Let's Start Today With Some Take A Closer Look Questions!
These questions are about travel and they all come from Girl Scouts. First up we have....
How many miles away is Svalbard from San Diego?
From Corinne and the "Metropolis to Mountains" Day Camp, "How many miles is Svalbard from San Diego?" The distance is 4,533 miles! Yikes, that's a long way.
How long does it take you to get there?
Next "Mangoose", (it's a camp name) asks, "How long does it take you to get there?" Let's see. First to get to Boston, about 5 hours combined. Then I spent the night in Boston. The flight to Munich was 7 1/2 hours, then to Oslo was another 2 and finally it took 3 hours to go from Oslo to Longyearbyen (we are not done- we will take a small plane to Ny Alesund on Monday). So total flight time for me was around 17 1/2 hours. That's a long time to sit cramped in an airplane seat. One guy on our team, Steve, is 6 feet 8 inches and the poor guy had a window seat! So I can't complain. There were also long layovers at the airports adding to the total time and the time change which brings us to our next question.......
What is the time difference?
Finally, Miley, a 4 year old Daisy Girl Scout wants to know, "What is the time difference?" We are 9 hours ahead of San Diego. Right now it is 1 PM for me and in San Diego it is only 4 o'clock in the morning. I hope that you are still asleep.
Sleep- that part is tricky in the land of the midnight sun. My room in Longyearbyen did not come with black-out curtains. Last night I woke up after only three hours and thought it was time to get up. I could not believe it when I looked at my watch. My circadian rhythm is all messed up and I am paying for it now as I try to stay awake during these lectures. I am drinking coffee and hoping I sleep better tonight. For more on circadian rhythms, check out Team Squirrel and Andre Wille's PolarTREC journals at http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/arctic-ground-squirrel-studies-2014.
Longyearbyen is rather swamped with tourists today due to five cruise ships pulling into town. This area is for Europeans what Alaska is to Americans- icy fjords that tower over the ocean with snowy peaks that stretch toward the horizon. I notice European couples enjoy dressing alike, or wearing what my husband calls "cutie suities." Yet another interesting European peculiarity and no, Jim and I don't wear cutie suities.
A large cruise ship docked outside Longyearbyen
Many tourists in town today. Can you spot the cutie suities?
I bet you are just dying to know....have I added any birds to my life list? Well, thanks and yes! This little guy has been flitting all around Longyearbyen.
A snow bunting. Photo courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology
The snow bunting is a bird of the high arctic. Even on a warm day, the mostly white plumage of a bunting flock evokes the image of a snowstorm. And here is another nature observation:
Arctic cottongrass keeping warm
Arctic cottongrass. It looks like something from Dr. Suess. In addition to being adorable, all of that fluffiness has a function. It increases the temperature of the flower's stamen and pistil. Huh.
I bet you are also wondering what the content is for today's lectures. Yay for you! Very appropriately, we are going over glaciers. So glaciers advance and they retreat. To be clear, glaciers always flow forward; the glaciers that we will study flow at a rate of about 6 feet per day resulting in calving into the fjord. But depending on snow accumulation and melting rate, the end of the glacier changes position. That is what is meant by the advance and the retreat of the glacier.
So, in 1911, a geologist/artist, Professor Finsterwalder (how's that for a name?) painted several caricatures of glaciers he was studying in the Alps that had.....(you guessed it) advanced and retreated. And I am presenting them here here for your viewing pleasure, followed by a photo of the glaciers he was studying. Enjoy!
An advancing glacier
A retreating glacier
The real glaciers. What similarities do you see?
By the way, if you aren't getting enough Svalbard stories from me, my team mate Steve Ossim (remember the cramped guy in the window seat?) is also blogging about our expedition at http://ossimsblog.wordpress.com/. Check it out! He has some great pictures as well and provides some contrast to my pontificating.
Are you ready? The answer to the riddle is....... One crushes boats and the other brushes coats! Ba ha ha ha ha ha!
Hey! Leave me some comments and questions! Let me know you are out there. And......
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