can't plan your way out of everything and sometimes things goes wrong - and they will go wrong.
Last week, Martin found me crying in my office (I am easy to tears, but these ones were true and real)! Mathias, CENPERM's technician, had just left after a week-long stay helping me at the site with my oxygen equipment amongst other things. It seemed like everything had gone wrong and the absolute must frustrating thing was that I could not do anything about it (and never could have). Mathias send a package with stuff that we/he would be needing at my site, however, after several emails, calls, talks with the staff at the harbour etc., I did not manage to get the package here in time. For some reason, the package was send by ship from Aalborg in stead of plane and will arrive on the 23. October. Which means a bigger workload for me when it arrives as I have to do the installation of 64 temperatures measurements alone. I can honestly say that making electrician installation in minus 10 degrees and wind with snow is not ideal. On top of this, we found out that the data-loggers on my oxygen equipment had died and I am now one data-logger short, which means not everything is being measured at my site. We will need to get a repair or buy a new data-logger and it probably will take months before it gets here. Anyway - I really think Mathias and I did well! We did as much as possible and I feel confident that I can do the rest myself as I now know CR Basics, how to send and retrieve from the data-loggers and other "good to know stuff" that I learned from Mathias.
I think the cup was filed up last week when Martin found me - also because I wanted to measure more frequently than possible for me. The weather is just more challenging during winter compared to summer, meaning that I can't go out and measure everyday or whenever fits me. I need 8 days to do a full round (campaign) of all my varies measurements and all these measurements must be carried out in good weather conditions. This is sort of stressful and I have to lower my frequency of measurements. However, Martin decided to go with me to Blæsedalen both Wednesday and Thursday to help. Together, we managed to measure almost everything during those two days with good weather and additionally we watered the plots which has an "icing treatment". We carried in total 30 litres of de-mineralised water to the site and on Wednesday we were not home until 20 o'clock. I am grateful and I feel so much better having all those measurements done.
This weekend, we have had a proper weekend and it feels good!
/ B
- Detaljer
As my site is now fully installed, I started taking campaigns of varies measurements manually.
As often as possible I am supposed to measure soil gas concentrations and fluxes from the soil surface of CO2 and CH4 with a Picarro GasScouter. I measure both soil gas concentrations and the fluxes during the course of 3 minutes. I am very happy as I see stable soil gas concentrations. The fluxes from the soil surface are very low now, however I do see small emissions of CO2 and small uptake of CH4 at the site currently. The Picarro GasScouter analyzes the development in CO2 and CH4 by using a lazer inside a chamber, which the gasses run through. I am not going in details with this as I am no expect on this and my job is to make sure it functions properly and afterwards work with the data.
Besides CO2 and CH4 measurements, I started measuring BVOCs. This is a bit more challenging and sensitive! I have to capture these very small molecules in a cartridge with absorbents called a Tenax tubes. This is all new to me and I try to follow guides, manuals, my gut feeling and good advices from colleagues. Two new Pocket Pumps was bought for me in order to measure BVOCs in the soil. These are easy to handle and I feel like these measurements will be really good. Each sample must be measured for 12 minutes at a flow rate of 125 ml/min in order to capture all the BVOCs in my 1.5 litre bottles installed in the soil. Measuring the fluxes of BVOCs from the soil surface is more challenging. I am working with something called a Toolbox. The Toolbox contains both vacuum and pressure pumps, which are coupled with a chamber and the Tenax tubes connected on the chamber. Before measuring I need to calibrate the flow rates of both vacuum and pressure. This is done with a Buck Calibrator, which literally is a bubble-maker! I spend a whole long on calibrating two Toolboxes. Hopefully I will get better and faster in the future.
Now comes the really challenging part! All of these measurements must be conducted in good weather conditions, meaning no wind and no rain. Unfortunately, the weather is so hard to predict up here and yesterday I planned for a long day in the field. Martin joined me in the field and we wanted to measure both fluxes with the Picarro and BVOCs with the Toolboxes. However, 30 minutes after we set up everything it started raining. Not a lot, however after 10 minutes everything was so wet and impossible to work with so we packed everything down again and went home to take a long warm shower. Better luck next time...
In August, we also installed a lot of oxygen equipment fabricated by the German company Presens. Ever since we installed the oxygen equipment at the site there has been problems with the power supply. Mathias put everything up with solar panels, however the power usage is way bigger than what these solar panels can supply us with and the equipment is not running. Also the sun is not very strong anymore and soon there will be no sun at all. Mathias is arriving here next Tuesday and I am looking forward for him to visit and help me getting everything up and running. He is also bringing along a windmill, which should be able to supply us with enough energy for the oxygen equipment. I am really looking forward to this equipment up and running and to work in collaboration with Presens.
/ B