From April to September 2008, University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Matt Nolan is living on McCall Glacier in Northern Alaska with his wife, son and fellow researchers, subjecting the glacier to a battery of tests... and blogging the process. Because McCall Glacier is so remote, he’s only able to send his blog entries by plane every few weeks or so. We’ve just received — and posted — the most recent batch. You can access all of Matt’s posts via this link. What makes Matt’s posts so interesting is that he uses an assortment of multimedia tools to get his message across. Not “just” text and photos, but also video (posted to YouTube and embedded here on www.IPY.org)...

Sooty particles emitted during the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (petroleum, coal), biofuels, and biomass (wood, animal dung, etc.) can do more than just create unsightly pollution and provoke respiratory problems. Known within the scientific community as black carbon, research and modelling conducted in recent years shows that this dark-coloured aerosol has been playing a significant role in climate warming through its absorption of solar radiation. Its impact is heaviest in the cryosphere, where its presence can reduce snow albedo and can lead to faster melting of snow on land and on sea ice. ...

There are three graduate students on this trip: Darek Ignatiuk, Ryo Kusaka, and Jason Geck. Our project is part of the IPY Glaciodyn effort, an international project focusing on the role of arctic glaciers in the global system, involving more than a dozen countries. To facilitate exchange of ideas and comparisons between glacier systems, as part of this larger project we try to exchange personnel on field trips whenever possible, and Darek and Ryo are part of that exchange. Darek is from Poland and is a graduate student at the University of Silesia in Katowice, studying under Dr. Jacek Jania. His interests are broadly based but have an emphasis on surface energy and mass balance. His primary glacier field work has been in Svalbard, working on glaciers around the Polish Polar...

With the deep drilling finished, it was time to start transitioning fully into our process studies on McCall Glacier. What we are particularly interested in this year is the fate of surface snow melt. How much of this drips into the snow pack and refreezes? How much reaches the bottom the glacier and helps the glacier move faster? To answer these questions we are planning to track this meltwater throughout the year. We will do this by repeatedly coring the upper 10 meters or so of snow in the accumulation areas, and by studying the stream at the outlet of the glacier. This is logistically complicated because these two areas are at opposite ends of the glacier – the very top and the very bottom. Separated by seven kilometers, this means a lot of hiking back and forth to try to watch both ...

Jason and I were near our second camp location installing a continuously-recording D-GPS system on the ice when we heard Darek’s voice on the radio “We finished!” The third and final hole of this trip was completed. We quickly finished hooking up the wires and cables for the GPS system and confirmed it was working, then headed up to lower cirque to drop down our thermistor string. Yesterday had been largely a bust in terms of drilling, as well as most other things. The weather continued to remain snowy and windy, and conditions on the glacier were poor for travel as the snow was deep, the trail drifted over, and visibility was frequently zero. I used one break in the weather to pack down the skiway, but that was the extent of my travel away from camp. The drill team tr...

Though the winds largely subsided after the first night, the marginal weather continued for the next week. The entire valley is coated with probably a foot of new snow, falling gradually or fiercely or not at all this past week. It was a bit of unfortunate timing, as we only had about a days’ work on the glacier remaining to finish up our ‘winter’ measurements, but there was little point in trying to do this given the conditions. I used the opportunity to make a bunch of phone calls to help set up other aspects of the project later in summer, as well as settle the minor crises on other projects that inevitably come up in a prolonged absence. Jason sorted through all of the mass balance and surveying data from the past month, doing quality control and figuring out what minor gaps stil...

The weather continued to deteriorate after yesterday, with the wind picking up as we went to bed. They continued to grow stronger through the night and by about 4AM both Jason and I were outside somewhat desperately trying to keep our tents from shredding or blowing away. Fortunately there was not a lot of snowfall associated with the storm at this point, just strong winds and redistribution of snow and dirt on the moraine. After securing and resecurring our sleeping tents and cook and work tents, we decided to take down the outhouse tent before it shredded completely. This was the tent we had used for a few years in the past, but it was broken and patched in multiple places and actually took us about 4 hours to set up to the point were a light breeze wouldn’t knock it down. We sat on a ...

The good weather continued, though not quite as sunny as the previous few days, so we took the opportunity to finish our mass balance and surveying. So in the morning Jason and I headed up the hill to the upper cirque, where the last of points yet-unsurveyed were remaining. It was a bit ironic that having been here for two weeks at the start of the trip, these were the last of the points. Our GPS woes for this trip have been epic, with multiple equipment and software failures conspiring against us, exacerbated by being camped at a different location from our base station for so long. We parked the machine near our old camp and skiid up to the col, taking a few minutes to enjoy the view of Hubley Glacier and rest of the Brooks Range. Hanging off a cliff a few hundred meters away was a parac...

It’s been a busy month. Actually a busy 4 or 5 months when you consider all the time spent with preparations and planning. Since we got to the glacier, I’ve barely had the chance to open any of my stuff sacks let alone change my clothes. So since it was such a clear, warm day, we decided to get clean. Jason headed off early in the morning to conduct our GPS surveys in the middle and lower cirques, while I headed up to old IGY survey spot just above our camp to take pictures. I have photos from Austin Post from this site from 1958, and I have repeated them in the past. I decided to pick a new spot for long term repeat photos, because as best as I can tell, Austin was sitting with his back against a rock bracing the camera with both hands while taking his pictures, and that site is just ...

Today we sent the last of our cores to Fairbanks. Darek had already thankfully prepared the cores for shipment the day before, so it was an easy matter to simply shuttle them down the hill, especially since our camp was now more conveniently located to both locations. It was a beautiful morning, so once Dirk got here we decided to do a little flightseeing and test out my new aerial photography camera. This camera is a 4 inch by 5 inch roll film camera, a Linhof Aerotechnika. They are no longer made, but when new cost more than $40,000, but thankfully not so much on Ebay. The main reason to use such a camera is the resolution – it allows one to use a telephoto lens to cover the same area as a wide angle lens, due the enormous size of the film. That is, the film itself has roughly the same...