Extreme Arctic 2010 – last minute preparations

Alison McLure, the IOP’s National Officer in Scotland is to join the British Schools Exploring Society (BSES) Extreme Arctic 2010 in Svalbard this April. During the expedition she will keep us up to date with regular features on her research project and life in the Arctic. Here she writes about her last minute preparations

Much of the science work will be carried out later in the expedition, since it is generally too cold in April in early May. This means that I fly out later than the rest of the party. I’ve been glad that I could vote in the election, but am now champing at the bit to get out there. It sounds like they are having a great time.

I am flying out on Sunday morning, but the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland continues to threaten UK airspace. I used to be a meteorologist and one of our jobs was to be able to forecast where plumes of smoke or chemicals would spread if there was an accident somewhere. However, I don’t remember ever thinking about the possibility of forecasting ash clouds from volcanoes. The same principles apply though and the Met Office seems to be doing a good job of tracking the ash and forecasting where it will go.

The monitoring of it is an amazing bit of science and technology. There are quite a few different ways of looking at the ash cloud, these techniques are listed in this web page.The science we will be carrying out in Svalbard will not be as sophisticated, but it will be of use to other scientists, who cannot get to the places in Svalbard that we will reach