February Travel

I apologize for the long interlude between blog entries.  The reason for the long pause is my travel schedule with frequently precludes easy access to internet.  For the last 6-7 weeks I have been traveling in Easter and Norway and Svalbard.  Don’t expect more entries until I return from the field work in mid-May. 

I spent the second half of February traveling in Eastern and Northern Norway.  My first destination on this latest trip was Oslo.  Here I met up with the other Fulbright grantees and we presented our projects at the Fulbright Institute.  It was great to get together and see all the other Fulbrighters.  Afterwards we headed up to the mountains near Lillehammer for a weekend of skiing.  The conditions were spectacular with around 2 meters of powdery snow and temperatures just below skiing.  The scenery was also amazing as all the trees were covered in a thick coating of snow.  The resort was also very nice with good accommodations and an all you can eat buffet at every meal.  At the end of the weekend it was a little sad to part as we realized that we would not see each other together before leaving Norway. 

After the ski weekend I traveled back to Oslo and met my sister.  For a few days we say the sights: the Viking ship museum, Fram museum, Kon-tiki, Holmenkollen, etc.  We also had the opportunity to visit with several of my Norwegian friends in Oslo.  Afterwards, we traveled back to Tromsø where we again saw tourist sites and also went dog sledding on Kvaløya.  After an hour of sledding and playing with the dogs we enjoyed a lunch of reindeer stew with chocolate cake for desert in a Sami tent.  Some pictures of the trip are attached below. 

I hope everyone is enjoying the arrival of spring.  Here in Tromsø in the early part of April the temperatures have started to rise above freezing regularly and the snow pack is beginning to melt.  The days are also longer and it now gets dark around 9 pm in the evening and starts to get light at 3 am.  The midnight sun will be arriving soon (the first day of no-night arrived on Svalbard the day I left). 

Posing as Nansen at the Polar Museum in Oslo.

Sled dogs are friendly. 

Alta the sled dog. 

My sister, Caitlin, and a sled dog puppy.

Me and a sled dog puppy. 

 Caitlin and I in a sami tent after the dog sledding trip.

The exterior view of the sami tent.

 

Jul i Norge

For Christmas my Dad and brother came to visit me in Norway.  After some difficulties with flights everybody had arrived in Longyearbyen, Svalbard by December 23rd.  We were still able to go on several excursions in despite the 24-hour polar night.  On Svalbard the polar night lasts from October to March, and in December 24 hours of darkness means complete and utter darkness.  There is no twilight here, only light from the aurora borealis, moon, and stars.  On the positive side there are spectacular displays of the northern lights during the day and night.  There are a wide variety of colors: green, red, blue, violet, yellow, and white.  The form of the lights also varies forming curtains and crowns that dance across the sky.  I don’t have any pictures that truly capture this phenomenon.  It is something that you must experience and pictures don’t do it justice.            

Our first excursion was to an old abandoned mine.  A fun, short hike this trip also involves sledding down a mountain side; it really is safer then walking down the steep and ice slope.  As Olav, my brother, and I were talking about how my Dad dislikes this activity, he yelled from behind “take a picture of me, quick,” with a big smile on his face.  The next day we took an excursion to the ice caves on Longyear glacier.  This trip involves skiing for 3 hours to the entrance, digging through the snow bridge, setting up climbing ropes and climbing with ice axes and crampons, then skiing back down.  It is also pitch black, besides the northern lights, and we must always keep the rifle ready in case we encounter a polar bear on the ice.  The ice cave is an amazing site.  In reality it is not a cave, but a series of meltwater channel that have been covered by snow bridges.  As we descended into the glacier it got warmer, approaching freezing, and I could feel the difference that I have seen on radar-echo sounding data of glaciers.  Some areas are large, like hallways, and others are more like crawl spaces.  I have included several pictures below.  We also tried to climb Sarkofargen, a nearby mountain, a few days later but were turned back by a storm.  The next morning, the day we were scheduled to leave Svalbard, “en skikkelig snowstorm”, a full blizzard, had begun.  Winds were sustained at 70 mph and conditions were a constant white out.  After my Dad almost got hit by flying debris he decided that we shouldn’t be outside.  Needless to say the flight was canceled and we had one more day on Svalbard.             

From Svalbard we traveled to Tromsø and saw several museums.  The best here was Polaria, with an excellent seal show.  New Years Eve was really impressive with fireworks being fired in every direction by everyone.  Really, it was a fantastic show. 

After Tromsø, we continued to Trondheim and Trondelag.  We visited the historic site in the area including St. Olav’s cathedral and Stiklestad, the site where he died on 29 July 1030.  Olav Haraldsson, later St. Olav den Hellige, was a Viking king of Norway who was exiled and later martyred by forces loyal to King Knut den Mektige, then ruler of Denmark, England, Norway and Sweden.  Sometimes I wonder why our parents choose to name us Knut and Olav.  Olav was the king who played the most important role in uniting a newly Christianized Norway and started a monarchy that lasted for another 400 years.  He is the patron saint of Norway and his life and death are celebrated at Stiklestad every July 29.  In addition to visiting this site we also went skiing in Trondelag.  One of the best ski resorts in Norway, Oppdal lived up to its reputation.  Conditions were perfect and the skiing was excellent.  Soon after this my family left, but it was after a good trip through some areas of Norway that we hadn’t previous seen.   Click on the photo for a larger version.

 

My brother, Olav, and I at the julenisse’s (Santa Claus) mailbox. 

My dad and I at the entrance of the abandoned mine.Equipment for the ice cave.

Getting ready to ski up to the ice cave.

Setting up a climbing anchor in the ice cave.

Climbing up an ice wall.

 Pondering the best way to proceed.

My brother, Olav, ascending up the wall.

Who said a polar bear can’t be tamed.

New Year’s Eve.

 My brother, Olav, and I in front of Nidarosdomen.     

 

 

Excursion to Andøya Rocket Range

            Every class at UNIS includes an excursion.  For the excursion for my course in the Middle Polar Atmosphere, we traveled to Andøya Rocket Range near Andenes for a week in late October.  This was exciting because we got to see the sun again which had been gone for over a week on Svalbard.  Andenes is also in Lofoften, one of the most beautiful areas in Norway where mountains meet the sea.  Our lodgings were extremely nice as we were housed in cottages near the shore, usually rented out to vacationers in the summer. 

            Our activities on the excursion were varied.  We had the relatively mundane offering of lectures.  This time the lectures focused on stratospheric warmings and the quasi-biannual oscillation.  Additionally we were given a tour of the rocket range and got to see a rocket launch.  The launch was testing a new heat shield that protected a small capsule with sharp angles.  Currently heat shields on both the Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz space crafts are around smooth surfaces.  The ability to effectively protect sharp angled surfaces gives more flexibility to engineers when designing spacecraft.  This capsule was tested while we were at the rocket range and we could view the live telemetry and see the successful launch from the liftoff to splashdown.  We also toured a LIDAR facility and got to see a variety of large lasers used for measuring atmospheric conditions in the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere.  One precaution that they must take includes not shooting the lasers when airplanes are flying overhead for fear of the reflection from the plane blinding people on the ground.  Those are some powerful lasers!  We also saw the launch of the first Norwegian satellite live from Russia.  The satellite is designed to track tagged reindeer.  Finally we worked extensively with an infra-red handheld camera and took a survey of the rocket range to determine where there were thermal leaks that could be corrected to increase efficiency of heating buildings.  We turned in a report to the rocket range but unfortunately they neglected to give us a commission. 

            Overall this was an exciting trip that showed many aspects of research in the middle and upper atmosphere.  Some pictures are included below. 

Click on the photo for a larger version. 

A rocket launch!!

One big laser for a LIDAR facility. 

Image from the infrared camera.