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Expedition Reader Climate Expedition Greenland 15 – 20 September 2010 Welcome! With this brochure we would like to welcome you to the Greenland Climate Expedition in September of this year. We are in the middle of program and logistics preparations, and we feel it is important to keep informing you about what to expect before and during this unique endeavor that we will be undertaking together. We have a lot to share at this point, hence this extensive brochure. Warmest year ever This year is an especially interesting year to visit the Greenland icecap. June and July were exceptionally warm months on the Greenland west coast, with temperatures rising to well above 20 degrees. It is generally expected that 2010 will become the warmest year ever recorded in Western Greenland. Being present at the end of the arctic summer we should be able to experience firsthand what the impact of this warm year has been to the icecap. We will visit the local airport meteorologists to hear their observations, and also our local guides will be able to tell us about the changes. Expected weather conditions Despite the warmest year ever, we do not expect temperatures in September to be very balmy. Average daytime maximum temperatures halfway September in the expedition area are between 0 and 5 degrees, with average minimum nighttime temperatures to drop to -5 to 0 degrees. However, as we will be at some altitude and on or near the icecap, these temperatures may need to be corrected down by a few degrees. As we cannot predict the exact conditions, we prepare for much lower temperatures, possibly down to -15˚C during the night. As we are on the edge of the Arctic summer and winter, we may encounter the mountains with or (more likely) without snow. The area in Greenland that we visit generally has calm weather conditions, with frequent sun, moderate wind and little snow. But obviously some days are very different. So we will prepare ourselves through an important expedition motto: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst! And safety always has highest priority. If conditions require, we will have to be flexible to adjust our plans at any time. But no matter what, it will be a unique experience! Remco Timmermans Edser Kuiper Reinier van den Berg 1 2 Contents WELCOME! .................................................................................................................................... 1 CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 1 – EXPEDITION ORGANIZATION ........................................................................ 5 Participants...................................................................................................................................................... 5 Program ........................................................................................................................................................... 6 Equipment ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 Filming, photography, broadcast: use of our time ......................................................................................... 10 About Expedition Factory .............................................................................................................................. 11 Carbon Neutral Expeditions ........................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2 - KANGERLUSSUAQ TOWN GUIDE ................................................................ 13 Introduction to Kangerlussuaq....................................................................................................................... 13 History ........................................................................................................................................................... 15 Emergencies and medical aid ......................................................................................................................... 16 Food .............................................................................................................................................................. 17 Water ............................................................................................................................................................ 18 Sondrestrom Research Facility / SRF .............................................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER 3 – EXPEDITION ENVIRONMENT ...................................................................... 21 Sun, moon and stars at Kangerlussuaq .......................................................................................................... 21 Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) .................................................................................................................. 23 Kangerlussuaq weather statistics ................................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 4 – THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET ....................................................................... 29 General Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 29 The melting ice sheet ..................................................................................................................................... 30 Recent ice loss events .................................................................................................................................... 31 Rate of change ............................................................................................................................................... 32 Greenland and Climate Science...................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 5 – GREENLAND FLORA AND FAUNA ............................................................... 35 Polar bear ...................................................................................................................................................... 35 Musk ox ......................................................................................................................................................... 36 Greenlandic reindeer ..................................................................................................................................... 37 Arctic fox ....................................................................................................................................................... 38 Birdlife of Greenland ..................................................................................................................................... 38 Flora of Greenland ......................................................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 7 – ARTICLES FOR DISCUSSION ......................................................................... 41 Temperatures in Greenland rising twice as fast as global average ................................................................. 41 Climate Change in Greenland: Impacts and Response.................................................................................... 42 Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet ....................................................................... 48 Higher surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet revealed by high-resolution climate modeling ....... 52 3 4 Chapter 1 – Expedition Organization Participants We now have 11 people on the participants list, including the organizing guides. On the ice we will be accompanied by a local guide, bringing the total to 12 people in Greenland. In this section we would like to introduce ourselves, and list the other participants for you. Organizers Remco Timmermans Remco is 39 years old, father of two and one of the two owners of Expedition Factory. Remco has been organizing arctic expeditions and winter hikes since 1992, gradually pushing his own limits. Together with Edser, he started as a professional expedition organizer in 2008, when Expedition Factory was founded. Since, we have successfully taken very diverse groups of people to Norway, Finland and Greenland, mostly in the heart of the Arctic winter. Aside from his work as expedition leader Remco works as an interim manager specializing in the field of business process management, lean six sigma, outsourcing and MBTI-based team effectiveness training. Edser Kuiper Edser is the other ‘half’ of the Expedition Factory board. Edser is 39 years old, father of two. Edser has undertaken many winterhikes and short expeditions, initially as hobby, later professionally. He is a trained and certified Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) team trainer, and has followed several expedition skill trainings. Besides his work for Expedition Factory Edser is an interim marketeer and economist, doing strategic and marketing assignments in the financial services industry. Reinier van den Berg Reinier is a well known Dutch meteorologist and TV weather presenter, working for Meteoconsult, a Dutch weather services provider. He is the initiator of this Greenland Climate Expedition. In November of 2009 Reinier