In September 2017, an Air France flight traveling west over the Greenland ice sheet experienced a failure in its 4th engine. All on board were unharmed, and the plane landed safely in Goose Bay, Canada. To figure out what exactly went wrong with the engine, a search for the missing engine parts was executed by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) supported by Greenland Guidance.
The torn-away parts of the airplane engine dropped onto the ice sheet, but the heavy pieces of the fan hub – needed for the investigation – impacted into the snow surface and were lost from sight almost instantly, getting buried further with every subsequent snowfall event high on the ice sheet. The search for the largest and potentially most interesting part was difficult due to severe storms, snow-covered crevasses in the region, and the ever-present risk of polar bears passing by. Guided to a few promising sites by airplane-based radar measurements performed by ONERA (the French aerospace lab), the initial ground-based detection and therefore exact localisation was done by a radar-equipped robot (!) operated by Polar Research Equipment (PRE). The robot was crucial in regions too dangerous for people to tread unsecured, because of crevasses in excess of 10 m wide, yet invisible to the eye due to the snow cover. It wasn’t until the very end of the 3rd field campaign in spring 2019 that a metal detector custom-built by the Aarhus University HydroGeophysics Group clearly detected metal a few meters below the surface.
Greenland Guidance took part in the 4th recovery expedition to the ice sheet, bringing 3 experienced mountaineers from the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (ICE-SAR) to the scene. The expedition commenced on 28 June 2019, transporting as many as would fit in an AS350 Air Greenland helicopter (5 people) to the dig site. In spite of all safety precautions (mostly related to digging in a crevassed region), we made good progress. By the end of the second afternoon, we struck titanium. Eager to liberate the part, we kept working until after midnight. But melting the engine part loose and lifting it to the ice sheet surface proved very difficult, as we wanted to avoid contact with the yet-to-be-investigated part as much as possible. On 30 June, after an estimated 20 hours of digging, melting and lifting, the job was done and all returned safely to Narsarsuaq, 100 km southeast of where the engine part had impacted.
In August/September this year we supported the Greenland Trees organisation in planting trees. We helped plant 5000 tree saplings in the town of Narsarsuaq, south Greenland, where trees are abundant today – for a Greenland location. As community engagement and youth education are important themes to Greenland Trees, we also traveled to Narsaq and Qaqortoq to meet the locals, and plant another few hundred trees. Next year, in Greenland Trees’ second year, we aim to return to help plant many more trees.
A few weeks ago Greenland Guidance helped the BBC with their operations in Greenland. They spoke with locals, interviewed climate scientists including professor Jason Box, and documented a tree planting project. Their expedition resulted in stunning footage, showcased in several news segments about Greenland and climate change. We were very happy to support this BBC operation and once again see how they operate – with a high level of professionalism.
This July, Dutch newspaper NRC visited Greenland to document climate-related changes in the ice sheet. We provided guidance on when to go where, who to talk to, and we took care of some of the logistics required to stay among scientists and visit the ice sheet.
Science editor Marcel aan de Brugh: “To put together my trip to Greenland, I got help from Greenland Guidance. They know the research community very well, and had different options for me to join researchers in the field. They also arranged some other things, like a stay at the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support. My 7 day trip to Ilulissat and Kangerlussuaq (and from there onto the ice sheet) was impressive and unforgettable.”
At the location where in 2010 the largest-ever annual ablation on the Greenland ice sheet was measured, we have now installed a Greenland Guidance draw wire ice ablation tracker – DWIAT in short. The site is located all the way at the southern tip of the ice sheet, where temperatures are relatively high in summer, and where the ice surface is incredibly dark, absorbing a large fraction of the sunlight. Measurements by the PROMICE automatic weather station network tell us that here typically 5-6 m of ice melt off each year – in addition to the snow that accumulated in the preceding winter – which is a lot compared to other Greenland sites. But in 2010 the weather station QAS_L observed a record-setting ablation of more than 9 m of ice here – that’s the equivalent of 3 floors of a building!
To investigate the extreme melt at this site, PROMICE has started a collaboration with the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU) of Utrecht University. With more instrumentation measuring air-ice interaction on site, tracking ice ablation became even more relevant for data interpretation. That is why the Greenland Guidance DWIAT now measures ablation along side the PROMICE weather station. With it’s reference weight drilled 10 m into the ice, this unit should be capable of recording ablation until at least late summer 2020 – unless 2019 or 2020 proves to be yet another major melt year.
Our draw wire ice ablation tracker (DWIAT) 2019 model was designed to be even sturdier than before. We’ve used the toughest materials including a tripod that won’t suffer from the large forces of compacting winter snow on top. The 2019 model is now taken into production!
Documentary makers Jeannette and Stefan: “Greenland Guidance made our lives as TV makers in Greenland much easier. For operations in Paris, Rome or Madrid you can make last-minute arrangements, but Greenland is a country that is difficult to reach, where you are left wandering without proper input in advance. On several occasions we have praised ourselves lucky with the ideas of Greenland Guidance: for instance that science cruise that we could join instead of a packed tourist ship. Not only do they have great knowledge of the country, they also have ample contacts that come in handy. Do not go to Greenland without them!”
Mike MacFerrin, PhD (University of Colorado Boulder): “My instruments had been transported down from the Greenland ice sheet when I wasn’t around. I’ve had great experiences with the guys of Greenland Guidance in the past, so I had them check on my gear. They made sure that snow and extreme temperatures hadn’t damaged anything. Here’s a big thanks to Greenland Guidance for helping out!”
Late summer 2018, Greenland Guidance supported the maintenance of the automatic weather station network of the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland ice sheet (PROMICE). The expedition took us past 4 weather stations in the region near Kangerlussuaq, where the countries largest airport is situated. The furthest station location was an hour flying away, on top of the ice sheet at 1840 m above sea level. Being dependent on Air Greenland helicopter transportation, and with a storm approaching the area, the work got squeezed into a shorter-than-ideal period, but successfully wrapped up nonetheless.
Greenland Guidance aided in setting up an expedition to Greenland by production company Witfilm. They are producing a series of episodes on climate change entitled “The Rising Water”, to be aired in fall 2019 on NTR, a Dutch public service broadcaster specialising in information, education and culture.
Greenland Guidance just returned from a month-long expedition to the Greenland ice sheet. We assisted the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in the search of airplane engine parts that were lost during a commercial trans-Atlantic flight in September 2017. The search went according to plan, with productivity and moral being high throughout the expedition! Occasionally temperatures dropped below -30 ºC, and three storms hit camp causing severe whiteout conditions, but otherwise the view was stunning.
In July 2017 CNN filmed in east Greenland for their documentary “Global Warning” to report on the effects of climate change on the ice sheet and beyond. See the stunning footage in the Arctic Melt episode here: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/12/04/global-warning.cnn. Greenland Guidance was hired to check the episode for scientific accuracy.