Snowpack ready to melt
Jim and Andy have the met station up and running, and air temperatures are down to -6 C at night and above freezing during the day. Alex, Chris and Jenine have been snow sampling for chemistry, microbes and particulates, and Ewa has instrumented the snow pack with temperature probes. The snowpack is ripe – it’s close to 0 C all the way through, and so a period of warmer weather or a couple of days with warmer winds will start the snow melt in earnest. Fortunately for us, the forecast is for slightly colder weather over the weekend, so that will allow the team more time to sample and set up the different experiments we plan. They will be working flat out over the next few days, and that’s before the melt starts, when all hands will be on the melting snowpack. I feel pretty guilty drinking my cup of tea and eating my sandwich lunch in a warm room, some music on in the background.
Next phone in will be in a couple of days time, and we retain contact on a daily basis by text sent from the Iridium website to our satellite phone. Next blog will be when news of progress comes through.
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Black and Bloom 