The students, Sahana Raghunandan, Mahmood Abdul Hammed and Anthony Hoch, will be studying evidence from the last glacial period using the GISMO radar system.
“Ultimately we want to use the GISMO radar to see what Greenland would look like if you took the ice off of it,” Ingalls said.
With increasing concerns about global climate change and rising sea levels, CReSIS develops new technologies and computer models to measure and predict sea level change from melting ice sheets, Ingalls said. The student group is working with a Danish team, who is chemically analyzing samples of ice from the Eemian layer, which is the bottom layer of the ice sheet. Raghunandan and Hammed will work with the radar until he returns on May 15.
Raghunandan worked twelve-hour days the week before leaving this past Sunday, preparing files and data systems to process the information the radar would collect, she said.
“It is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be going to Greenland. It will be exciting to see if the radar is working like we expect it to be,” Raghunandan said.
The data from GISMO will help determine how much the ice cap over Greenland shrunk during the last global warming period, Ingalls said. He says the data is important for both scientists and the general public.
“What we need to do is create models for scientists that explain the more rapid, more interesting things that have been going on. Once we get these models right, we will be able to better predict the contribution of these ice sheets and their response to climate change,” Ingalls said.
With over 107 million people in the world living within one meter of sea level, Ingalls said the ice is important to take into consideration.
“It is pretty important if you live somewhere like Bangladesh and you rely on the environment to survive. Or, if you are a land developer in Miami and your concerned about whether your investment is going to pan out or be under water in 100 years,” Ingalls said.
The trip to Greenland will be Raghunandan’s first, however, several other CReSIS students and staff conduct research on the ice sheets regularly. Christopher Allen, associate director of technology, said it would take three summers of drilling in Greenland to reach the Eemian layer of ice closest to the bottom.
“We get to the location on the ice sheet, set up camp, start drilling into the ice and by August we have to leave before the bad weather hits. We can only get a third of the way down each time,” Allen said.
Students will be hundreds of miles from civilization, three kilometers above sea level, Allen said.
“It is featureless,” Allen said. “There is snow to the horizon in all directions and the sun never sets.” The students are equipped with tents and gear designed for arctic deployment, Allen said. The trip is funded through CReSIS which is supported financially by the National Science Foundation, NASA and KU.