If you get lemons, make lemonade; if you get snow, do snow science.
Last year, science faculty member Matt Bingham traveled to Greenland with a team of environmental scientists to be part of the Disko Bay Ice Coring Project. With the help of his students, Mr. Bingham created a blog to record his research on the influence of sea-surface variability on ice sheet mass balance and outlet glacier behavior.
This week, Mr. Bingham and his team of students used techniques from Greenland’s Ice Coring Project to conduct research on ice formations right here on Milton’s campus. The group dug two back-to-back snow pits, leaving a thin wall between the two holes. They then covered one snow pit with a sheet of plywood to block any natural light. Sunlight shining through the open snow pit filtered into the covered snow pit, allowing students in the covered pit to examine the layers in the packed snow that formed over the course of this winter. Milton’s researchers then measured the snow stratigraphy and sampled individual layers for density, snow water equivalent, and atmospheric chemistry.
