Seamen's Home Sisimiut

There isn't a whole lot to report. I mostly just want to post some pictures from earlier today. As is clear from the pictures, it is quite cloudy, so lidar operation is presently at a stand still. Weather reports are suggesting skies will clear tomorrow night. In the mean time, I have seen quite a few Red Dwarf episodes on DVD. I can't say that I find it terribly amusing at this point, but there is a certain bond I have with the ...

... what I installed last time is still operational. So far things look good. Tonight I am just performing basic ops (that is running the lidar system and collecting data) and doing homework. So far the only pictures I have are of the system. I haven't explored or tried to photograph the green laser against the stars, so all you get are boring pictures of the lidar system.

... from Colorado and determine what should stay and what should go home. This has proven itself a very mundane task. I will spare you the details I have learned, through discussions with the site crew, that Greenland is in negotiations with Denmark for independence. There is currently a Greenlandic Home-rule government in place to begin the transition. Denmark seems willing to give the Greenlandic people independence, but negotiations are still in progress ...

... system worked. My favored method was to look at Rayleigh scatter from nitrogen in the atmosphere when transmitting a well polarized beam. Thus, the system would be performing and acting exactly as it would during actual operation when I made the measurements. This had a few drawbacks: 1. The laser must be well polarized, but I had already installed compensation to ensure this on one of my prior "good weeks." 2. We must be able to detect the ...

... schmorgusborg of random things appears occasionally when I feel like something fancy for dinner. This has consisted of a mix of frozen vegetables, hamburger, rice and an assortment of random spices to make it "a charming li'l delish" (ref: some crazy food critic). As I rarely feel like applying any effort to eating, I have only actually done this once. Still, I pretty much think of making something like this everyday, so I feel ...

... proved correct, but I was unable to get the chopper through our signal faster, though I tried (one could either make the chopper go faster *not an option* or the signal smaller). Spirits were low (for me), and with the sun light that never ceases and the thought of having nothing to show for my trip, I wasn't sleeping very well. Of course I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't have a happy ending (or middle) to it all. Everything changed today ...

... bring the population at Kellyville down to 5, and the permanent population to 3, the smallest it has been in decades. Now a new adventure begins. I was previously uncertain of how I would feel staying in Greenland. Thus far it has not let me down, but that was with substantially more company, and with the coming and going of even one person, the environment of the site changes significantly. I think I will have a good time, and I won't be without company. Christian (a ...

... make it the whole distance. We had to be somewhat careful when walking on the ice, as some parts were very slick, and others we sunk down to our knees. On may glaciers, one also needs to worry about falling into a crevasse covered with a thin layer of snow or ice (thus making it invisible), but this particular section of the ice is apparently pretty safe in that respect. Martin was loaded down with a digital SLR, an assortment of lenses and a digital video ...

... resulting in poor output power. It would have been nice of the laser manufacturer to tell us this. Meanwhile, Jan went to work milling the parts we brought and did an impressive job fitting another laser system in a place that already had no room. Tonight we began running the system and took the first data with it. It now appears to be operational. With that said, there is still a lot to do... but I think it will wait until tomorrow.

... to collect the scattered light. We generally transmit a laser pulse and plot the received intensity as a function of time. Since distance = time*speed and the speed of light is known, we can determine the altitude at which a particular part of the signal corresponds to. For this reason, lidar can be used as an altimeter on aircraft (on an aircraft pointing at the ground). The most basic information we can obtain from an atmospheric lidar is when and at what altitudes ...