Day: 137

Battling Ultraviolet Radiation

Temperature: 31 degrees Fahrenheit

Location: Iglulik

We are in Iglulik, taking the day off today. We’ve been doing chores, taking care of odds and ends, cleaning an so forth. We slept in a little bit, our first day of rest in about three and a half weeks. It is really a great relief to be away from the sun. The ultraviolet has been the worst I have seen in all my trips to the north. Antarctica was a little worse than here, because there was no ozone there at all. But here our faces got continually burnt, even when we traveled straight north. Clear weather, cloudy weather, it didn’t seem to make any difference. We still got burns, despite the ultraviolet creams we put on, which often rubbed off. The only thing that helped was keeping our face in the shade, wearing face masks which we would normally use for 100-below windchills. It’s been a hideous experience.

In the 70’s and 80’s I never experienced anything like this at all. I never even had cracked lips. We noticed it being really bad in the early 90’s. We were caught by surprise at that time. We got headaches and nausea from the ultraviolet radiation. It is really bad out there right now. It will remain bad until the warm weather comes. Once it warms up, the atmosphere mixes, there is more water vapor in the air, which helps shield the ultraviolet. But now it is still the cold arctic air, left over from the winter. And the ozone layer also opens up this time of the year, and closes when the weather changes.

It was warm again today, got up to about 31 degrees, and dropped maybe 10 degrees Fahrenheit at night. It was really quite a beautiful day today, it is now 10:30 at night. The sun is up, and were are now in the land of 24 hour sun.