Well despite the title we did not have sled dogs, but it felt a little like it as I was again on the sled behind the skidoo today. We covered another 50kms with our EM sensors and performed measurements at three sites. The measurements we conducted included snow depth, drill hole thickness, EM31 measurements, ground penetrating radar measurements and snow density. We are trying to gather accurate measurements to calibrate and validate the ability of the GPR to measure snow depth, and maybe ice thickness. We are also calibrating and validating the EM31 retrieval of ice thickness and hopefully platelet ice thickness. We are also collecting valuable information on the properties of the snow and ice for the validation of the Cryosat-2 satellite, which aims to measure changes in the thickness of the sea ice using information on changes in the amount that the ice sticks up above the water surface (called freeboard). This height is related to the density and thickness of the ice, but is affected by the snow density and depth (weighs down the ice) and by the low density platelet ice layer (what platelet ice is will be explained in a future post.
I only took one photo today, on the way back from our last sight. Just like the other day the weather closed in a bit and visibility dropped. It was not too bad, I quite enjoy it but it does really make you appreciate having a GPS to navigate.
Someone asked yesterday what the weather/temperatures are like. It is usually only -5C to -10C but it is often windy (today was between 10-20 knots at times, so quite windy, at times with the wind chill today it was below -20C. However, I gather that Edmonton has been much colder that past couple days.
Well that is it for today, we did not have a helicopter flight because of the weather. We are scheduled for a helicopter flight for tomorrow but the weather looks like it will be poor tomorrow as well. In any event we will go out on the ice in the morning and if the weather turns out to be good, head back early enough for a bird flight.
Well I should go, it is now midnight and in 6.5 hours I need to get up for another day!
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