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| Fourth-year science student Stephanie Flynn in Eureka, Nunavut. 聽(Photo courtesy Stephanie Flynn) |
Some people enter the swimming pool with caution, dipping their toes to gauge the temperature before slowly聽immersing themselves. Others, like Stephanie Flynn, prefer to jump right in.
Ms. Flynn, a competitive swimmer with Dalhousie脮s AUS championship women脮s team, brings that same philosophy to her work here at Dalhousie. Going into the final year of her physics undergrad, she脮s spent her summer helping atmospheric scientist James Drummond set up his new laboratory here at Dal almost from scratch. The pinnacle of the experience, though, has been the chance to travel to the聽top of the world.
Eureka, Nunavut sits at 80隆N and 86隆W, on Slidre Fjord on Ellesmere Island. It脮s home to Canada脮s first High Arctic weather station, established in 1947 in a joint project between the United States Weather Bureau and what would eventually become the Meteorological Service of Canada. The station is staffed year-round by researchers scanning the skies for vital scientific insight into global warming, stratospheric dynamics and ozone depletion.
脪It脮s pretty remote up here 脨 we脮re only about 1,100 km from the North Pole,鈥� says Ms. Flynn, writing via email from the arctic outpost. 脪It脮s not too cold up here at this time of year, about 7 or 8 degrees and sunny, but you do feel the chill when the wind picks up. It脮s actually 24 hours daylight here right now, which is pretty neat but pretty confusing when it脮s time to go to bed.鈥�
Dr. Drummond脮s team flew into Yellowknife on August 11 and took a small charter plane over the arctic glaciers to reach their destination. They spent their first day visiting the three labs that make up the weather station 脨 PEARL, 0PAL and SAFIRE 脨 but since then have spent most of their time at PEARL collecting data and doing computer maintenance. The data collected measures absorption of various chemical in our atmosphere that play an important role in understanding issues like climate change and global warming.
脪It脮s research for the greater good, as Dr. Drummond puts it,鈥� says Ms. Flynn. 脪It脮s getting important knowledge about what脮s happening in our atmosphere and in the skies around the earth.鈥� She returns to Nova Scotia on Wednesday.
This is Ms. Flynn脮s second summer doing lab work here at Dalhousie; last summer she worked with materials science professor Jeffrey Dahn.
脪I think it脮s important to try out different things at university to see what you like and what you脮re good at,鈥� she explains. 脪Travelling to Eureka has let me see what physics is like out in the field, and how different it is from the lab. I think experiences like these are something to be highly valued, and I feel really lucky to here.鈥�