Day 20

Since our flight was cancelled and we had no real plans for the day, it was a pretty slow start for the day. Some of us got up in time for breakfast at the cantina while a lot of people just slept in. We spent most of the morning hanging out and waiting for any news that might come in. The rainy weather outside didn’t help motivate us to do anything either. Because the snow was so slushy at NEEM, the plane that was up there currently had gotten stuck. So until conditions improved, we probably wouldn’t be going to NEEM. After lunch, we decided to go on the waterfall hike again since most of the people that are here now weren’t here when we did it the first time. It ended up being pretty cool since there was a lot more water than the first time we went. It was really incredible how fast the water was moving. It seemed crazier than any of the rapids I had seen when I went through the Grand Canyon a few years ago. Luckily we were just standing to the side taking pictures and not in a boat going down the river. Once we got back to the school that afternoon, it seemed like we kept hearing about a new plan every half hour for what our trip would be. Finally, it was decided that we are going to Summit tomorrow. With this knowledge, we all made sure to drink lots of water that evening to help prevent the altitude sickness that can occur at Summit. That night we were lucky enough to listen to a presentation from JP Steffensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. He is one of the people in charge of the ice core drilling at NEEM. NEEM is the Danish camp on the ice where a lot of ice core drilling is done. They even reached the bedrock there last year! I learned a lot during his talk. Ice cores are incredibly important since they provide a history of the climate on the earth. By looking at the chemical composition of the ice and air bubbles in different layers, scientists have been able to create a climate record for much of Earth’s history. For determining past temperatures, they specifically look at the amount of oxygen isotopes present. They can even use ice core data as a reference for archaeology and the reconstruction of early history. It was incredibly interesting the wide variety of applications this research has. I’m pretty sure his talk made a bunch of us want to become ice core scientists. Hopefully we will get to go to NEEM soon to see this science in action.

Me at the waterfall

Huge rapid

There was a lot of water