Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the real Arctic Sunrise. The most famously rolling of the Greenpeace ships. Picture a giant half egg floating in the ocean - that's basically us.

Our ship's hull was built without a keel so it won't be crushed if trapped the ice, but that doesn't improve the crew's comfort level in rough sea.

Not to throw numbers at you, but on the wind/sea scales, here's how it's gone so far today: 7/7, 8/6, 7-8/6, 7/6. The Beaufort wind scale goes up to 12. Eight is classified as a "fresh gale", which sounds pleasant enough, but means up to 40-knot winds. The sea state scale only goes up to nine, and at seven the seas are officially "high", meaning 12-20 foot waves. In reality it wasn't too rough for most of today, but when we turned and started taking the swell on the beam (from the side) it certainly woke me up.

Fortunately, the deckhands were busy yesterday, and last night, making sure things are properly tied down. In a way, a little rough weather like this can be a good thing as it makes you appreciate calm seas all the more when you have them.

Ice is nice

That said, we are all happy to have reached the ice edge again since a blanket of ice calms the waves. We're now about 50 miles from the mouth of Kangerlussuaq fjord, and just starting to wind our way in through the sea ice along the coast.

The water here is lovely calm, and in the distance I can see Gunnbjø Feld, Greenland's tallest mountain. With the sea ice you also find more seals and the like. I'm up on the bridge with my laptop. Arne and Cath (both on watch) have spotted two seals just while I've been writing this. Time, I think, to turn off my computer, and spend some a while this Sunday evening seal spotting myself.

- Andrew

[I snapped the photo above from the bridge. That's spray coming over the bow, and up the anchor pipe.]

I refer, of course, to that distinctive arctic plant eater, the musk ox (Ovibos mochatus) with its famously warm longhaired coat.

There are 103 of these shaggy beasts in this valley, or at least there were yesterday when Toke Thomas Hoye counted them. He's a PhD candidate with the University of Copenhagen, working at the station this summer, and musk ox counting is part of the job.

"I start on that small hill," he explains pointing at a hill some ways off. "From there I can see where the herds are and plan my walk." The walk covers a roughly 19-mile (30km) circuit through the valley, and at times there are almost 200 musk oxen in the valley - a healthy population level.

Today, Toke grabs his gear and we walk a short way past the airstrip to where a couple of older males are grazing. Toke uses binoculars and a tripod mounted spotting scope to count the musk oxen and classify them by age and sex. He can tell these are older males from the shape and size of their horns. When they're calves both genders look the same, but by the time they're a year old, males have small pointy horns coming straight out the sides of their heads and a lot of white wool in the middle of their forehead.

Global warming and musk ox

For Toke, the challenge of looking at the ecosystem as a whole is much more interesting than focusing on one species.

He stresses that because so many of the variables are interlinked the overall effect of global warming is difficult to predict.

What's more, there are still a lot of questions about musk ox behavior, and other variables, in the winter. The science station operates only in the summer, and research here in the winter would be a major logistical challenge, requiring funding they simply don't have.

What happens in the winter is an especially important part of the puzzle when it comes to musk ox because, as Toke described it, winter is the "survival bottleneck" for the animals. It's known that musk ox numbers in northeast Greenland can vary greatly from year to year. These changes in population seem to coincide with changes in winter temperatures, and oddly enough, warmer isn't necessarily better.

As Toke explained, "We have graphs in our mess room where the temperature declined nicely over winter, and then suddenly there was this blip of positive temperatures over a day or so and then it dropped back again." In fact, temperatures of 11 degrees Centigrade (52° F) were recorded for several hours in February this year. In general, this sort of thing is not a new phenomenon, but this year was the first time temperatures above freezing have ever been recorded in February.

You'd think in a place where the temperature gets down to -40 degrees Centigrade (-40° F), a few days of warmer weather would be a welcome development for the musk oxen. But the snow melted by the brief thaw soon refroze into a thick layer of ice - covering the ground vegetation that the musk ox depend on for food.

Winter is already the hardest time of the year for these animals, and many calves don't live through their first. If these ice crust episodes become more frequent it could spell disaster for the musk oxen here.

Going, going, gone

Almost half a mile away, two musk oxen see us and bolt - heading off at a good pace. We follow parallel to their course, but more slowly.

At the top of the next rise, they stop and face each other. "Have a look now, they might have a fight," says Toke. Sure enough, they run at each other and clack heads. After a brief shoving match, they walk on. This behavior was puzzling because there are no females around to impress. Toke thought it might have been a sort of stress relief response to being spooked. Soon we give up following. "Once they start to move, they move for a while," he explains.

Watching the musk ox jog off into the distance, I realize that what we have here is an allegory. Once you provoke a response, you sometimes can't control what happens next. And, small actions can have big consequences. All we did was cross an imaginary line, almost half a mile from the musk oxen. The difference between them ignoring us, and them running, was only a matter of a few steps across that line, but there was no way to know exactly where that line was until we crossed it.

The same could be said for global warming. If we keep adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, at some point we might cross a line where feedback effects take over - continuing to heat up our planet no matter what we do from there on.

Of course, this is just an allegory. Reality is more complex. In reality, global warming is already happening - it's only a question of how far it will go, how much damage it will do and how much we can slow it down. In reality, there are also ways to move forward (renewable energy and energy efficiency) without changing the climate.

But the reality is also that business continues as usual, unless we make a real effort to change it.

- Andrew

Five of us from the ship were dropped off by the old hunting station. We were eager to see a little of the countryside.

The scenery reminded Melanie of back home, but that's only because she lives in Alaska. For me, this trip is the farthest I've ever been north, and it brings new sights almost daily.

Line Anker Kyhn, a Master's student in biology with the National Environmental Research Institute (Denmark) and our temporary guide, was waiting on the shore. She told us about her work, lemmings, polar bears, and how it was a little surprising to see a ship in the fjord at this time of year. She was right, it was unusual.

We had bet there would be less sea ice than the historical average - and we'd been right. Possibly just luck on our part, but we think more likely another example of global warming at work.

River crossing

At the river, Line turned us over to Henrik Philipsen, Logistics Manager/Base Commander (aka Philip 'the campground manager' as he his jokingly called), and returned to her work.

The river, fed by melting snow and ice, was fast moving and dangerously cold. The crossing procedure involved a tiny grey dingy, a steel cable, a blue rope, some carabineers, a pulley, a harness and a life jacket. Fortunately, it wasn't nearly as complicated as it looked, and we all made it to the other side without incident.

There I met another member of the logistics team, Marc Overgaard Hansen. Last year Marc was the station's cook. This year he is an all purpose handyman and rescuer (if ever needed). In between seasons, Marc is a Master's student in Physical Geography, and in his spare time here he tries to work out a way to sample snow density over the winter.

They've got good data for snow coverage, and a bit on snow depth - but the density of the stuff (which can vary with temperature, etc.) is a missing piece of the puzzle.

Base tour

After our successful river crossing, Philip gave us the grand tour. There are six main buildings (all painted "musk ox blue"), which house the store room, some accommodation, laboratories, showers (two), kitchen, mess and radio room. For safety, everyone leaving the base takes a VHF radio, and the radio sign-out sheet doubles as a log of who's in the field. With the base antenna, and a repeater that was placed by helicopter on a nearby mountain, the whole valley is covered. It's like having a cell phone, except that everyone in range hears your conversation.

There are also six tents, used for storage, workspace and living quarters (two bunks per tent). The best part of the tour was the unscheduled appearance of an arctic fox (while we were being shown the toilets). It was probably trying to sneak into camp to look for food, but would have been out of luck anyway. All the food and garbage is kept well secured. They don't want to change the diet of these opportunistic animals, or have them grow accustomed to finding food here. The curious foxes even nibble at pipe insulation and wiring to see if it's edible.

The only ground transportation (aside from a mountain bike) is a little amphibious eight wheeler. It's powered by an 18hp engine, and can cross land, snow, ice and water. Smiling, Philip told us how when the Danish queen visited, he was her "royal chauffeur". They keep the driving to a minimum though, and stick to the established track, because it's hard on the vegetation.

Fortuitously enough, our tour ended back at building one, which houses the mess and kitchen, just in time for lunch.

Lunch

Food is an important aspect of life in an isolated place like this. The researchers sometimes work together, but spend much of their time alone out in the field. Meals and even the clean up afterwards are an important social event. Today, eight people - almost everyone - joined us for lunch.

Toke Thomas Høye, a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen, is out counting musk ox. He won't be back until 3:00 the next morning. This is not uncommon since the staff here often work long hours under the never setting sun. Each one has a research program to follow, and sometimes their own side projects on top of that.

They know what a rare opportunity it is to be in a place like this, and take maximum advantage of it. For entertainment there is movie night twice weekly, a volleyball net strung between the flagpoles and a BBQ behind the mess building.

But, the general consensus is that on the rare occasion they get free time, the preferred way of using it is to, "walk to the top of something." Generally though, their only days off are when weather conditions keep them from doing their work.

How to get here

Everyone has their own story about how they ended up working here, but my favorite is Ulrik Nielsen's - he found his logistics job through the unemployment office. Not too bad. But don't be fooled. Zackenberg Research Station is an understandably popular place to work, with very few vacancies.

If you're a researcher, the biggest barrier to working here will likely be funding. On top of transporting yourself and your gear, just staying at the station costs 800 Danish Kronar (about $120 USD) per day due to the remoteness of the place. Plus, you'll need to convince the Danish Polar Center of your qualifications, and the merit of your research.

There's also heavy competition for the non-researcher jobs. This year they had only two open positions - logistics and cook. Ulrik (an Able Bodied sailor) and Malene (who has a Bachelor of Nutrition and Home Economics) had to compete for these jobs with about 200 other applicants. To get here, you need to really want to be here. So, it's no surprise that despite the long hours, mosquitoes, shared rooms, and isolation - nobody seems in a hurry for the summer work-season to end.

- Andrew