The Faroes are small volcanic islands (can you find the tiny red text “Faroes” I wrote in the map?) situated between Norway, Iceland and Scotland. Some of the islands are connected by tunnels and bridges, or ferries.
What to expect from Faroes in March?
Faroes consist of 18 volcanic islands separated by narrow fjords. Despite the northern latitude location, winters appear to be surprisingly mild (> 0 deg C expected) . In addition to many birds, mostly during summer time though (no puffins in March!), we are likely to see some domestic animals, like Faroese horses and sheep!
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According to our FINI host Lis Mortensen, March is probably a good month for snow and there is often (not always) snow that time of a year. So, March it will be! Lis also recommended us to visit the Faroes info pages of https://visitfaroeislands.com/ (they are amazing!), and to stay in Tórshavn as the most practical place for field research in FINI (15 km from Torshavn) and around, because the connections to many other places are good from there. To keep our budget, we have now booked an apartment (appr. 2 km away from the Torshavn town center), where we can also easily have our field laboratory for filtering our snow and water samples.
From a rainy island to a sunny?
The key thing in preparing for Faroes field work is the fact that the weather can change really suddenly there. Tourists are advised as “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!”. You can check Faroes weather here: https://www.yr.no/place/Faroe_Islands/Other/Faroe_Islands/. This is what we will certainly do as the first thing every morning while there!
Furthermore, if in one island is rainy, another island can be completely sunny. Great, that seems to be easy to do, too: multi-day Travel Cards (DKK 500 for 4 days) can be used on all buses and ferries (with the exception of the one to Mykines).
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Finally, here is my short check list for preparing for field work:
- Agree who will be part of the field work and what are the individual tasks, who will drive if a rental car is needed, get the international drivers license, insurances needed and who pays these (e.g., EU-Interact does NOT pay: insurance costs and personnel costs of any kind, daily allowances (per diems), km allowances, telephone and internet costs, purchase of equipment or chemicals, customs costs, meals and food purchases during journey to station and back, nor other extra services at place of accommodation).
- Packing list (including as most important: a visibility jacket, phone+charger, First Aid Kit, Space Blanket (just in case you manage get into the water while sampling), weatherproof clothing, walking/hiking boots, boots with spikes?, gloves; instrumentation, consumables, etc.)
- Exercise any skills with equipment and order the consumables well in advance.
- Add in your address book phone numbers of contacts relevant to fieldwork and for emergencies. In Faroes they are:
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emergency number 112,
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police +298 351448,
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medical assistance 1870,
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dental emergency +298 314544,
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number information 118,
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and the country prefix is +298.
- Prepare field work maps for your journey.
- Permissions: do we have the required permissions to enter for our field work and what are the practices and is our work allowed there?
- Identify the risks and prepare a what-if plan (alternative work plans).
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The field research in Faroes, in FINI and around, will be conducted by me and my colleague Laura Thölix, FMI. Our aim is to collect samples on snow, natural water and drinking water, for filtering and chemical analysis of black carbon, organic carbon and dust.
Photos: Outi Meinander, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Arctic Research 