June 5, 2018

Summer appears to have arrived

Open house in the drill trench.

Summer came this morning as temperatures rose from -20 ºC to -5 ºC. We had snow and clouds and wind; but it felt quite balmy to be outside.
Everybody have things to do; but you can feel that quite a few are busy doing last minute tasks. We have a flight planned in two days and with this flight we will have a major crew exchange. 15 persons will leave.
11 persons will stay and 20 will arrive. The forecast is not good however, Wednesday and Thursday will become very warm indeed with temperatures approaching 0 ºC. This is not good for flight operations, as the skiway will become soft, and the plane will have difficulty in getting off. The forecast for Friday is fine, and we will most likely postpone the flight to Friday. The forecast tomorrow will help us make the right decision. Tonight, the drillers arranged for an open house event in the drill trench. A lot of spectators followed a drilling round.

What we did today:

1. Drilling three runs. Drillers’ depth 1013 m.
2. Casting extension of entrance ramp with balloon.
3. Balloon cave for surface snow sampling completed.
4. Repairing and replacing skiway markers complete.
5. Work on improving Doppler radar settings.
6. Ice core processing today 23.65 m, bags 1145 – 1187 (629.20 m –652.85 m).
7. Measurements in isotope laboratory.
8. Measurements in physical properties laboratory.
9. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
10. Surface snow sampling.

Ad.1: Drillers produced a 3.1 m core that was intact with no breaks.

Weather today: Overcast in varying degree. Snowfall in afternoon. Temp. -5 ºC to -20 ºC. Wind: calm to 16 kt from SW, NW and later SW. Visibility: 2-5 km, during snowfall down to 500m.

FL, J.P. Steffensen