There’s nothing like the first big snow of the season. Having
grown up in New Orleans, I still get a rush of excitement when I wake up to the
blanketed ground and the tree branches heavy under the weight of snow. As this
winter season begins, I look forward to the skiing, the ice skating, the snowy
woods and even some shoveling now and then. But sometimes, you just can’t get
enough of winter, from the thrill of bundling up to go out into the cold to the
joy of watching the delicate snowflakes slowly coat the ground. So what do you
do when you’re down in the dumps because the last of the snow has melted in New
Hampshire and the ice has left the ponds? Well, this past summer, the answer
was to travel to Summit, Greenland, a land
of perpetual snow and ice!
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| Summit, Greenland. An expanse of snow and ice as far as the eye can see. |
Through Dartmouth’s IGERT program, I was able to spend nearly four weeks at Summit Station at the
top of the Greenland Ice Sheet. While I was there, one of my research goals was
to study the snow albedo, which is a measure of the fraction of incoming solar
radiation that is reflected off of the ground surface. Thanks to the EPSCoR
project and the work that our group has been doing to study snow albedo in New Hampshire, I had a wealth of tools and techniques
readily available for this research. While at Summit, I made daily measurements
of snow albedo and snowpack characteristics such as grain size and shape,
chemical impurities, temperature and density. Ultimately, I hope to compare my
snow albedo studies at Summit with those that we have made here at home.
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Left: Making snow
characterization measurements in New Hampshire last winter. Note the grass
visible in the snow pit! (Photo: Wesley Whitaker) Right: Making albedo
measurements using the ASD FieldSpec at Summit, Greenland. (Photo: Christine
Urbanowicz)
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My trip to Summit also provided us with the opportunity to
interact with the students of the Joint Science Education Project. This program brings together high school students
from Greenland, Denmark and the United States to travel around Greenland and
learn about the science research that occurs around the country. Thanks to the CoCoRaHS Albedo program, we brought a few snow
albedo kits along with us and used them to investigate the snow around Summit
Station.
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Making albedo
measurements with the JSEP students using the CoCoRaHS snow kit! (Photo:
Christine Urbanowicz)
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We discussed how different types of snow grains and changes
in snow chemistry can affect the albedo. We made measurements on fresh snow,
snow that had been compacted by heavy machinery and snow that had experienced
lots of exhaust from a recent C-130 cargo plane landing. It quickly became
clear to the students that not all snow is the same. It was exciting to see the
same types of measurements that are being made by schools all over New
Hampshire also taking place in the center of the Greenland Ice Sheet!
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The JSEP group after
a successful day of albedo measurement! (Photo: Christine Urbanowicz)
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Traveling to Greenland over the summer was a fantastic opportunity,
providing a platform to extend my snow research and to connect and share with a
fantastic group of international students. But for now, there’s no need to
venture northward, because winter comes to us! Here in New Hampshire, we will
dive into a series of new snow albedo measurements right in our backyard.
Let it snow!
Posted by Alden Adolph, PhD Student, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College
