GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – It’s not his first visit to the Arctic, but Sunshine Coast explorer Adrian McCallum says the conditions on Greenland’s ice cap have still been a shock.
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“ The biggest thing for me so far is how cold it is up here,” he said, speaking to the ABC via satellite phone.
“We’re out here in minus 20 or 25 degrees Celsius, trying to stay warm and do some science and dragging a 70-kilo-plus sled about 20 kilometres a day up hill,” he said.
The 53-year-old ice and snow scientist is about half way through his sixth expedition to the polar cap, a 560-kilometre trek to gather data about snow and ice density.
“We’re out of the tent and moving by 8:30am and we’re skiing until 6pm,” he said.
“So they’re long days which are stretching us physically and mentally, of course.”
Although the Arctic expedition took four years to plan, the five explorers in the team only met in person just before setting off.
A civil engineer, a surgeon, a school teacher and a photographer, all from different countries, are making the journey with the Sunshine Coast scientist.
“We’ve all had our ups and downs, we all take longer some days to get out of the sleeping bag and get our clothes on,” Dr McCallum said.
Ice and snow tests to confirm satellite data
The team is travelling on foot and skis, without snowmobile support or aerial survey planes, as they make their way to the summit of the Greenland ice cap and beyond for the data-collecting mission.
They’re carrying all of their own sleeping gear, food and towing equipment to measure surface elevation, including a ground penetrating radar.
“Most of the work we’re doing is confirming things like the elevation of the ice cap, the thickness of the ice and the density of the snow.”
Earlier this year, NASA scientists reported concerns the Greenland ice cap, the world’s second-largest body of ice, had shrunk by a fifth more than previously estimated based on hundreds of thousands of satellite images.
Dr McCallum said his team’s measurements were an important way to check findings like those.
“There’s still a question about whether we’re getting the right information from those satellites,” he said.
It’s been hands on, too.
“Weather depending Jens [Larsson] digs me a snow pit about half a metre deep and I sit in there and measure density and the hardness of the snow,” he said.
“We’ve got a notebook full of data and lots of instruments with memory cards that are nearly full, so it’s going well so far.”
Physically and mentally tough
Dr McCallum, who is also head of engineering at the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC), trained for the trip by dragging tyres around the roads of his hometown of Maleny.
He said the weather has been both a help and a hindrance.
“It’s been mainly heavy snow, which has made it a hard slog skiing uphill,” he said.
“But on blue sky days, when the temperatures gets warmer, it makes conditions slushy and that’s when clothes and sleeping bags get wet.
“One of our greatest daily tasks is just staying dry.”
Polar bears and crevasses were two of the biggest risks Dr McCallum and the team prepared for before heading off.
He said so far they’ve managed to avoid both.
“We’ve skied over small crevasses, but nothing big enough to fall into yet. The risk will increase on the other side of the summit though,” Dr McCallum said.
“The polar bear risk increases past the summit, too, and it’s nearly 24 hours daylight at the moment, so we’ll have to start keeping some sort of watch.”
Despite the exhaustion and freezing conditions, Dr McCallum said the science has helped keep the team going.
“We’re gathering unique data that otherwise would not be gained,” he said.
“It’s always very satisfying and that’s what drives me on, every step I take with my sled.”
Some of the data collected on the trek will be handed to UniSC, while some will be used by researchers at other universities around the world.
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