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It was a busy summer of science at Summit Station in 2023. The station saw an expansion of astrophysical equipment to measure neutrinos from space. The Radar Echo Telescope (RET) will be a nice complement to the existing Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G), which has been gearing up at Summit for the past few years. In addition, two ice coring projects acquired relatively short ice cores for studying atmospheric gases and aerosols. To top it off, the long-standing ICECAPS project at Summit made special observations of atmospheric aerosol concentrations and size distributions using a novel kite.

STRATTON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, SCOTIA, N.Y. –The New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing wrapped up its annual support to the National Science Foundation in Greenland when Airmen and LC-130 “Skibirds” returned to Stratton Air National Guard Base on Aug. 23. The unit supplied 2.4 million pounds of cargo, eighty-six-thousand gallons of fuel and delivered 1300 passengers to research locations across the Greenland Ice Cap. The wing’s aircrews flew a total of 721 hours support the science stations from April to August. Four hundred Airmen rotated through the mission during the five-month time frame. Three LC-130 Hercules aircraft were deployed during each of the seven deployment periods.

At the apex of the Greenland ice sheet, a community of 41 scientists and support staff carry out cutting-edge research into everything from climate change to particle physics

For two hours, I had been sitting amid heavy cargo inside the hot, cavernous fuselage of a ski-equipped New York National Air Guard Hercules C-130. Other than the pilots, the aircraft carried just me, two loadmasters and Mike Jayred, a highly reputed ice-coring engineer who has spent the past two decades extracting some of the oldest and most precious climate records ever retrieved from Greenland and Antarctica. Any attempts at conversation were drowned out by the pressurisation, the roar of the propellor engines and our fluorescent earplugs.

STRATTON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Scotia, New York -- Three LC-130 “Skibirds”, and around 75 Airmen from the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing will be heading for Greenland at the end of April to support National Science Foundation science research there. The 109th flies the largest aircraft in the world which are capable of landing on snow and ice and conduct resupply missions for American scientific research in Antarctica when it is winter in New York and in Greenland during the summer months.

Rare rain event occurs at Summit Station. During the summer of 2021, it rained at Summit Station on August 14th. Liquid water occurs often in the atmosphere at Summit in a couple of different forms. Researchers often observe supercooled liquid water clouds over the station in summer. Most of the time, these water droplets are mixed with ice crystals to create “mixed-phase” clouds. Station personnel also observe rime on structures. Riming occurs when supercooled water droplets collide with a surface, then freeze, creating an icy glaze. This is something that the science technicians must contend with to keep outdoor instruments happy and healthy.

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to participate in a collaborative workshop targeted at identifying the Future of Greenland Ice Sheet Science. Although this workshop is organized at the behest of U.S.-based funding agencies, we invite the perspectives and participation of our international colleagues as well.

The Future of Greenland Ice Sheet Science (FOGSS) workshop descends from the successful legacies of the previous NASA PARCA and NSF GEOSummit workshop. The FOGSS workshop will consist of collaborative priority-setting discussions as well as brief presentations focused on increasing the impact of existing and proposed research activities in Greenland.

We have launched a website containing further information regarding the structure and orientation of this workshop, which is scheduled over Zoom for three hrs per day, April 6-8.

https://www.fogss-workshop.org/

Just a month after rainfall was recorded for the first time ever at Greenland's highest point, the island is expecting up to four feet of snow from the remnants of Hurricane Larry — the rare tropical storm to stay intact so far north. Hurricane-force gusts topped 100 miles per hour at Kulusuk Airport near Greenland's southeast coast. At Tasiilaq, the largest town in the region, sustained winds reached 55 miles per hour, with gusts of over 90.

This is just a quick reminder of the workshop on Greenland Fieldwork scheduled for next week, Sept 14 and Sept 16 from 12:30-16:30 US Eastern Time.

Due to a glitch in the registration form, if you are planning on attending, please send RSVP sco@geo-summit.org for meeting and connection details, and send along any mini-talks you have. Happy to answer any questions. All are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Previous announcement:

Dear Greenland Research Community,

Dear Greenland Research Community,

We invite you to a virtual meeting to discuss future goals for NASA and NSF funded field projects working on the Greenland Ice Sheet, Sept 14 and Sept 16, 2021, 12:30-16:30 eastern. Our goal is to discuss synergies for current and future field programs working on the ice sheet. This meeting is designed to be a combination of what in the past has been the GEOSummit workshop discussing future science goals at NSF's Summit Station, Greenland and a mini, field-centric version of NASA's PARCA meeting. We envision a return to PARCA's roots, devoted to discussing the science and results coming out of the various field campaigns supported by NASA and NSF and possible synergies between deploying projects. We are soliciting 5 min lightning talks (two slides max!) focused on fieldwork and field data that include 1) your most recent, exciting Greenland results you want to share and 2) future plans and logistics needs. We welcome any follow-on to recent traverse and field safety workshops and discussions.

Greenland just experienced another massive melt event this year. But this time, something unusual happened. It also rained at the summit of the ice sheet, nearly two miles above sea level. Around 6 a.m. Saturday, staff at the National Science Foundation’s Summit Station woke up to raindrops and water beads condensed on the station’s windows. Rain occasionally falls on the ice sheet, but no staff member recalls rain — even a light drizzle — ever occurring at the summit before.