More sun, more research

The sun was out for the second morning in a row – and we took advantage of it! After a nice hike out to the glacier, we stopped to take a few photos before work started…

Conwaybreen, across Kongsfjorden from Midtre Lovénbreen

With touristing over, we got to work. You saw the spectrum yesterday, but what does the data collection actually consist of? It’s pretty simple. Fjord monitors a light meter to make sure light levels are staying steady.

Fjord, taking his job very seriously

If the light is stable (whether clear or cloudy, the illumination just needs to stay the same between reference and measured target). The FieldSpec operator (here, Allen) then takes a measurement of the white reference panel (defined as 100% reflectance) and then quickly measures the chosen point on the glacier surface. Each reading takes about 15 seconds and is actually an average of 30 quick scans. For each point on the surface this is repeated at 10 times – we rotate the angle of view, too, because the surface doesn’t necessarily reflect the same in all angles.

Allen measuring an icy glacier surface; the computer controls the FieldSpec and shows realtime data to use for quality control

After the spectra are measured, then Jon measures the surface roughness (he’ll cover that in another post) and we also measure the density of the snow and size of the snow grains – both factors which influence the spectra. Processing of the data is underway, and I’ll let you know if we find anything cool!

Today’s hike also took us to a new part of Midtre Lovénbreen, onto one of the side tributaries. It was a bit steeper, so small crevasses start to form up there. We try to be safe of course, but small reindeer have to look for small crevasses…