Today has been rather surreal. The other researchers are on their way back home, and so it has been team SEDIGAP holding the fort at the station. It was very quiet at breakfast time without all of the groups organising their kit and donning their thermals/down jackets/wind proofs/woollens, and so we listened to Kate Bush on the radio to fill the void (Wuthering Heights, for those interested). It wasn’t quite the same.
We spent the day in the excellent library and laboratory of AS, analysing the aerial photographic images of Lyngmarksbræn, so that we could assess the ice extent over time, and compare these photos to our own observations from the field (a kind of reverse ground truthing…).
We were also able to take advantage of the fantastic books and journal collection to help build up a picture of the existing glacial and permafrost research in the area. In the afternoon the weather started to improve and we headed over to the other side of Qeqertarsuaq to assess some bedrock outcrops. We had looked at these in the aerial photos and noticed some interesting features that will be worth mapping (as a bonus project). The ground was rather snowy, though, and so it made it difficult to map these features. This project will have to be kept on the back burner until we return in August! Back to the permafrost for now, then…
Aaaah I see you are missing us already. Hope that you have a safe trip back- and good luck with the summer from the LAC-VEG team
Great to see you have been working hard, the weather looks better than England did on the same day 🙂