Jack and Kelly

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

One thing that is really starting to be tricky is that the sun really doesn't set anymore. The darkest it gets is what it would be around 6 or 6:30 at home. Last night, in fact, I was surprised when I looked at the clock and it was 3 a.m.!! I took this picture of what camp looks like at 3 a.m.:

This was by far the nicest day since I have been here. It is sunny, almost no wind, and a temperature around –2 farenheit. Since the air is so dry, it feels more like 30’s would at home. I was able to walk around without my parka or snowpants on! I was comfortable in just fleece pants and a fleece jacket. What a treat!

Today I spent some time with Kelly and Jack. They are studying the acids that exist in our atmosphere. These acids exisr in small amounts here in Greenland, but in other places, especially in larger cities, they exist in larger amounts. Small amounts of these acids in our atmosphere are not a bad thing, because there are many natural ways that these acids are created, but unfortunately there are many human actions that are putting more of these acids in the air than should be there. This research has also helped to lead to the conclusion that some of these acids being detected are coming right out of the snow (which relates back to photochemistry). Some examples of the acids they are testing for are: nitric acid (HNO2), nitrous acid (HNO3), hydrochloric acid (HCL), and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). Formate (HCOO-), Bromide (BR-), and acetate (CH3COO-) are also being tested for.

Jack is doing the field sampling, and Kelly is doing analysis of those samples. Jack has two areas set up to collect air samples. One is collecting samples of air above the surface, and the other is collecting air samples from within the snow. There is a syringe in the collection area that Jack fills with water. He injects that water into a chamber that makes it a mist that mixes with the gases being collected. The water mixed with air samples are collected and given to Kelly.

Kelly takes the samples and runs them through a machine called an ion chromatograph. This machine is able to separate each of the different acids, and detect how much of each is present in the sample.

This test is a very time consuming one, because it is done every half hour for about 11-12 hours. This is so that they get a large set of data, which leads to more accurate ideas of averages of how much of each acid is typically present in the air and in the snow. They also do this test for a long span of time because the intesity of the sun changes with the season as well as the time of day. As you can tell from many of the charts on the researcher's web page (www.summit.unh.org), it really has changed the data dramatically!

After lunch, I went on a snowmobile ride with Barry! We went out to the weatherstation to download some data. This data will help to keep a record of what the weather has been like as of lately. I got to drive- and no, I didn’t hit anythingJ

When we returned from the weatherstation, I helped Kelly to collect snow samples. We had to put on a “bunny suit” and plastic gloves before we could do the collecting, to make sure the samples were as clean as possible. These samples are sent to a lab to count how many different anions ( molecules that are negatively charged) and cations (molecules that are negatively charged) are present in them.