Glaciological research, Lapland, Arctic Sweden – 2009
Alessandro Gusmeroli, a 24 year-old postgraduate student at the
Glaciology Group at Swansea University is planning to conduct an
expedition in the Kebnekaise massif in Lapland, Arctic Sweden.
Kebnekaise is Sweden’s highest mountain at 2,103 metres above sea
level. The field research, to be conducted in April 2009, involves
the development of innovative measurement techniques and acquisition
of geophysical data to measure ice properties of Storglaciaren, one
of the best studied glaciers in the world.
Alessandro, an Italian national with extensive winter
mountaineering experience, received £1,000 funding from the JWCT in
October 2008 for expedition travel and accommodation costs at
Tarfala research station as well as shipping of equipment for his
expedition.
Alessandro informed the JWCT that “the data collected from
this expedition will provide a significant step forward in several
important glaciological topics such as glacier ice flow and response
of ice masses to climatic changes.” He hopes to publish these
findings in scientific peer-reviewed journals on completion of his
fieldwork.
August 2009
Alessio Gusmeroli sent the following
update:
“I am in Arctic Sweden again,
at the Tarfala Research Station. When I got back from the spring 2009
field season (which was partially funded by your generous support) I
received the delighting news that a big proposal I wrote in collaboration
with my supervisor has been successful. National Geographic gave us
US$ 18,000 to undertake extensive drilling and borehole based glaciological
and geophysical measurements on the same glacier, Storglaciaren. Fieldwork
is going very well, it started on 8 July and I will be back in the UK
on 9 September. We have been testing new experiments in two different
areas of the glacier and I look forward to come back and put together
this new dataset, together with the measurements we carried out in the
spring. The techniques we are using are innovative and I hope to obtain
a comprehensive picture which will then be used to understand the glacier
response to climate change. Other good news is that the first paper
of this research is now ready to be submitted to the Journal of Geophysical
Research (one of the world´s leading journal in Earth Sciences).
I am now three weeks left and my plan is to move all the equipment to
a third site, higher up in the glacier.
I attach the
poster
that is going to be presented by my supervisor, Professor Tavi Murray,
at the British Branch meeting of the International Glaciological Society,
which will be held in Sheffield on 2 September. The poster shows the
figures and the main message of the paper I am going to submit to the
Journal of Geophysical Research when I will be back from the field.”
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