In those conditions, I find myself wishing it was lighter. The only time the dark bothers me is when the winds are above 30 knots, and the snow is blowing all around. Most days when I walk the mile round trip to our farthest science experiment, I see amazing stars and northern lights. So far this winter, I have enjoyed the darkness. Having no sunrise plays with your senses, but I really don’t mind. The horizon looked like the Sun was coming up, and then it never did. The first day without a sunrise was strange. How does it feel to experience a day with no sunrise? Here at Summit, the manager and mechanic operate the caterpillar, and I am more than happy to watch. I was tentative and constantly worried about getting them stuck. After a 15-minute driving lesson with the caterpillars, I realized I was not great at driving them. If the ibuttons prove worthy, they could be easily and inexpensively distributed to many sites on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to validate infrared surface temperature products produced by sensors such as MODIS, on board the Aqua and Terra satellites.Īs for driving the caterpillar, I have also had a driving lesson previously on a trip in Antarctica where we were using caterpillars to pull trains of science equipment. They are performing very well in the harsh ice sheet environment. With this project, I am testing a new, inexpensive temperature sensor/data-logger system called an “ibutton.” These sensors are the size of about 5 dimes stacked on top of each other. There is a lack of in situ temperature measurements on ice sheets because they are vast and harsh. The second measurements I am taking are surface temperature measurements. My measurements will help us better understand the microwave signal and, hopefully in the future, produce more accurate maps of temperature and accumulation changes on the ice sheets. The data have shown great potential for monitoring snow accumulation rates in certain areas of the ice sheet, yet not in others, and so the question of ‘why’ remains. Over the ice sheets, passive microwave measurements, which are measured by the AMSR-E sensor on the Aqua satellite, are still not fully understood. I am taking two types of measurements that will help NASA’s satellite missions. What measurements are you taking that are most important for NASA’s satellite missions? Is there a particular question or problem with a sensor that these wintertime observations will help answer?
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