Adventures in Greenland: Day 11

This morning started with a rather unpleasant early wake-up call. Tomorrow we have to get up earlier so they decided that they should wake us up earlier today to get ready since everyone has been rather sluggish in the morning. We weren’t aware of this plan, however, and were rather discombobulated when we were woken up before our alarm. We ate breakfast early and used the extra time to catch up on internet things. I’ve eaten cornflakes for breakfast every morning we’ve been here. I’m trying to come up with some more creative ways to eat cornflakes but so far the best has been putting small pieces of chocolate in them. I guess we just miss sugary American cereal.

This morning the plan was to bike to the Salt Lake. Little did we know this would mean biking around 3 miles uphill over sand and rocks while carrying our gear and samples. If this were the Tour de Greenland, today was definitely a mountain stage. We ended up walking most of the way up and after a little over an hour we finally made it to the top. Once at the top, we then had to hike part way down the other side of the ridge to get to the lake. My group took our water and atmospheric samples next to the water pretty quickly. Other groups data collection was taking longer so we ate lunch and took some time to sing Disney songs. We also collected some plant samples and looked at the permafrost that the geology group found. It was a few feet down under the ground underneath a bunch of tuft (organic material). We started hiking back to the top of the ridge since it was getting cold and we wanted to get another atmospheric sample at the top of the ridge near Tacan. We saw a musk ox skull on the way back up and the boys picked up some of the teeth from it. It was incredible how big they are. There are a lot of bones you can find around here since the climate helps to preserve the bones and prevent decay that would happen in other environments. Apparently we headed up a little too early, though, since some of the people at the back saw a group of musk ox as they were coming back. The trip back to the school was definitely a lot easier since it was pretty much entirely downhill. I used my brakes more than my pedals.

Once we were back at the school, I caught a few minutes of the Tour de France on the TV. They kept showing the Danish team a lot and it was weird not having to get up really early to watch it. We then hopped back on our bikes and headed into town to get a few things at the grocery store and the gift shop. We also stopped at the pizza shop and split a pizza for a snack. We ended up helping the pizza guy fold pizza boxes while we waited for our pizza. It tasted really good after such a tough morning though. After we got back to the school, I ended up taking a nap for awhile. Once I got up, we worked on organizing our data and trying to figure out the albedo calculations. We then got back on the bikes and headed to dinner. Once again we had the typical meat and starch. I’m starting to get a little bored with it so tonight I just put ketchup on everything. We spent tonight at dinner trying to work on our European eating habits. The others keep making fun of us since our typical American table manners would supposedly be unacceptable in Europe. Now our goal is to work our habits up to European standards by the end of the trip. I also had the misfortune of eating an entire spoonful of spicy mustard this evening. The flavor of my dinner tonight consisted mostly of condiments.

After everyone got back we had a quick meeting where all the groups reviewed their progress from the day and we talked about the plans for tomorrow. Tomorrow we are leaving early and spending the entire day out at the ice. It should be pretty cool. After the meeting my group conducted our tests and I spent awhile working on our albedo calculations after a quick break for some Cocio (really good Danish chocolate milk). Albedo measures the light that is reflected off a surface. We are measuring how different natural surfaces reflect light as part of our research since this can have an effect on the atmosphere and climate. We are doing this by taking pictures of a white piece of paper against the ground surface and using a computer program to measure the difference in light reflection between the two surfaces. Albedo is important in climate research since the ice reflects a lot of light whereas a vegetated surface absorbs more light. The more light that is absorbed the more heat that is trapped in the atmosphere. Therefore the loss of ice can have a positive feedback effect when it comes to climate change.

We were all pretty tired as we were working on our data so some of us ended up just lying on our beds while finishing up our work. This calm was soon upset, however, when Vince (Michigan) tried to climb on the top bunk. Of the bed next to the one I was on. It was apparently not very well constructed because as soon as he sat near the corner the bed crashed down. Luckily no one was on that bottom bunk at the time and Vince was fine. I immediately jumped out from under the other bed and we all lost it laughing. We checked my bunk bed and it seems sturdy so I should be ok tonight and if not, at least Maria (Colorado) is pretty light. It seems there is never really a dull moment around here. Right now we are trying to put together a puzzle. We think it is of a world map although we are not totally sure since the top of the box is missing. As the box says, it’s always a good idea to have a puzzle party. It should be interesting how it comes out.