Geochemists Sarah Fortner and LeeAnn Munk

December 23rd, 2007 andrea

geochemists Sarah Fortner and Leeann Munk
Here’s a photo of geochemists LeeAnn Munk and Sarah Fortner relaxing at Lake Hoare before they head out to the field to perform two 24-hour glacial stream sampling experiments at nearby sites. During the field work, they take samples every hour for a 24 hour period, then come back to the chem lab at camp and do some preliminary processing. The samples are then sent back to Crary for more extensive labs. Both scientists are keeping blogs of their research.
LeeAnn: http://www.leeannmunk.blogspot.com/
Sarah: http://www.sarahfortner.blogspot.com/

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Canada Glacier Melt Waterfalls

December 23rd, 2007 andrea

canada glacier
The sound of the Canada glacier streams and waterfalls dominated the soundscape of Lake Hoare. Here is one of several recordings I made while walking along the side of the glacier, listen for the percussive low tones:

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Otherworldly sound of Taylor Glacier

December 23rd, 2007 andrea

stream on taylor glacier
I made this binaural recording while walking on Taylor glacier. It is about ten minutes long. Listen especially to the strange, almost electronic sound that occurs in the last minute. It is coming from moving water under the surface of the glacier. It surprised me so much that I had to bring Hassan over to listen to it too. The picture here is of the very place this sound came from:

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Helo leaves us on Taylor Glacier

December 23rd, 2007 andrea

taylor glacier met station
The four of us: Hassan, Matt, Liz and I, lay on top of our equipment bags to keep them from flying away while the helicopter left us to work on the glacier. My favorite part of this recording is at the end – our expressions of excitement about getting to work. This is a binaural recording, so, as usual, headphones are recommended:

Before we left Taylor, the pilot and helo tech went through a checklist for takeoff. Recorded here through my helmet (keep those headphones on):

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Matt’s Energy Balance Graph from Taylor Data

December 23rd, 2007 andrea

matt_hoffman_graph
This is a very compelling graphic that Matt Hoffman created by running the surface energy balance model using data from the Taylor Glacier met station. Imagine you are looking at a 5 meters deep cross section of the glacier over time. Notice how the lower parts of the glacier take longer to warm and cool, indicated by the way the color blobs in the lower image angle to the right.

Matt says:
“The energy balance model is still in development so I would consider this to be representative. The upper panel shows measured air temperature and modeled surface temperature over the course of a year from midwinter through summer and back to midwinter. The bottom panel shows ice temperature in the top 5 meters for the same time period, with the colors representing temperature in degrees Celsius. The first stripe above the main block is surface temperature again, and the stripe above that is air temperature again. Grey markings indicated temperature above 0 degrees C. The black lines indicate contours of partial melt in intervals of 2.5%. The large yellow/orange curved body in the center represents the heat absorbed in summer slowly conducting deeper into the glacier long after the warm days are over. The winter periods are characterized by cold temperatures punctuated by brief warm events that interrupt the dark blue pattern.”

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