Chapter 682: It's not just freedom that is lost
Now that it has been confirmed that Bifang is fine for the time being, the audience naturally asked the questions that concern them most.
Why do we encounter sandstorms in Greenland?
And is this really a sandstorm?
Could I have seen it wrong?
A series of questions flooded the live broadcast room. This is normal. In most people's impressions, sandstorms occur either in deserts or grasslands. How could there be sandstorms in Greenland?
Upon seeing this, Bifang stretched out his hand directly outside the fur, and after a while, he retracted it, leaving everyone confused. Until Bifang spread out his hand, took out the drone and turned on the night mode, everyone could see clearly that it seemed that not all the snowflakes were in his palm.
Bifang rubbed it and breathed out hot air. Part of the snowflake gradually melted, but in the end, some solid snowflakes remained . They still looked white and sparkled in the night vision mode.
“See? It’s indeed sand.”
"While dust is usually associated with deserts, significant dust events also occur at higher latitudes where winds can occasionally be strong enough to lift underground sediments along the coast."
"Greenland is one of the places with the highest latitudes, so this phenomenon is often observed here. The dust in the wind is mainly glacial powder, which is a fine-grained silt formed by glaciers grinding rocks."
"This dust is very light and can be easily blown into the air by the wind. It is most common during the transition period from summer to winter, which is autumn. We came at the wrong time and it caught everything."
Bifang said self-deprecatingly.
Although the mission of surviving for 100 days begins in autumn, before entering the eternal night, every day is a highly efficient period for accumulating survival resources, but autumn is also a very unstable time point.
The dynamic change from summer to winter is extremely unstable, and this instability is also the root cause of frequent sandstorms and snowstorms.
"During the summer, when temperatures are high, fast-flowing streams and rivers carry meltwater away from the ice sheet and toward the ocean, but once autumn arrives, cooler temperatures slow the melt and the rivers gradually recede, exposing large expanses of glacial mud."
"These silts are equivalent to the sand we see in the desert, providing a key condition for the three main causes of sandstorms."
The audience suddenly understood.
"Simply put, glacial powder is produced by several glaciers above the valley, and the winds are triggered by a combination of a low-pressure system moving across the Greenland Ice Sheet and a high-pressure ridge following behind it. As stream levels drop in the fall, floodplains dry up, exposing silt that is highly susceptible to wind scouring."
"The silt is exposed on the surface, which naturally prevents the wind from blowing up more dust when it snows. However, a large amount of snow melts in the summer and a thick enough layer of snow does not accumulate. Once a strong wind blows, a sandstorm will naturally appear."
【What a simple way to put it! 】
[Can you please explain it in words that an idiot can understand?]
[I wonder if Lao Fang has misunderstood the meaning of the word simple (dog head)]
During the transition period from melting to freezing, autumn becomes such a turbulent time.
Bifang was a little puzzled. He only had daylight for the first twenty days, but most of the time had to be spent in such bad weather. The task was more difficult than he had imagined.
"But don't worry too much. The sandstorm in Greenland is not that severe. The main thing is to watch out for blizzards."
"Compared to the Sahara Desert, where wind convection can throw dust high into the atmosphere, the height of dust in Greenland is relatively low, no more than one to two kilometers."
The difference in dust altitude ultimately results in a Greenland dust storm being completely different from the massive dust clouds that persist for days over the Sahara Desert.
This key point makes it less likely that Bifang will be completely buried, so one does not have to worry too much about being completely buried alive when hiding in a confined space.
The power of sandstorms varies greatly depending on the sand content. The amount of sand in cities is usually not that large, so the main thing to be careful about is strong winds and respiratory diseases caused by sand.
The Sahara Desert is truly terrifying. Changes in terrain are commonplace. Travelers often drive there in off-road vehicles, but are completely buried alive by a sandstorm and cannot be found at all.
"But despite its low altitude, Greenland has the advantage of strong winds, which can occasionally be strong enough to blow sediments from dried lakes, river valleys and outwash plains directly to the coastline in one go."
"This dust can travel hundreds of kilometers in a day and may even be carried far away from the coast. The good thing is that it is possible to bring nutrients in the dust to areas where nutrients are not easily available, which can be regarded as an alternative redistribution."
Because there are not many people living there, the sandstorms in Greenland not only do not cause any harm, but have quite a few benefits.
At high latitudes, atmospheric dust can affect ice nucleation, while surface dust can reduce surface albedo and accelerate subsequent ice melt.
Dust can also act as ice nucleus particles in the atmosphere, affecting cloud formation and thus the course of solar radiation.
Airborne dust transport could also provide a mechanism for transferring sediment and nutrients between unconnected locations in a dry Arctic with limited hydrological connectivity, and dust deposition could affect soil formation on the island, replenishing nutrients from land and ocean, making nearby organisms better off.
It can even help scientific research. The aeolian mineral dust on the ice sheet can provide key information about climate change. Geologists can explore the global climate of different periods by studying ice cores and dust.
Past ice core dust records reveal the concentration, composition, particle size and morphology of minerals during glacial formation, just like the annual rings of a tree, helping to study the formation process of glaciers and whether there were major climate and geological changes in the meantime.
But for Bifang now, it is indeed not so beautiful.
After so much explanation, the audience finally understood why there are sandstorms in Greenland. They were not only amazed at the wonders of nature, but also at how so many bad things can happen.
"Hopefully it will be over soon."
Bifang sighed. Now he could do nothing but wait quietly for the disaster to pass.
The good news is that food is available right up our heads, and there is plenty of it, enough to last until the disaster is over.
“Woo woo.”
Goudan whimpered. To him, what he lost was not only his freedom, but also his handsome horn helmet.
I don’t know if I can find it back after everything is over.
