Monday 7 December 2015

Arctic Technology


Hello it's Kendal,  
On Svalbard there is always lots to do as you can see from the previous blog posts but I am sure some of you must be thinking do we ever do any work at university. I am going to use this blog post to tell you about the courses that Daniel, Jamie and I study here in the Arctic.

I study Arctic Technology.  Of course everyone assumes when I say Arctic Technology I’m fantastic with computers and I love nothing more than seeing how modern technology works in cold climates but no that’s not exactly it. Even people studying at UNIS think that is what Arctic technology is!!  We get lots of requests for general technical assistance.


Arctic Technology offers two bachelors modules in autumn semester:
AT-210: Arctic Environmental Pollution
AT-209: Arctic Hydrology and Climate Change

Arctic Pollution is a module lead by Professor Mark Hermanson. He sticks to his American roots by wearing his Levi's every class. His course covers a wide variety of topics including Oil Spills and Storage in the Arctic.  This part of the course involved an interesting and fun field trip to the airport where I ended up learning a lot about how the small but very busy airport works. We also learned about Mercury and POPs. POPs sound exciting and like something from back to the future. It stands for Persistent Organic Pollutants, which aren't from back to the future but are very important to protecting the environment. For a chemical to be classified as a POP they have to be Bioaccumulative, Toxic, Persistent, and capable of Long Range Transport. This is a deadly combination especially if we want to continue human existence on Earth. This is why they are either banned or classed as restricted use products for example Dioxins or DDE (pesticide). These chemicals are produced and used nowhere near the Arctic so how do we know they are here? Well, on the rooftop of UNIS there are air samplers which simply consist of a stand with a few vents open to the air and inside a filter held in place using a fancy clamp. During my time here the class has been carrying out practical work and taking air samples to be sent for analysis in specialist labs.

Arctic Hydrology covers interesting aspects of arctic environments such as glaciers, snowmelt, river catchments and water supplies to arctic settlements such as Longyearbyen. This course involved lots of fieldwork including the week long Pyramiden field trip, snow analysis in -16 degrees and a few trips to Mine 7 to look at catchments and how drainage works in the valleys. This course is taught by Nils Roar who is Norwegian. Nils loves hiking and that’s why we do so much field work as part of the course which happens to be my favourite aspect. During the semester I was tasked with working in a group to estimate Mass Balance of a glacier named Bertilbreen in Svalbard that we took measurements of during the field week. We found that the glacier is decreasing in Mass Balance, this follows the trend for all glaciers in Svalbard and is a direct response to the changing climate.

(Well, Kendal pretty much summed up half of what you'd need for our exams! - Daniel)

UNIS offers a lot of interesting courses with fieldwork opportunities and a lot of fun!


One of our classrooms


UNIS reception


Jamie's photo of UNIS

Hey, its Daniel again, look at that two writers for one post, must be the end of the semester!


Now that Kendal has told you all about the courses we studied this semester I wanted to add a bit more about the fun stuff. Kendal reminded me that we hadn't actually discussed one of the most exciting things so far; the northern lights! While I'm sure Jamie (the photographer) has the best pictures, he is also flying them back to Scotland with him (should be somewhere around Oslo now if I think). So my amateur attempts at taking pictures of the aurora borealis will have to suffice!







Most people think it requires great trickery to get the lights to look like that but you'll have to trust us, it takes a lot of practice to get it right on the camera but it still isn't as bright and vivid as they appear in the sky! 

I think I really fell in love with Svalbard one night when we were watching the aurora and the Draconid meteor shower, truly a spectacular and unforgettable experience. Although not all of us were as lucky, I remember Jamie telling me one day that he had gone outside at 9PM and at 11PM and had not been able to see anything while his barrack kept telling him it was one of the best nights for aurora! 

Still, seeing aurora isn't the only dark season activity there are also concerts like the Dark Season Blues which Jamie volunteered at and there was a concert by a Norwegian band recently called Valkyrien Allstars which I went to which was also a lot of fun!



And finally, you can never waste a good snow opportunity although, snow man felt too... normal?
It might not be obvious but it is a snow-horse! 

So, that's all from Kendal and I but Jamie will be back next semester with Holger and Matt. All the best for them and for the students at SAMS, we'll see you soon!