After trekking 580km across an ice sheet, exploring a cold war radar station, collecting data for scientists around the globe and rubbing shoulders with billionaires on a research boat, Dr Adrian McCallum is back at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
The UniSC Engineering Lead has spent the past three months on an epic adventure, collecting crucial data for our understanding of the oceans, ice caps and climates in far flung corners of the Arctic Circle.
It sounds idyllic, but Dr McCallum says the reality was a lot less romantic.
“It was monotonous, tedious at times, and downright hard,” he said.
“But everyone survived and we got all the data we wanted. I’d call that a success!”
The first leg of the journey started in Greenland, where Dr McCallum formed part of a team trekking 580km across Greenland’s ice cap on foot – gathering ground data from remote locations and demonstrating the viability of low-impact scientific expeditions.
While they were prepared for polar bears, crevasses, snowstorms and exhaustion, Dr McCallum said the most perilous hazard they encountered, was his boots.
“They nearly derailed everything. Around 200km in they completely fell apart,” he said.
“If we couldn’t repair them, we would either have had to fly in a new pair at an eye-watering cost, or even worse, abort the whole thing.”
Luckily they made it to an American air strip in the middle of the ice, where they were given roofing screws and a tube of glue to patch things up.
While they waited for the repairs to take hold, the team took the chance to explore a nearby deserted cold war radar station, where Dr McCallum says they were treated to one of the strangest experiences of the whole journey.
“It was fascinating. It was abandoned in just the space of a few days in the ‘80s and has mostly been left as is. There were beers in the fridge, sheets on the beds, and these incredible control rooms and radar rooms,” he said.
“There was also a group of five Norwegian soldiers crossing the ice sheet, and one of them was a pianist. He unrolled this portable battery-powered keyboard and performed a concert for us underneath the radar dome.”
It was a fleeting moment of fun, in an otherwise unrelenting 32-day journey.
Between collecting GPR (ground-penetrating data), surface elevation, passive seismic, snow density and ice core data, the group was treated to nothing but exhaustion, biting cold, limited visibility and a sea of endless white.
“There is almost nothing to see for hundreds of kilometres, it’s complete visual deprivation,” Dr McCallum said.
“You have to disappear into your head, into your own little world and just plough through. And that can be hard going if there’s been fresh snow. It’s just step, sink, step, sink.
“The last week it started getting very cold and windy and we were advised there were 100kmph winds coming – meaning we had to get to our destination and off the ice. That last day we went from 6am until 1am, covering almost 45km.
“But we made it, proving that lightweight, adventurous, scientific research expeditions can be valuable. We got huge amounts of data that might have costs millions of dollars to obtain by traditional means.”
Photos of The Greenland Project by niklasheinecke.com
While the rest of the group disbanded and went home, Dr McCallum had a quick rest and recoup before embarking on another research expedition, this time on a one-of-a-kind cruise ship.
“I joined French cruise company PONANT on this fantastic icebreaker – one of the most powerful in the world which gives you access to places other ships can’t go. We were as far as 82 degrees north, gathering oceanographic data that has probably never been collected,” he said.
Like The Greenland Project, the core idea was about gathering hard-to-obtain data from incredibly remote places. But Dr McCallum noted some differences between trekking on foot and travelling on a research vessel that doubles as a luxury cruise ship.
“The contrast was pretty stark to hunkering down with five people in a smelly tent with the wind trying to blow you away. We were among millionaires, even some billionaires,” he said.
“I was deploying a CTD, which is an instrument that measures temperature, salinity and depth. In one fjord, we were gathering data in a place which a glacier had covered until very recently. Five years ago we would been under the ice.
“We weren’t there to deliberately track climate change, but the data speaks for itself. The glaciers are receding. The environment has changed. Hopefully this will add some small pieces to the puzzle and help us unlock what’s going on.”
Media enquiries: Please contact the Media Team media@usc.edu.au