about EGRIP

The EastGRIP project is both a logistic undertaking and a scientific collaboration. The logistics is coordinated by the Danish Centre for Ice and Climate. The logistical tasks include making plans for field work, budgets, schedules, documentation for authorities, applying for permissions, purchasing equipment, planning flights, managing accounts, and hiring tradesmen and –women for field work.

The operations in Greenland require a close collaboration with the US Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation (NSF) and the NSF contractor in Greenland CH2MHill Polar Field Services. The flights take place in Hercules airplanes owned by the NSF and operated by the U.S. Air National Guard.

The EastGRIP logistics team is led by J.P.Steffensen and has two full time logistics coordinators, Marie Kirk and Iben Koldtoft. In a project like EastGRIP, there is a lot of overlap between scientific and logistical work, and it is therefore expected that all participants in the EastGRIP project take part in logistical tasks during field work.

Each year the logistics team prepares a Field Season Plan before the field campaign and a Field Season Report after the campaign for the Scientific Steeering Committee, funding agencies, and Danish and Greenlandic authorities. The reports are available from the Documentation page.

The Danish Centre for Ice and Climate is also responsible for the ice core drilling operation. It provides the ice core drill, which is an updated version of the successful Hans Tausen drill, modified to meet the requirements of a new environmentally friendly drilling fluid. The drilling group is led by Trevor Popp together with Steffen Bo Hansen, Simon Sheldon, and members from several partner nations.

EastGRIP is financed by national contributions from the particpating nations. The budget is 70 million DKK and by early 2016 the relative distribution of national funding is as follows: Denmark 56%, U.S. NSF 13%, Germany 9%, Norway 8%, France 8%, Japan 8%, and Switzerland 8%. Smaller contributions are expected from China, Iceland, Italy, Sweden, and South Korea.

EastGRIP is governed by the Scientific Steering Committee (SC). It consists of appointed members from each participating nation. The chairman is Prof. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen. Meetings are held once or twice a year, and are open for everybody participating in the EastGRIP project.

The tasks of the Steering Committee include:

  • Approval of the budget and financial reports.
  • Appointment of Field Leaders and Field Operation Managers.
  • Appointment of a subcommittee, the executive committee, for dealing with urgent issues, such as problems during the field campaign.
  • Definition and formulation of the Science Plan for field work, the cutting plan for ice cores, and the policies for future ice core work and sample allocation.
  • Definition and formulation of the data and publication policy.
  • Approval of associated projects.
  • Overseeing that the scientific opportunity and outcome for each partner nation maintains a reasonable balance with the corresponding financial and logistical contributions to the project.
  • Organization of the scientific collaboration by the creation of scientific work groups (consortia) to deal with scientific questions within the various science disciplines.