[Iqaluit - Day 5] Mounting Responsibilities

The last couple of days has been quite productive compared to that of me being in my office back in McGill. I've been working on my reading course whereas I have to read articles answering questions me and my supervisor agreed I should answer in my thesis. I can't say I have actually been reading them in full, I've been mainly looking at the abstract and conclusions for key points and then skimming the parts of the paper for explanations if needed. In the end is my hope to have the background work of my thesis written before January (ya .... probably won't happen as planned).

Aside from that, I've also been involved in the actual STAR (Storm Studies in the Arctic) project up in Iqaluit. Granted, I'm only up here for 10 days but I've been taking part in the daily tasks in the Weather office. In the last 2 days, I've launched 3 weather balloons. The first one was just a walkthrough with me releasing it at the end. The second time I did the whole process of setting up/calibrating the radiosondes (a GPS atmospheric sensor measuring temperature, humidity, wind speed, and pressure) and prepping the balloon myself but under supervision. The third time was done without supervision so it is safe to say I can successfully launch a weather balloon when need be. We don't always launch weather balloons since we only have so many radiosondes and balloons for the entire project, so we only really use them during storm events. Under storm conditions, a weather balloon is ideally launched every three hours, usually at 0Z, 3Z, 6Z, and so on (0Z is defined as midnight GMT, 8pm EST). Sometimes they will be done every 6 hours depending on the severity of the storm. The launches at 0Z and 12Z are not done by us, however ... instead it's done by people from Environment Canada since they do more detailed measurements of the upper atmosphere that are outside our expertise.

I suspect more weather balloon launches to come because of a possible small storm event entering the region later this week. Gabs and Robyn will be leaving for Pangnirtung on Thursday to take radiosonde measurements up there in anticipation of what may be a somewhat severe storm event while me and Robert (another grad student on the project list) will be taking care of radiosonde measurements here in Iqaluit (which means more balloon launches ... yay!). The forecast models say the system may yield precipitation but knowing the arctic and the sometimes unreliable forecast, this storm may be nothing spectacular. Let's just say none of us are really holding our breath.

Anyways, aside from launching weather balloons, we also have to download data from various meteorological instruments every day and store it on the main hard disk. Some of these instruments include the camera, radiometer, and sonar. Not much is involved here, it takes about 30 minutes or so to download all the data and enter into the computer, which happens to be an Apple Powerbook G4 with a 1TB external hard drive connected. So essentially, when I'm not downloading data or launching balloons, I just sit in the Weather Office working on my reading course. It's usually a slow day when everyone is at the office but when Robyn and Gabs leaves for Pangnirtung in a couple of days, Robert and I will be doing more than we have been since the beginning; including taking notes during our daily conference call with Ed Hudson and writing to the STAR blog (both of which are usually done by Robyn regularly). I'm sure there will be other things I will have to do while they are gone for a few days but I won't know that before tomorrow.

I do have to say though that it often gets quite windy up here during the evening, as I saw myself. At the end of the day today, it was 530pm and I was leaving the weather office for the day. It was dark and windy ... so much so I could barely keep my body facing the wind without snowflakes and ice crystals blowing into my face (they feel like needles when they are blown at 35 km/h into the face, and even with glasses it was hard to keep my eyes open ... I should have brought ski goggles). I couldn't even see Frobisher Bay from the road leading away from the station.

On a different note, I came within a couple feet walking distance from one of the huskies used for dog sleds. It was around supper time and I was walking back to the hotel when I passed this one husky digging up the ground on the side of the road. Of course he wasn't tied up or anything so I was very hesitant to approach it closer than I was already doing, yet alone padding it on the head like I would with most dogs. He did look at me with a confusing glare, though.

So much left to see, and time running out very quickly ... and as if a pink VW Beetle wasn't enough, there's also a pink pick-up truck here too :P

More to come another day, with pictures this time.

[Iqaluit - Day 3] Lazy Sunday

I won't have much to say here since we all decided to take a day off before the week started but today, I saw the sun for the first time since I got here (considering that it's is 60% of the time cloudy in the arctic region). It was a pretty nice sight.


Of course, it lasted all for about an hour before the clouds came again. The only thing work realted I did was to assist William in repairing and/or cleaning the radar. Before I got to Iqaluit, the computer that interprets the angle of elevation does not agree with what the radar sees. Because of this, the radar is currently just staring vertically up measuring reflectivities directly above the radar instead of the surrounding area. However, we saw that the panels we needed to remove on the inside of the radar capsule was difficult to reach without completely dismantling the entire radar .. .which none of us were qualified to do. So, our day ended before we even started. Willaim then went to the gym and I took a little walk around town. The winds were light so I figure today was a good day to walk around without freezing ... even though I only walked around 2/3 the town before my hands finally decided it was time to go inside (holding a camera in the cold does eventually persuade you to find warmth, even with light winds).

I'll get around to writing about Iqaluit later during the week after I get more pictures uploaded.

[Iqaluit - Day 2] In the office

First, I like to say that somehow I managed to get some of my pictures up on my online web album. Right now, the pictures I have taken yesterday are online. So at least now you don't have to wait until late next week to see them ... and besides, blogs are so much more interesting when there are accompanying pictures. The link is on the right side of the page and it will be updated whenever I can (or whenever the internet allows me to).

As for today, I can't really say I did much as of now (3pm) besides working on my reading course all day in the Weather Center (well, since about 10am this morning). It's been snowing on and off all day and the winds continue to blow at a steady pace (Robyn got caught in 65 km/h wind gusts last night which made her walk back home interesting, to say the least). I'm probably going to go for a walk around town tomorrow to see what there is to do in this quaint little town (pop ~10000) ... and I'll probably check out the territorial park just around the corner from here as well.

Though I will say this, out of all the things I would expect to see in a northern community like Iqaluit, I would have never guessed that I would see someone driving around in a pink Volkswagon Beetle (I will try to get a picture of this if I see it again).

[Iqaluit - Day 1] In Search of Winter

Greetings,
Just so that everyone is up to speed on this, I'm currently embarking on a 10-day trip up in the sub-arctic to do some data collection as part of my Master's research. I'll be in Iqaluit during this time and will return to MTL on Nov 5th. Hopefully everyone who reads this will find it as fun to read as it is for me to write it ;)

My day started at 6am today with a rude awakening by a very inconsiderate and noisy alarm clock. I don't remember the last time I had to get up that early but one thing is for sure, I was obviously not ready for an early wake-up call. I stumbled out of bed, ate a fast breakfast, reassured my mom that I will come back in 10 days, and quickly got everything together as I headed out to the airport to catch my flight at 10am.

I underestimated traffic going into the city so after picking up Emma in downtown MTL (because she agreed to take care of my car while I was away, which I'm very thankful for), I got to the airport at around 820am ... which is faster than I antisipated. I ended up with a lot of time to kill while waiting for my flight, especially since there was barely anyone there. Security clearance was swift so I could probably have gotten there at 930 and still catch my flight. Though don't expect me to test this theory any time soon.

My flight had one stop in Kuuiijuaq, a northern Quebec community of about 2200 people near the edge of Ungava Bay. This stop was for about 50 minutes so we were given the option of either getting off the plane or staying on during the 50 minute pit stop but we had to choose one. Of course, I chose to get off the plane and check out the local area around the airport. The actual town was too far for me to walk to but I did manage to get a nice view of the town from the airport. I should say that it was 5C outside but the winds where blusterly at around 35 km/h, making it feel alot colder than it really was. It definitely made landing an interesting ride.

Anyways, after taking a bunch of pictures, I got back on the plane (had to go through security again) and away I was for Iqaluit.

The flight overall was decent and fairly quick. I watched The Matrix during both legs of the flight and I had a nice breakfast consisting of eggs, sausage, hash-browns, fruits, and a muffin. I also had a brownie for a snack (yum!) ... definitely not something you see on Air Canada flights that often, if at all.

It was 1:50pm and my plane finally arrived at Iqaluit, NU ... 20 minutes early!! I was expecting a welcoming committy but all I got was a late visit by William :P (one of the post-docs working with my supervisor). He was on his way back from the Weather Center to the Hotel and the terminal was kinda along the way. I collected my bags and we both went to the Hotel (Capital Suites) where I checked in (I was sharing a room with him during my stay). He brought an XBox with him and there was a decent cable selection, but the internet was mediocre at best, barely passible actually.

After dropping my bags in the room, we both proceeded to North Mart to buy a few things, a northern version of a Wal-Mart with a grocery store. As you would expect, everything up here is insanely expensive (except for baby food, strangely enough). For example, a 2L carton of milk goes for 7.50$ up here. If any of you plan to visit Iqaluit, bring lots of money ... or be a member of RBC or CIBC (the only branches in Iqaluit). I'll give a more in depth opinion of the community after I have properly explored it.

So after our purchases, one of which was a rope which was why William had to leave the Weather Center in the first place, and dropping the other purchases in our room, we then proceeded back to the Weather Center on the opposite side of the airport runway. It was a nice walk, I did manage to get some decent pictures of Iqaluit as we were walking away from the town. It was a 10 minute walk from the hotel and along the way, I saw some Huskies ... they were so cute but I don't think I would approach them without the owner somewhere nearby.

Gabrielle (a MSc.2 student also in my group) was at the Weather Station working on her thesis when we got to the station. She has been in Iqaluit since the beginning of October and she has another 5-6 weeks here before she heads home. She and another grad student, Robyn from U. of Manitoba, were launching weather balloons carrying radiosondes every 3 hours in order to get vertical profiles of the atmosphere. These radiosondes measured the temperature, pressure, and humidity of the atmosphere above as the balloon rised higher into the atmosphere. In fact, I got there just in time for them to launch another one so before I even had a chance to settle in, I took part in the launching of my first weather balloon ... yay! I mainly observed the entire process but it was me who atually released it in the end :D

While I was at the weather station, I was given a quick tour but for the most part, it was all about the weather balloon for the couple hours I was up there ... for me at least. Me and Gabrielle went back to the hotel after an hour after launching the balloon so that we can varify that data was successfully collected for the entire layer of the atmosphere (which was interestingly near saturation for a good 5-6km up from the surface). It was around 5 when we left the station and it was already dark outside, and a tad colder than it was a couple hours earlier. It felt like an early Montreal winter but with more snow on the ground.

Even though it was only 5, the day was done. Me, William, Gabs, and Roibn eventually made it back to our rooms and called it a day. I can't really explore the town in the night so that will have to wait for the next couple of days. And after fighting for a solid couple of hours trying to get the internet to work in my room, I finally got this post up. However, the pictures will take some time to upload (if I can barely get my Gmail to open, I definitely will not try to upload dozens of 2mb pictures). Unfortunately, the pictures may not get uploaded until after I get back to MTL if this keeps up.

More to come tomorrow ...