The activities in Kinnvika 2009

Kinnvika was a project within the International Polar Year initiative that focused on both Arctic warming and on this fairly unexplored part of the Arctic. The old Kinnvika station in Svalbard served as the logistic platform for the scientists during six research expeditions in 2007–2009. In 2009 the Kinnvika and Vestfonna expeditions comprised a total of 39 individuals who spent 439 man-days in Kinnvika, during two winter/spring legs and three summer legs. Five persons joined both spring and summer operations. Transportation was provided by helicopter flights: 11 flights by Airlift and 6 flights by the Norwegian Coast Guard from KV Svalbard. Ships used for transport were KV Svalbard (7 people), RV Horyzont (26 people) and MS Farm (4 people). Weather reduced the first spring leg to a total of only 3 long workdays on Vestfonna; fortunately all other legs experienced better weather conditions.

Spring operations

The spring operations were initially planned into three different legs:

1. A snowmobile mechanic team (2 people), which aimed to service and make functional the machinery in Kinnvika.
2. A first science leg comprising Finnish-Swedish-US teams (8 people).
3. A German-Polish team (8 people).

In order to optimise use of the snow machine park at Kinnvika – consisting of 11 more or less manoeuvrable vehicles after the rugged demands of the 2008 campaign – the activities of the teams were planned for different legs. Transportation and logistics

As we approached the final planning phase we found that time was too short to send a primary snowmobile mechanic team, so the first two planned legs were combined. Two participants were sent to Longyearbyen in advance to compile the equipment stored in Longyearbyen and deposited at the Norwegian Polar Institute following previous Kinnvika expeditions, and to gather new provisions. The flight out for leg 1 was planned for 14–15 April, but a persistent high pressure over Svalbard, which brought calm conditions and clear skies to Longyearbyen, resulted in a northerly gale and heavy fog over Hinlopen Strait for a week, keeping leg 1 grounded in Longyearbyen. Frustration at the deceptively fair weather, and the lack of accommodation in the village, was the call that week. After two attempts at f lying out, and a damaged rotor on the Airlift Dauphine helicopter, the Norwegian Polar Institute managed to get us onboard the Norwegian coast guard ice breaking vessel KV Svalbard for transportation into Hinlopen.

By 22 April KV Svalbard could penetrate no further into the sea-ice laden Hinlopen, and we were f lown in to Kinnvika from some distance offshore Danskøya by the Lynx helicopter. The Austfonna IPY-GLACIODYN team were also onboard but did not have the same luck: the distance to their goal, Oxfjorden, was too great to cover in the windy weather. Rotation flights for the exchange of legs 1 and 2 proceeded as planned excepting a few days delay due to weather, and were carried out on 15 May. Leg 2 stayed in Kinnvika until 26 May.

Fieldwork in winter and spring conditions

Both legs 1 and 2 performed a large part of their planned work on Vestfonna. Leg 1 retrieved one firn core and snow samples from several snow pits and succeeded to drive several profiles of ice radar, as well as a large extensional grid of altimetry using differential GPS (DGPS). Leg 2 downloaded all data from the automatic weather stations (AWS), maintained the stations, and drove snow radar along the crest of Vestfonna. Furthermore, during leg 1 we also managed to uncover the depot left from last year’s ice drilling adventures at Camp Ahlmann.

The large accumulation of snow over last year, in combination with the melt period of last summer, resulted in a several decimetre thick ice layer superimposed on the depot, which we found beneath 2 m of winter snow. The excavation took a couple of days. The large and unexpected accumulation on Vestfonna during 2008–2009 also meant that all stations installed on the accumulation area of the ice cap were embedded deep under the snow. Many of the ice velocity and mass balance markers were lost, and parts of AWS instruments were buried. The 2008–2009 accumulation was approximately more than twice the normal accumulation of snow and ice, when compared to accumulation rates determined from earlier ice core work. In addition one of the AWS fundaments for solar panels was broken and bent, probably the work of a polar bear.

Both legs used the Kinnvika station as a base, and used a tent camp at Camp Ahlmann as a temporary base for campaigns on Vestfonna. The snow cover was thinner compared to last year. We were able to drive on sea ice on Murchinson Bay for the first week of leg 1, saving a lot of transportation time since it became possible to drive between Ahlmann and Kinnvika in just 2 hours. In May melting sea ice prevented safe driving conditions, and we had to take the inland route along Storstein Peninsula. However, wind erosion during the storm event in late April created large fields of almost un-navigable snow ripples (sastrugi) and bare ground patches that grew in size with the season, which increased the trip to 6 hours one way. This also created hostile conditions for shock absorption systems on the snow machines, and suspension parts failed on the machines, one after the other.

We repaired the machinery continuously, but towards the end only half of them were manoeuvrable. Nevertheless, armed with ingenuity and good spirits, our crew managed to find a way to solve problems as they appeared and we were able to fulfill our tasks well.

Summer logistics and fieldwork

The summer expeditions comprised a total of 29 individuals in three legs. The first leg manned by German and US glaciologists and climatologists was flown in by Airlift on 4 August to Kinnvika, their task being to empty instruments of their data. Their initial plan was to fly to the depot at Donckerfjellet, but fog over Nordaustlandet made the extension to Doncker impossible.

The following day leg 2, manned with Finnish sedimentologists and a documentary film team, reached Murchinson Bay on the MS Farm where they would sample sediments from the last glaciation of the area. MS Farm gave the German/US team of leg 1 a lift to the inner part of Murchinson Bay for their hike to Doncker, where they camped for a couple of days, before hiking back to Kinnvika. The third, final and largest leg came in with RV Horyzont II on 10 August. The research teams arriving with Horyzont were: terrestrial water chemistry, terrestrial algae and permafrost georadar teams, with Polish/Luxembourg members, a Danish/Swedish palaeontology and historical geology team, and a Swedish Kinnvika clean-up squad. A Polish bathymetry team was also onboard Horyzont, aiming to map up uncharted areas of Murchinson Bay. Subsequently, MS Farm returned to Longyearbyen with three of the Finnish team members, and the terrestrial teams stayed at Kinnvika station, while all others were lodged onboard Horyzont. The teams made day trips from Horyzont using small RIBs to fulfill their tasks, combined with hikes to ice fields or along geological and sedimentological units.

Cleaning and leaving

Two whole days were employed to clean-out and repair the Kinnvika station from the depots of several tonnes we had accumulated during the three years we have been present.

The Horyzont crew was very helpful, repairing windows and hauling goods from the beach to the ship. All operations – both from a scientific and a logistical perspective – regarding the clean out of the station proceeded better than hoped for, and since winds were unusually calm for the season we stayed in Murchinson Bay. RV Horyzont II weighed anchor and left the bay and Kinnvika on 15 August. A few days later, representatives for the Governor of Svalbard made an inspection trip to Kinnvika, and they were pleased with the state in which we had left the station. In total these activities in 2009 at Kinnvika and Vestfonna summed up to 555 man-days, by 23 different individuals, who consumed 4 300 l of petrol (~1 700 hours of snow mobile driving), used 38 hrs of helicopter flights, and were aided by three different ships.

Summing up for the future

During the three years we ran expeditions to Kinnvika, we completed 6 major expeditions, involving 69 participants and 1305 man-days in the field. The IPY project Kinnvika has now ended the expedition phase, except for a number of minoroperations in 2010 to recover the last instruments left on site. The reporting phase is ongoing. Several manuscripts are on the way, and at least two publications from Kinnvika works have been published so far. In legacy terms, we are planning a special volume in Geografiska Annaler of short accounts from all involved teams, and we have also hired a professional writer to compile facts and fiction from Kinnvika.