By Alexandre Anesio
After almost three weeks camped on the ice without any internet and completely detached of the world, we are now all back home to Denmark, Germany and the UK. Samples are safe in our laboratories at a variety of temperatures from -80 to +4 degrees C for a range of chemical and microbiological analyses. I still can hardly believe that we could mobilize such paraphernalia for fieldwork on the Greenland ice sheet in times of COVID-19. An extremely efficient logistics manager (thank you so much Lasse Twiggs Degn), flexible and welcoming local community and very strong minded and willing PhD students, postdocs and PIs made this possible. No regrets. I have learned a lot of new things about the life cycle of glacial algae, compared to previous years. A combination of good timing and weather conditions allowed us to have arrived just at the snow transition to bare ice. This provided the opportunity to collect a bunch of ice cores that shows where glacier algae lie during the winter, the impact of hydrological processes, such as snowmelt and rain on the distribution of glacier algae and how glacier algae colonize white surfaces to darken the ice during the summer season.
The dark spots in this ice surface are almost entirely composed by ice algae and translucent minerals. By scrapping the surface into a small pile of ice, one can clearly see the pink-purple coloration of the ice that contributes to the melt of the Greenland ice sheet. Photo Alex Anesio
The PhD students (Eva Doting, Laura Halbach, Rey Mourot) and logistics manager (Lasse Twiggs Degn) did such a brilliant job through the fieldwork and got everything they came for. Photo Eva Doting
PI Martyn Tranter was “wood for every construction” (to use a Brazilian expression, meaning that he was in high demand). His albedo and ablation pole measurements were in high demand by all the PhD students. Photo Eva Doting
PI Liane Benning under high wind conditions, preparing to collect a box of surface ice. Photo Eva Doting
Crevasses and polar bears are overrated. Wind turned out to be, at least for me, a much bigger nuisance. This is a video from inside Alex’s tent…
I have learned a lot scientifically, but I am also delighted that I have learned so much from my colleagues during long conversations in the field. Here is what I learned:
- The film Titanic is classified as a romantic comedy by one of the PhD students.
- The sound description of drinking a pint of beer is “puff, puff, puff”, which is quite impressive since I would need at least 20 puffs to get through a pint.
- I have learned new expressions in Danish. Der er ingen ko på isen (no cow on the ice) means ”no problems” and I thought it was pretty appropriate considering where we were. However, my wife, who is Swedish, claims that the Danes copied the expression from the Swedes….
- I could not have guessed this, but some people think football is boring.
- If you are hungry in an ice camp, even super overcooked macaroni with a half-heated tuna in water can actually be tasty.
- Cucumbers are the fourth state of water. Ok, this is my own….
Beyond the great companionship and exciting science during these 3 weeks, I have also been constantly reminded how beautiful the Greenland ice sheet is and the feeling to be surrounded by ice and amazing skies.
Photo Alex Anesio