So tomorrow is our first flight! The plane arrived back from Wallops and we're ready to head out. And we're heading to the most famousest of all Greenland glaciers, the mighty, the swiftly-retreating, and the well-visualized Jakobshaven Glacier! [Insert Kermit voice here -- yaaayayay!] I'm so excited.
And then I find out, we won't be doing a flight like this over the actual outlet glacier itself:
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| (actually this is the Rink Glacier, but one gets the idea) |
Instead we'll be spending 8.4 hours flying over the catchment of the glacier -- that large, and I'm imagining, featureless and flat, expanse of ice that one day will drain out of the glacier. We're not going to take the 15 minute detour to complete one of the most stunning flightpaths on Earth. (or so I imagine.) Yay science.
Anyway, here's the flight plan for tomorrow:
And here is what I understand to be the composite flight plan for all five potential flights in this region, together with a Rignot velocity map underneath. I imagine the green areas are ice that's slowly slinking its way toward the coast, while the blue areas are in freefall. [note to self: keep learning about ice.]
So I am excited to finally get to fly tomorrow, and maybe it will be best if we ease into it a bit. Save the pretty stuff for when I figure out how to shoot out of the airplane. With correct exposure, decent image stability, and without throwing up. Hmph. I forgot about that last part.
No throwing up! Remember, just picture your stomach in its underwear. This actually works. Just some brotherly advice.
ReplyDeleteheheh. I've actually been taking a dramamine before every flight. Just don't want to deal with nausea on top of other challenges.
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