PERMANTAR-3. Livingston Island

Since the high air pressure decided to stay with us for another day we have decided to drop all the house chores (like laundry or shower) that in recent days became extremely necessary, ignore katabatic down-glacier winds and head for previously established snow sampling sites to collect the data on microbial activity within the snowpack. Equipped with syringes for CO2 measurements, a spectrometer for measuring light penetration and a black bin bag to put over our heads to protect the computer while doing the measurements, we headed towards our glacial sites first. There is nothing more satisfactory than seeing your hard work and effort bringing good results. Freezing fingers, watering eyes, cheeks red from wind and sun were all forgotten when we’ve sat down in our temporary lab back at the station and analyzed the spectra. The truly exciting part will be to combine them with our measurements of chlorophyll concentrations that we’ve taken few days ago and the analyses of cell types that we will carry out back home at the University of Sheffield. Another successful day came to an end. One starts to wonder how many days like that we have left..? 

Aga Nowak, University of Sheffield