Planning and conducting a field campaign in west Greenland to capture local and long-range transported aeolian dust

Passive dust traps were installed in summer of 2024 at the Kobbefjord Research station in west Greenland (64°08’ N, 51°23’ W) to capture local and long-range transported dust. The installation included three different types of dust traps for wet and dry deposition as well as vertical flow, following the standard methods for wind erosion research and model development by Webb et al., USA. The Kobbefjord Research station belongs to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR). 

Planning and preparations for the installations were carried out with the essential help from the station manager (KR). Materials that could be interesting for the Arctic foxes that live in the station area, e.g., rubber and plastics, needed to be avoided. Also any material that would collect insects rather than aeolian dust, e.g. sticky pads, were advised to be avoided. To ensure the installation materials arrived in time in Greenland, our visiting team (OM and LT) transported everything as personal luggage from Finland to Greenland. There, the research station could be reached only by boat, weather allowing, since there are no roads to the station.

The dust traps were installed by the visiting team on 14 August and they collected dust until the end of September 2024. During the visit, stream samples were also collected and quartz filters for further laboratory analysis (e.g., dust and Black Carbon) at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) were prepared. At the time of the visit, there was no snow close to the station, but snow on glaciers and mountain tops up to 1300 m could be observed. The snow surfaces were observed to have visible amounts of light-absorbing impurities, most likely due to local dust.

OM and LT gratefully acknowledge H2020 EU INTERACT DUST project (no. 871120).