May 30, 2019

Today, we received the second LC-130 flight of the season.

Skier 41 today at EGRIP. While parked, the skis are retracted and the plane rests only on its wheels on the snow. This is a sign that we have prepared the snow surface at the parking spot well.

The weather right now is ideal for flight operations: Few clouds, weak winds and cold. 9 people left and we say good bye to Sverrir, Jens Christian, Angelika, Ole, Johannes, Iben, Nicolai, Trevor and Dominic. 14 new people arrived: Anders, Chris, Søren, Nicholas R., Francois, Morihiro, Karl Emil, Margaretha, Alexios, Nicolas S., Maiike, Clint, Kate and Silje. The entire operation went fine and offload/load was done in an hour. This crew exchange adds to the ice core drillers and ice core processers. The drillers will continue to slowly build up a routine in core production, and the cores will be logged and stored in or core buffer. The processors will begin to setup and check all stations in the science trench so that assembly line processing may begin June 19. A group of four people will begin a project (MAGPIE) on the snow surface that will last four weeks.

What we did today:

1. This morning Polar 5 and crew only left EGRIP and flew to Iceland. Polar 5 operations this year has ended.
2. Received Skier 41. The plane brought equipment new EGRIP members and gave some fuel.
3. Drillers made a three runs producing beautiful cores.
4. Logging ice cores. Logging depth: 1810.3 m.
5. Station for atmospheric moisture sampling and isotopic measurement is active.
6. The isotope CFA laboratory measured from bag 2706 to bag 2737 (1487.75m to 1505.35m).
7. Successful test of water vapour sampling drone (altitude kept below 100m until EGRIP obtains drone permission). It took samples.

EGRIP population is now 28.

Weather this today: Dense fog early morning, otherwise fine, with a few high clouds. Temp. – 16 °C to -24 °C. Wind: 6 kt from SSW. Visibility: Unrestricted.

FL, J.P. Steffensen