Photo of the Week: Science on Sleds

"Normally, we deploy oceanographic instruments from a boat," Scripps Oceanography graduate student Margaret Lindeman tweeted this week. "Today we deployed them...from a DOGSLED."

Lindeman captured the scene in snowy Greenland with this photo of Andreas Vieli of ETH Zürich, Calvin Shackleton from Trømso, and physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo from Scripps Oceanography. The arm at right belongs to Scripps graduate student Jacob Morgan, who is participating in the Arctic Glacier Field Course with Lindeman and grad student Maya Becker.

This week's wintry weather stranded the full group of seven students and two professors in the west coast town of Aasiaat. To make the best of the situation, on Thursday the scientists hired three dog sleds to take them onto the nearby frozen bay.

"When we arrived, we broke holes in the sea ice with the help of our guides in order to measure profiles of the temperature and salinity under the ice," Lindeman wrote in an email. "We're analyzing the data with the other students to learn about the wintertime sea ice-ocean interactions in Disko Bay. Now that we've made it to Disko Island, we'll get some hands-on experience with ice coring and glaciology on Lyngmarksbreen, as well as some lectures by Fiamma and the other faculty."

That night brought the aurora borealis to Aasiaat.

"I went from not being sure that I would ever ride on a dogsled or see the aurora in my entire life to experiencing both in 24 hours," Lindeman tweeted.

Related Image Gallery: Photo of the Week 2018