Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile may remember that the two summers I was at South Pole coincided with an ice core drilling project. A lot of the people working on that project had previously been here to Summit to do the ice core drilling that happened here (which is actually how I first heard of Summit Camp and started to want to come to Greenland). That project is long-done but the site of the core sample is still marked with this imposing totem pole.
You might also remember that releasing weather balloon was a fun adventure at South Pole. And they also release twice-daily atmospheric tracking balloons here at Summit. This one was a ridiculously great photo op, with sun-dogs going strong as the science tech brought the balloon out for release one evening.
There are two science buildings on station. One, set a half-mile to the south of the station so that it can avoid as much of the equipment and other air pollution created by camp operations, is called the TAWO: the Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory.
It's not a big space, but it's the primary work area of the two research scientists we currently have at camp. As the name suggests, the experiments/projects based there are primarily involving the atmosphere.
The other is the MSF, the Mobile Science Facility. (These names are kind of misleading, maybe. As far as I know, the TAWO is a permanent, not a temporary structure. And no one has been moving the MSF around since I've been here.) Which houses the rest of the research done here.
I haven't gotten to do formal tours of any of these buildings or learn about the science going on here in great detail (I just finally visited these two buildings while helping to do annual inspections on the doors and windows all over camp.) But if there are any other science related adventures while I'm here, I will post again!
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