Category: research

Early breakfast again today – the long weekend was over (what weekend?). After that I wanted to head out to the SST right away, but – alas – Nuuk, my trusty truck, would not start. So I called for help and got some power from a working battery. Once arrived at the TX Site, I plugged it in to keep the engine warm. So I hauled my equipment of the day incl. some food with a sled to the SST and started working. Bio-sampler, snow-sampling,… but no power yet.

That did not change after 2 visits from the electricians (driving their BV right up the the trailer *arrgl*). Some part in the transformer was dead – and they had to check back to see, if it was available or had to be flown in. I also had my first shot at using the radio with the Hydro guys. Well – no power and so I got the sled again and hauled the MOUDI to the GAW Lab and set it up there. If I do not get power soon, I will move to the GAW Lab altogether, although I find the trailer very practical. Setting the MOUDI up at the GAW Lab was fine. At some point I had to head back to the SST to finish up there (snow sampling, air sampling, shutting down the bio-sampler) and then back again to the Lab to finish the MOUDI measurements. I am a bit skeptical about storing substrates in Petri- dishes, but there seems to be no other way. Especially avoiding vibrations, which causes particles to bounce around the dish and off the substrate, will be difficult, when getting the samples back with the truck and flying them down South.

Anyway – a busy day and it was getting late – not that it mattered, when there are 24 hours of daylight. Getting back before dark is not a good resolution for the day in these latitudes; anyway, it was 8 pm, when I parked the truck at Polaris Hall (it started fine at the TX site and I was spared the use of the Sat-phone). I fired up the GC to run the SPME samples and prepared the Bio-sampler for its next run.

I started at 7.15, with some coffee. I had a look at yesterday’s data (SPME of snow & air) and compared it to MilliQ and instrument baseline runs. Not much to say about identity and concentrations yet (with standard runs missing), but while the instrument baseline is much lower, the MilliQ is similar in peak intensity. Some peaks, however are different – or significantly more intense in the sample runs. So I think I will be able to see something.

I have also set-up the MOUDI so that it is ready to use – same for the bio-sampler. I am ready to head out again, which I did right after breakfast – to the SST, the special studies trailer, the site off the GAW Lab. It has a nice roof for setting up equipment with lots of power outlets inside and on the deck. I set-up shop there and indeed the power came up quickly. Still a bit chilly, I did a bit of cleaning and set up my gear. I also started adsorption of SPME fibres (air and snow).

After a while, however, there were periodic power outages (every 2 min 50 sec and I had to shut down power again, because the GAW lab was affected too. So no MOUDI today. I sampled air into a canister with the battery powered pump, though. When collecting the SPME fibres, the next disappointment – the snow fibre was broken, the air fibre was fine.

To cheer myself up a little bit, I had a look at snow flakes with the microscope that I brought along – stunningly beautiful! I headed back to base in the early evening – missing dinner again. I ran the single fibre and called it a day at 9 pm.

Sunday is another day with the “brunch” routine. So I started the GC early to run and check the baseline. Keeping the detector, inlet and oven at 130°C worked fine, so I will keep it like that in the future. The baseline was mostly flat with a few small peaks starting at 15 min.

I also finished my assessment of the sites and set-up a schedule for sampling each site, including instruments and frequency.  After brunch I was almost late for the tour of the GAW lab, but I made it. The lab, which is located approx. 6 km south of the base is extremely interesting, incl. generators for hydrogen and nitrogen on site to feed the various instruments and everything being automated. GCs, NIR spectrometer, mercury analyzers are part of the lab. Quite fascinating. I also saw the Special Studies Trailer, located approx. 200 m SE of the lab, which – if everything goes according to plan – I will use for my studies. I have to park the truck at a transmitter site and then get on foot to the trailer using a sled to get my gear around.

After getting back including a couple of photo stops, finished my preparations for my first sampling event. I moved the stuff to the TX site for a first run and it went really well. I sampled air (canister, SPME), snow (bottle, SPME) and took some ancillary measurements. I assessed the snow by visual inspection with the microscope. There is a tower next to the TX Building, which is very convenient for sampling. No danger that equipment gets eaten or damaged by wildlife.

I hauled the samples back frozen and cooled with ice packs (incl. the SPME fibres) and placed them in a freezer. I analysed the SPME fibres the same day. A long day and I have missed dinner – thankfully Brad got me a plate and put it into the fridge for me. So getting the MOUDI and the bio-sampler up and running is the next and final preparatory task, before I can settle into routing measurements.

The downside was that there is a furnace with a chimney on the roof, which is running, albeit being located downwind. But it was a good opportunity to test my procedures, although if I can avoid it I will not sample there in the future. The risk of local pollution sources is just too high.

I woke early this morning (7.00) – early, because brunch on Sat & Sun is not until 10.30. Anyway, I fired up the GC and the baseline did not look good, especially at > 10 min. Cleaning helped (and cost me 90 min) and the baseline was fine – I might have to do that every morning or I keep the GC at a higher temperature overnight.

I have run fibre and MilliQ water blanks throughout the day and tested the signal with a direct injection of benzene, which worked fine. The blanks are “soso” – similar to the GC-MS blanks (a lot of peaks, usually < 45 pA, but they are going to be interfering more, because of the lacking underlying mass spectrum. The fibres are brand-new, but still bleeding a little. Let’s see how the intensities and retention times for the standards look like.

I have also been outside the station by truck today and checked out some of the potential sampling sites. Tomorrow we will do another outing and I will finalise my decision and set up shop at the site that I would like to probe daily (most probably the new TX Building). It’s been fun outside – getting a feel for the vast expanse of the High Arctic. I also got a little practice with the Sat-phone and (listening) to the radio traffic.

I have the GC up and running with a great reproducible baseline of approx. 4.5 pA with a HP-5 column (30 m x 250 um x 1.00 um; l x id x film thickness). There is one significant peak at 18.5 min, which could be the diethyl-phtalate I also observe in the GC-MS (retention time is approx. the same). I have then started conditioning the fibers but had to finish early, because of the mandatory TGIF (someone help me with the acronyms here) at 3.30 pm. New arrivals were introduced and games were played. A buffet followed – nice.

I have also made a step closer to completing my plans for the sampling program. Starting Sunday I will sample 3 sites on a regular basis (1 daily, 2 every couple of days) for a time series: Two inland sites at the GAW lab and near the base (incl. MOUDI) and a coastal site on the shore of Alert inlet, away from the road. The bio-sampler will commute between the sites. Otherwise I will see, what other opportunities come up for single sampling events.

After checking back with my advisor I have scrapped plans to sample a triangle of three sites, approx. 10-15 km apart on 2-3 consecutive days. Data should have been used for a model, but I just cannot easily get sampling sites that far apart (8.5 km is the max for 2 sites and this means stretching it involving quite a bit of hiking).

I had a meeting in the morning, discussing sampling locations off base. I think that there are still a couple of issues, which need to be worked out. I will develop a minimum and a maximum version and see, how much will be possible. Everybody is really helpful here, but I do not want to stretch things. The GC is fine, but before starting up I called in the electricians – just in case 😉 With the column installed I started equilibrating once all gas cylinders had arrived. Everything looked fine after a few shutdowns of the detector – which I could fix easily. Tomorrow will be “testing day”.

I made some more photos in Thule, including an Airbus from Air Greenland, which arrived this morning. I also took a picture of the Herc. The flight to Alert was quiet, breathtaking views of Greenland and Ellesmere Island as we made up our way North. Surprisingly, the gravel runway at Alert was smooth as the tarmac in Thule. Some introductory words from a customs officer and we de-boarded the plane.

Finally I am in the northern-most permanently inhabited settlement of the world. Exciting 🙂 After a short bus ride, we had a warm welcome at the base, everybody assembled and clapping. Nice. As people departed right away – same thing, their names were read out loud, when people left. Brad, who runs the GAW lab welcomed me and showed me around – I got a nice room in the Vimy house of the complex. Bathroom on the corridor, but I have a sink in my room including TV and a DVD player. Everything is a bit older than at Thule, but nice and clean – comfy. First lunch at 82 deg North was excellent, including a salad bar and great views. At 1 pm there was a “Welcome briefing”, nothing surprising, mostly rules, but useful information. For the rest of the day I unpacked my equipment. I have a big table and everything should fit there, if I use the GC box as a table too. I am missing a power bar (make note for next time 🙂 but it should not be a problem to get one here. I have already set up the MilliQ unit and it is working well. None of my stuff is broken – everything looks alright including the GC.

Tomorrow I would like to get the GC online. At night the houses played a night of Trivia. Questions were announced over the local radio station and the houses phoned in the answers. We were leading until the last question and for that we had to bet some of our points and we chose all but one – and lost (wrong answer for a hockey question!), very enjoyable anyway.

We stayed overnight at the North Star Inn, in luxurious quarters (towels and coat with slippers provided, SAT-TV in each room). On each floor there was also a kitchen and a common room with wide-screen TV. Even my mobile phone was working – and I sent messages to Canada and Austria together with some post cards from the Greenland post office. I took a long walk on the base and made some pictures – it feels quite Danish here and there is a Danish police station together with European road signs. Most announcements are in Danish and English, some in transcribed Inuktitut(?).

The valley blocked some of the views that I have seen upon arrival, but it is still stunningly beautiful here. Food was excellent and plenty. The mess had a kind of self-service restaurant with Danish and US menus. Food was USD 3.50, 1.70 for the breakfast – not bad for all you can eat 😉 The sun was already up for 24 hrs, so using the blinds was kind of “mandatory” in order to give your body a sense of evening.

Thule is not only an airport, but also a deep water port (during the summer), which explains the degree of luxury here. It is also a receiving port for the supply boat for Alert – stuff gets airlifted from here up North. Departure tomorrow is at 9 am, a bus will be waiting at the inn for us.

I have taken the bus from Montreal to Trenton, the location of the airfield, where I will depart from. Upon checking into the base, I learned that my flight would depart 4 hours early – at 2 am with checkin at midnight. So I got some food in the “Yukon Galley” the local mess and some sleep afterwards. I also changed some US Dollars for the overnight stay in Thule.

A taxi got me to the flight terminal and checking in was fine – 12 passengers in total (2 civilians, an electrician and myself). Baggage checked and after a wait we boarded the Hercules shortly before 2 am. A tiny entrance gave way to a couple of mesh seats and the cargo hold right behind it, otherwise a “naked plane”. Everything was pretty tight, but the flight experience quite pleasant (as pleasant as it can get in a cargo aircraft. Meals were provided too, including some Cheerios 😉 I even got some sleep!

We reached Thule the following morning at 10 am. Beautiful weather outside. Breathtaking views of North Star Bay and Greenland when we were approaching. Not much snow left here; well there was still quite a bit of snow, but no continuous snow layer. Landing was smooth, the airport was huge with a paved runway. No immigration here.

I am ready to go to Alert! Finally, I was able to solve all my final challenges – e.g. a snow gauge is available at Alert and I will be able to borrow it. The second part of my cargo has also arrived this week, so I can start right away, when I arrive.

I will go to Trenton, ON on Monday morning to catch the plane from there. I will also spend a night in Thule, a USAF base in Greenland, before arriving at my final destination on Wednesday.

I have also done a bit of shopping and replaced my 12-year old Gore Tex jacket and my pants that were at least 10 years old. I got some thin gloves to wear under the thick ones, in case I need the dexterity and I also got some waterproof notebooks. Now all there is left to do is stock up on batteries and filters for my camera and pack everything.

I am definitely looking forward to the trip! Alert, here I come.