End of the RECAP field season

The previous days have been hard work and somewhat frustrating because our logistics plan did not work out. On Tuesday, the weather conditions at Mestersvig were very variable with fog in the fjord going in an out but with an overall positive trend. After an Icelandic Twin-Otter and a Danish C-130 managed to get in to Mestersvig in the morning, we decided to launch a NYANG 109th C-130 mission from Kangerlussuaq to Mestersvig around 16z.

Here in Constable Pynt our people and the Polar 6 crew managed to get 130 icecore boxes into Mestersvig in two loads prior the arrival of the NYANG C-130. At 19z the C-130 arrived the Mestersvig area, but after four passes we learned they were not able to get into Mestersvig and had to return Kangerlussuaq. This was very disappointingm and we had to fly half the load of ice-core cores back to the freezer in Constable Pynt while the three people left in Mestersvig had to unpack and mount our freezer and store the other half of the ice.

As another attempt with the 109th to Mestersvig could not be granted, we had to extract the ice with the Basler to Iceland in the following days, from where it was shipped to Liege by airplane. From there, it will be trucked to AWI in Bremerhaven to await the sampling campaign which will take place after the summer holidays. Lars is following the ice all along to make sure it makes it sfaely to its final destination.

Arctic logistic is always challenging, and we send a special thanks to AWI and the Basler crew for helping out in this difficult situation. Despite the logistical difficulties in the end, it has been a marvellous season. We have successfully retrieved a 580 meter ice core drilled in just one month, and we thank all team members for their dedication and efforts in making this happen.

The field part of the RECAP project is now over, and the team has left Greenland. We look forward to working on the ice core in the coming time and share the results.