I'm free! since being up here in longyearbyen I've had the spectre of my Semester 1 Aberystwyth Exams looming over my head. This is perhaps part of the reason why my blog hasn't been more exciting a read of late, I haven't been trekking along Glaciers and Mountains and visiting Ice and Moraine caves, learning to ski or digging and sleeping in Ice caves. i've been revising (although, as you may remember it hasn't all been work as witnessed by my swimming last week). but now I'm free! I've had a very busy week though, my exams in Electromagnetic theory and Quantum physics were on tuesday and wednesday, so all my lectures from The Upper polar atmosphere and radar diagnostics of space plasma had to be moved to monday, thursday and friday. consequently we've had 6 hours of lectures some days, which, trust me, with material like this can be quite heavy going! I should probably, before moving on to more interesting things than work, say a little more about the exams. well, to be frank, none of us liked them, but i think on the whole we are reasonably confident we have passed because our coursework grades have been pretty good, but only time will tell!

Ok, moving on, I've been told to put more pictures on my blog (not quite sure what that says about the quality of the text!) so this week i'm trying to put up quite a few, including some from this morning. As you can see its getting much lighter here in the middle of the day (although the sun still hasn't made an appearence which is starting to affect Colin!), meaning on the way to UNIS you can see the hills on the opposite side of Adventfjorden (who wouldn't want to go to a university in a setting like that?), and can look up towards the Glaciers from Nybyen and see views like the one to the right (from this morning). It also means I can show you a picture in which you can actually see the barrack that is to be my home from the next few months (woo! Brakke 9!) and not just an outline of a building in the dark as per earlier posts. quite a winter wonderland, I think you'll agree! which leads me nicely on to the climate. Its still too hot! I walked home from friday gathering last night with no hat or scarf or gloves and with my sleeves rolled up, but I guess I did have my beer jacket on! There was a rumour circulating last night that the worlds most northernly kebab van was going to be open, it wasn't when I passed at about 11.45, but apparently it did open later, but which point I was safely tucked up in bed!

Anyway, back to climate, the forecast is for the weather to get much colder on monday, back down to around minus 25 degrees with stronger winds, but encouragingly its going to be quite settled and clear, so we may have a good chance to see some Aurora when the particles from an earth directed coronal hole reach the geomagnetic field some time next week! we're starting to believe that the Aurora are just a myth perpetuated by scientists who make a living lecturing about them! whilst on the subject of science, we have a new lecturer on the radar diagnostics of space plasma course who is hopefully taking us up to the Adventdalen Auroral station next week to see the Eiscat Svalbard Radar (something with which we get practical experience later on in the semester), which is used to measure various plasma parameters in the Earth's ionised upper atmosphere.

okay, on a less scientific note, it was barrack mate Marie's birthday on thursday, so we had a hat party, I, having got home from lectures quite late decided to make a cake (I know Hannah, two in a week!) which turned out to be one of three at the party, which was probably a good thing given the number of people who turned up. we were encouraged to wear a stupid hat, or if we lacked a stupid hat, to make one. I, ever inventive and environment conscious, recycled six pages of quantum mechanics revision notes and fashioned then into a large (although not large enough for my head) Bishop's Mitre! various other people made indian headbands or hats out of beer can boxes, whilst others wore snow scooter helmets, caving helmets and russian hats! Hope you like the pictures of Pirkka, Nils, Marta, brendan and Michi (left) and Jennifer, Laura and Margrete (right) enjoying stupid hats and Amsterdam Beer in the kitchen!

So, as you can see its been a quiet week! other than all this, I've also managed to obtain a D number, which kind of makes me a citizen of Svalbard, which is quite cool, and entitles me to the same hunting and national park access as locals (I think), meaning I'm no longer a tourist! However, given I'm now free and Svalbard is ready to be explored, I'm starting to get mixed feelings about not having a driving license. I'm disappointed that I don't have one because i can't (legally) drive a snow mobile, but relieved because if I could i'd have probably bought one by now and hence would be living off corn flakes for the next few months!

Ash

I'm alive mum! admittedly it was a stupid idea, but about twenty other people seemed to think it was a good idea, and so, today, we went swimming in the fjord in the Polar night! Apparently the strong wind we've been having the last few days blew some of the ice from the fjord away, so the water was accessible. Its still relatively warm here, so I think it was a good day for it. We walked down to the ice edge, stripped down to our swimming shorts and costumes, or, for the more adventurous, less and all got in together!

I include, to the left, some proof that the stupidity of students, particularly those deprived of sunlight for three weeks, knows no bounds. I do, though, have to admit one thing, When I say 'swimming' I actually mean, wading in until the water is deeper than your waist, splashing each other a bit and then running back to the ice and getting out. We were in the water for a very short period of time, but it was sufficient for pretty much everyone to loose the feeling in their feet! once out it was important to get clothes on as quickly as possible, so it was off with wet swimmers and socks, on with a towel and as many clothes as possible as quickly as possible! next time, if there is a next time (!) logistics are hopefully going to let us use the suanas to warm up! well, I have to go, its friday, which means friday gathering down here in UNIS, a few 1 pound cans of Cider and an early night is just what I need, plenty more electromagnetic theory revision to be done this weekend

Thanks to Jørgen and Elisabeth for the photos!

Ash

So, buy now you should be reasonably upto date with the environment i'm living in and the lecture courses I'm following and so on, so time for a more light-hearted post. I'll start by telling you about making a cake. The other day I guess I felt all homely and decided to back, under the pretence that I would present Dayle with the cake for his Birthday. however, this is not quite how things panned out, it seems the smell of cake brings my flat mates out of the woodwork, and hence, by the following day I was only able to present Dayle with a quarter of the cake! I took it to UNIS with candles and matches, so i could give it to him at the lunch break, unfortunately all the matches had been used, so it didn't have quite the desired effect! however, we did sing happy birthday in the middle of the canteen so i think he was suitably embarrassed. After yesterday in UNIS I continued with some work whilst Dayle and some friends went to the Moraine cave at the glacier, and then popped over to his party later on. I can't wait to get the exams out of the way and start seeing a bit of the area around Longyearbyen!

Given that now we're all pretty much settled in and into the routine of lectures, I should also tell you about some independent research I'm conducting. Many of you may remember that before I left Britain, My Uncle Paul presented me with a parcel which he suggested would be necessary for my survival in the high arctic. However, I have no idea what they are designed for! I have included a photograph so that you can see the aforementioned items, and perhaps suggest possible uses. I have only had a little time to conduct research I have so far only been able to find one possible use:

anybody with further suggestions is invited to comment on this post and I will endevour to test out your hypotheses!

Ash

Hello there! Its now the second week of lectures, so I find I increasingly have to drink in order to have anything interesting to say! No, I'm kidding, but it was quite a heavy weekend, what with friday gathering in UNIS and then some drinks in one of the down stairs kitchens on saturday night! There was quite a few different spirits on offer, so much Cognac, Whisky, Vodka and rum was consumed by all. People here seemed to have got into the swing of being in the Arctic now, so people are often out skiing, snow mobiling, ice caving, and walking up the hills and glaciers. Me, on the otherhand, well I've been a good boy and have been revising for my exams! so instead of telling you about the wonders of Longyearbreen glacier, I would have to tell you of the wonders of particles in three dimensional infinite potential wells; so I'll spare you that.

So, instead, perhaps a little bit more about Longyearbyen. Well, this is the view from my window in barrack 9 of the rest of Nybyen, across the road is barrack 4, and there are a few 'hotels' and 'art galleries' in the other buildings. longyearbyen is at the end of the valley. We've had a really mild weekend, with temperatures as high as minus 6! its really surprising how quickly the weather can change here. as i've said before the temperature was really low (between minus 20 and 30) for the last few weeks, but now its warmed up considerably. perversely, it now feels quite warm out, and wearing the amount of clothes I was wearing last week causes rapid overheating! On the way to UNIS this morning I had to take my hat, scarf and gloves off (sorry Nan!)

In other news, we had a really bright moon

recently, so we were afforded the best view to date of our surroundings. this photo is taken from the front door of my barrack (so you can see more of Nybyen) but the mountains in the background are on the other side of the Fjord UNIS is next too, giving you some idea of the walk in the morning! and i have 9 o'clock lectures everyday! We haven't seen any more Aurora yet, but a solar wind stream hit last night, which means an increased solar wind speed and density and hence more probable Auroras. looking at the data on the internet it seems there would have been good Aurora over Longyearbyen at about 3 this morning, so i certainly didn't see them! its also a tad overcast here. However, If you look to the south in the middle of the day, the sky is considerably brighter than it was when we got here, so it won't be that long until the sun rises! I believe the sun rises properly on the 14th February, which coincides with our 'icebreaker party' (which I'll tell you about in due course) and the Wales vs England rugby match. thats going to be a really good day!

Ash

Just a quick one today, last night i was hard at work, revising for exams (honestly) when I was told that there were some good Aurora. So, bravely, out I ventured in slippers and a fleece to capture this shot. I had to go in then because I was freezing and I think it was towards the end of the 'display'. i'll keep an eye out for the next few days, it seems that the sun is finally starting to play ball!

Ash

Hello there reader, I believe when we last spoke I had one more day of the safety training left before the practical exercise. Well, on the friday we went out onto the sea ice (the Fjord at the bottom of the valley in which Longyearbyen is located is frozen over) and did various activities. We used axes to cut holes into the ice to check its thickness (it was 60cm thick) but apparently you can walk and ski on 10cm (4 inches), and use a snow mobile on 30cm (12 inches). I some how don't fancy walking over a Fjord on only 10cm of ice!

We then practiced what to do if someone falls into the water, which basically consisted of tying a rope to a gerry can and throwing it in their direction. Its surprisingly difficult to get any distance on your throw! we also practiced crawling along the ice using small metal picks, which we are supposed to use to get back on the ice if we fall in the water. it was difficult enough to crawl on them never mind lift yourself out of the water, although I guess if you're in that situation, you'll find the strength to use them!

the final part of the safety training was instruction on setting up an emergency camp (say if you are out in the field and one of the party gets injured and you have to set up a camp to wait for the emergency helicopter) which consisted of putting up tents (inside, so using duct tape instead of pegs!), setting up polar bear trip wires around the camp with flares to alert you of their presence and use of the emergency stove.

So, now it was time to put all the skills learnt to test out on Longyearbreen glacier. We met on saturday morning outside the barracks in Nybyen, and walked up to the terminal morraine (rocks and snow etc.) at the snout (end) of the glacier. we were split into three groups to rotate around the practical training. My group first did practical first aid and emergency camp, I helped set up a large 5 person tent (there was one 5 person and two 2 person tents) and set up a polar bear trip wire around it. Meanwhile the other half of the group tended to 4 'casualties', One unconscious, one broken arm, one broken leg and, I think, a neck injury. The broken arm and the unconscious guy were brought to my tent, which i was unluckily inside at the time, which made me the person responsible for them, along with a scottish guy who was part of the casualty evacuation team. The unconscious guy seemed a little annoyed that I hadn't talked to him, but we kept him warm and checked he was breathing, leaving him in the recovery position. It seemed more necessary to talk to the conscious patient (with the broken arm) to keep her spirits up until the hypothetical rescue helicopter arrived.

Next we practiced avalanche rescue, locating buried 'victims' from their emergency beacons or visible clues on the surface of the avalanche, probed the area with avalanche probes and dug them out with shovels. At least the digging kept us kind of warm! Then last station was crevasse rescue, where we rigged up a rope system to lower a person into a 'crevasse' (more down a steep slope really), to rescue a further casualty.

By this point my toes were freezing! I was wearing virtually everything I own, long sleeve thermals, long johns, thin fleece, thick fleecy coat, two pair of socks, boots, scarf, face mask, goggles (although they steamed up, so i had to take them off, at which point they froze!), hat, one or two pairs of gloves. I was glad to get off the glacier after 5 hours and get on the (kindly provided) bus back to UNIS. wiggling your toes is no replacement for getting to somewhere warm!

In UNIS we were given some time to eat our packed lunches, the pasta and sandwiches i had made had frozen, so i microwaved the sanwhiches, which were still cold in places, but warm and soggy in others, and also ate a bar of chocolate I'd bought from the reduced to clear bin in Coop. I didn't feel guilty about eating lots of chocolate because apparently we'd burn up to 4000 calories on the glacier. I also found that sharing chocolate around is a good way to make friends, especially after 5 hours at minus 30ish!

After lunch we did the written test which completes the safety course, followed by some beer and pizza provided by the logistics department and the friday gathering booze! then, a well earned lie in. I awoke the next day at seven, went back to sleep and got up at 11! Sunday was an uneventful day, about all worth mentioning is me and Colin's, pretty successful, attempt at making pancakes (although the American guy disagreed that they were actually pancakes!)

Its now monday and we've just had an introduction lecture to the upper polar atmosphere course, which is to be followed after lunch by a lecture about the other course, radar diagnostics of space plasma. In other news, apparently there has been a Polar bear sighting in the next Fjord over, but the Aurora are still conspicuous by their absence. It seems the Sun is very inactive at the moment. But my wide angle lense is constantly attached to my camera, on the tripod, set to manual with a reasonably long exposure and wide open aperture, just on the off chance!

well thats enough for now, its all lectures this week (i get a lie in tomorrow) so maybe I've told you all the interesting stuff for a while! Watch this space

Ash

Ok, as promised i'm posting some details of the safety course as they are more interesting than the previous post! the less i say about monday the better, we all got dressed up in virtually all the outdoor clothing we own in preparation for a day outdoors (and this week its been around 30 below 0!) and we spent the whole day in a lecture room listening to the governer of UNIS talking about the place, the Sysselmannen's cheif of police and cheif of environment (Sysselman being the governer of Svalbard) talking about administration and the environment and one of the crew of the rescue helicopter based here in Longyearbyen talking about first aid; slowly. As I said, the less i talk about these the better, so I'll leave it there.

The rest of the week so far has been much more exciting. We have been put into groups of around 12 and we rotate around 8 different activites, two per day. I knew about half of the people in my group at the beginning, so it was nice to see some familiar faces (albeit only having met them in the previous few days) and to be able to meet some more new people. I'm starting to remember people's names now, but theres quite a few people who I am sure have introduced themselves to me, which I can't remember!

On Tuesday morning we learnt the procedure used to rescue someone who has fallen into a crevasse or meltwater channel of a glacier (glaciers cover 60% of Svalbard if I'm not mistaken, so I guess its important) from a guy who is part of the local glacier rescue crew. This involves a lot of knot tying (or seemed to) so we spent quite a while practising Viking knots and french knots and double 8 knots etc. etc. I was able to do them all at the time, but I'm not sure how competent I would be in a few months time, panicing, on a glacier, in the cold, with gloves on. I guess the lesson was to not get yourself into that situation and if you do, phone the professionals. That lesson concluded by simulating, in teams of four, tying ropes and pulleys and harnesses etc. to someone to lower them into a crevasse to rescue someone. Our substitute for a crevasse was a balcony on the top floor! We managed to tie everything correctly, winch the guy down from the balcony and then pull him back up again successfully, so i guess we passed that part!

That afternoon we learnt about the danger of avalanches and how to rescue someone buried under the snow. this lesson was even more about prevention being better than cure, because unless you get someone out within about 20 minutes, there chance of surviving drops rapidly. We used beacons that can be set to transmit (for when walking) and search (for if looking for someone) to locate a beacon buried in the snow, and used search poles to probe the snow for resistence, and then shovels to dig! On tuesday night a group of us from my barrack went to the sports centre to play snow rugby, which is exactly as it sounds, 'touch' rugby at minus 30 in the snow. Its the first time i've ever managed to play a sport wearing two fleeces and thermals!

Wednesday morning, I'm aching all over! I had to have a long hot shower last night because my midrift was really cold! this morning we did navigation and communications, where we learnt to use global positioning systems and upload routes to follow onto them, learnt to use satellite phones and the radio protocol on the island. we then did this for a short trip between UNIS, the radisson hotel and back, using the gps, and making calls on the radio and satellite phone.

In the afternoon we had the polar bear safety course, in other words; rifle training. We shot in the prone position and kneeling, learnt about rifle maintainence, shot flare guns (used to attempt to scare off polar bears, shooting them being a last resort) and discussed behaviour of the group when conducting field work, if a polar bear is present. Apparently, if a polar bear charges at us we must shoot at about 100m, but the only polar bear ever shot by a UNIS student was shot at 1.5m! It gave us all an appreciation of why we must always carry a rifle when we leave Longyearbyen.

That night I went to bed early, because I've had to be up at 6 every morning. I finished reading the copy of Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons' that I found lying around in the barrack, which should please those who have said I should read some fiction! Up again at 6 this morning, I've had First Aid with the aforementioned helicopter rescue guy, which included performing CPR on one of those dummies. This afternoon was probably the least exciting of the course, the Health Safety and Logistics tour, which was a lecture showing us the various forms we need to fill in to do anything, followed by a tour of the labs with the lab coordinator, and a tour of the building with the study coordinator. The building is really nice, all copper and wood and windows, and the labs are really modern and put Aberystwyth's to shame! however, it sounds like us Geophysicists (what i'm having to call myself up here instead of an Astrophysicist) will spend most of our time in lectures. We do have some field work at the EISCAT radar site/Adventdalen Auroral station, but most other course seems to include a cruise! Ah well...

Thanks for reading

Ash

Well, what a difference in two new years eves! I spent the last day of 2007 slightly worse for wear (as many may remember) in the Cornmill and Wynnstay (from the few pictures I have seen of this years celebrations in Llangollen, it would seem that little has changed!). I spent the last day of 2008 at Oslo airport (which, by the way is nowhere near Oslo) waiting to fly to Svalbard.

Briefly, In case you don't know, I'm up in the Norwegian high Arctic for 6 months (ish) studying at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). My courses are 'The Upper Polar Atmosphere' and 'Radar Diagnostics of Space Plasma' (admittedly, I'm not sure what its about either!) which together make up half my masters year under the title 'Arctic Geophysics'.

So, to bring you up to date, Our possible plans for spending new year in Oslo was scuppered by the fact it was 50 minutes by road from the airport (and 20 minutes by a seemingly non-existent train) , which, at new year, I should imagine, meant a prohibitively expensive taxi ride. Instead we tried to get food at the airport, but most things were closed, so resorted to eating in the hotel (the radisson, by the way, a final extravagance before the arctic!). So I welcomed in the new year, not stooped over drunkenly in some local pub, but listening to 80's music on Norwegian TV!

The flight from Oslo took us to Longyearbyen (Svalbard) via Tromso, at the top of Norway. It was apparently minus 17 degrees celcius when we arrived. We were bussed from the airport to our barracks at Nybyen (just further up the valley from Longyearbyen) which are to be my home for the next 6 months. Since then I've been to the shopping street a couple of times, primarily for food, and we've visited UNIS and some of the other Barracks.

On friday night most students head for the UNIS canteen where we have a little party (with cheap booze) which was a great opportunity to meet people from other Barracks. I've meet people from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, Denmark (I think), America and a few more Brits. other than that, we had a little gathering in our barracks last night, which was a great opportunity to find out whether i could remember the names of anyone I'd met! A few more people arrived today, but I think everyone is here now because the safety course starts tomorrow, which everyone must attend. At least a week of rifle shooting, Crevase rescuing and first aid should give me something to talk about in subsequent posts, which will be more interesting than a chronological description of my flights!

Almost forgot to mention that its polar night here, the sun doesn't rise until mid february, so its dark all day, you can see the stars all the time, I've seen a few shooting stars, one of which was really impressive, but no Aurora worth mentioning, just milky green lighter patches in the sky, expect pictures when I see some good ones!

I'll finish by running you through the attire needed even to pop to the shops here at Longyearbyen in the winter: An extra pair of woolly socks, walking boots, thermal long johns, waterproof trousers, a t shirt or thermal dependent on how cold it is, a thin fleece and then a bigger fleecy coat with waterproof outer layer, a scarf, hat and at least one pair of gloves.
I find walking to town in this is fine, but walking back up hill with a load of shopping, this can become a tad hot, so I'm working on a compromise!

Hope everyone is well at home.

Ash