April 12 – Last Full Science Day

Tomorrow we start shipping gear back so this is the last day of full blown science. It started out very nice with Robert and I preparing for the “live from IPY” webinar arranged by the incredible folks at ARCUS. They sent us two pages of PDF using the figures Robert had been transmitting. They had selected a series of these and put them into a powerpoint presentation that they would beam out to the classrooms around the world that wished to participate. We went carefully through them spending a solid hour prepping for the event. We had no idea how many people would be listening so we had to get our minds set for an unspecified number of participants and student questions. At 09:25 we phoned in to get set up for the event.

For the next hour we were there, hooked in with folks from all over who wanted to know how things were going at our ice camp. It was so weird because we have been in isolation for almost two weeks so being plugged into this conference call for one hour in the middle of nowhere was strange and cool at the same time. I felt like one of those folks in the animated section of Disney’s Epscot Center where they have the mom located at 500m below sea level in an aqua habitat hut calling her family and chatting with them from her computer and seeing their faces. This is as close to that futuristic display as I could imagine. My incredibly dedicated husband was one of the participants and that just made the whole event special. I got the typical sets of questions about what is happening up on the ice and what sources are causing the changes, and how is life on the camp, etc. But from here, with all the events still around me, it was so tangible to relate my experience to the outside world. Since we have had media with us nearly the whole time, and time with my students, I was getting used to the idea of relaying complex science issues into everyday lingo and I find that I am starting to get the hang of it. It takes quite some thinking to boil down some of the more complicated issues to the fundamentals that everyone can understand. But, when I do that, I find that I am able to grasp those topics for myself. It was great to get a question from someone in Luxemburg and we are waiting for the e-mail from ARCUS to find out how many actually participated. Several of the PolarTREC teachers participated. The support of the other PolarTREC teachers was definitely felt so one could see already the huge impact the 4-day training through ARCUS was having on all the PolarTREC teachers.

Robert was a little frustrated that no one from his school district hooked up so we are sensing some form of communication break down there. It just means that we will have to make those post-field presentations that much more exciting to ensure that another such event can get more local coverage. But I know from previous experiences like this that there are only a few souls in the world who can extract themselves from the everyday grind (especially grown ups) to engage in that sense of wonder to carve out time to listen to an adventure. It is probably for this one big reason that I find this trip so enjoyable, because I am able to be with others like myself who have been at the edges of this world and can relate to the wonder of watching a ridge grow (like yesterday’s incredible event) or marvel at how a lead formed over night followed by a big ridge only 200m from the helicopter. We all have a sense of understanding about where we are so no one is worried but by the same token, we can see that our research area and the time of our stay are both slowly heading in the same direction - departure into the spring break up (camp and ice). After lunch, I had an opportunity to finally get my first half day to work directly with Jen the chief scientist as colleagues and it went well. We finished up the drill holes in the ridge.

There was a good deal of ridge activity between yesterday and today, but the light was very flat and therefore quite difficult for taking pictures. If we can get one more good day for photography, Robert and I will try to revisit the stereo sites to retake those shots with the changes in the ridge development. That would be a bonus for Scott to work on.

Tomorrow we move into packing mode and the final wrap up of all data. Time to download the last of the pictures and get stuff ready for close out.