The Little Reflective Match Girls

So we woke up yesterday with no heat in the main part of the house.  I had visions of me and the girls freezing to death in a foreign snowy land with only one match left to light...

After starting a roaring fire in the wood stove (thank you Aaron for the fire starting tips -- way better than youtube) and fiddling with the remote control and unplugging and replugging the unit.  I went out to the pump. I had cleared the snow earlier outside the pump housing, but saw that one side of the pump had become covered with ice.   I really love Trondheim, but if I could change anything here, it would be the rain during winter that turns to sheets of ice everywhere.  Part of my dreary outlook of late has been that all of the lovely fluffy snow turned to ice from drizzly rain and subsequent freezing.

De-icing 101.  I first and now admit stupidly got a long extension and tried a hair dryer -- much too wimpy, but the ice did start to look more well groomed.  Then, I remembered my Minnesota ice dam Christmas last year.  The girls ran around putting 20 buckets or so in the livingroom to catch the small drips of water coming through the ceiling.  My dad and I  rigged up a hose from the water heater in the basement to the roof (thanks again Aaron) and spent hours spraying hot water and chipping away ice while standing on a ladder.  Ah, the good times  and damn that global warming (winter should be winter).  

Back to the matter at hand, I unplugged the unit, brought out buckets of hot water and all the ice came failing right off.  Now the heater is pumping away like a pro and responding to my every wim like the energizer bunny.  

So, now I will put on my reflective vest and head out into the morning (haha).  In addition to rain pants, a standard part of the childrens wardrobe here is reflective vests.  The small children wear bright yellow reflectors because they spend a lot of winter time outdoors, walking near roads, skiing/running/ski jumping in the dark.  

I also found a drawer filled with what looked like rolls of tape or hippy bracelets.  It took me awhile to figure out what they were, although not nearly as long as it took me to figure out the thing with hoses in the entryway was actually a boot dryer and not a vacuum system.  You know the little party favors that companies give out with their logos -- like magnets, key rings, miniflashlights?  In Trondheim, comparnies put their logos on reflective arm bands.   Adults are too hip to wear full reflective vests, but instead don the stylish silvery arm band.  You can keep one in your purse and pull it out just in case you are on a dark street and need to flag down a bus or just avoid becoming road dust from oncoming bike or roller ski traffic.

When my dad was here, ever the font of continual information, he patiently explained  with a few gentle arm punches the inner working of the 3M-manufactured reflectors.  A simple mirror does not direct light back at the source, but at fresnel angle of reflectance.   A reflector reflects light back in the same direction as the source due to the angled structure of the material  (see figure below stolen from web and note graduate students that this might make a good comprehensive exam question...).  

In  fact, this is directly relevant to the studies we are doing on fish camouflage in warm, tropical locations.  Our research has found that many fish are better reflectors than a vertical mirror (see photo of Molly adjusting a helpless silver fish on mirror in Florida with a bunch of polarized optical sensors pointed at it), but probably not as good as small children on the road in Trondheim ;-)  Maybe if our last match fails, I can start a fire with headlights and a plastic reflector.

Vertical mirror studies in Florida

Picture from our COSEE workshop for high school teachers called "Hiding in the Light"

darkness and sardines

So the dark, gray post-christmas blues settle upon the Trondheim household.  It reminds me of the beginning of a Weepies song Gotta Have You:

Gray, quiet and tired and mean
Picking at a worried seam
I try to make you mad at me
Over the phone

Red eyes and fire and signs
I'm taken by a nursery rhyme
I wanna make a ray of sunshine
And never leave home

So what is it like to live where there is only 4 hours of daylight or, for the glass half empty types, more like 20 hours of darkness?   Actually to be precise, our latitude is 63°25'N and 10°21'E.  According to my matlab calculations, on the winter solstice, the sun reached it's highest elevation of a whopping 3 degrees off the horizon and we had a scant 3.9 hours of daylight.

First, I think it helps to live here and experience the days shortening over time and acclimate gradually.  I think it was harder on my parents who came over and were suddenly thrust into the shortest day of the year.  "Quick mom and dad, wake up before the sun goes down."

Second, there seems to be more light around than the calculations lead you to believe. The skylight doesn't end exactly when the sun goes beneath the horizon, but lingers in rich red, pink, cyan blue colors long after the sun disappears.  Because the earth spins much slower up here, the sunsets and sunrises last much longer than those zippy equatorians. 

I know this may seem weird, but sometimes at night, the whole Trondheim glows and it seems like full daylight.  Really, it is bewildering.  The first time it happened, I thought that I was losing my mind -- either that I got mixed up in timing where day became night or that I was seeing light where there was none (like when you close your eyes and see spots).  I called the girls and confirmed with both of them that I wasn't in fact losing my mind, but that Trondheim was glowing bright like a Christmas tree.  I haven't fully modeled the effect, but it has to do with a combination of moonlight, street lights, high albedo snow and scattering particles in the atmosphere.   I think it's too bright in town for the northern lights to play a big role, but I'm willing to believe that it might also play some role.  The other night Annaliese called me down to the window facing town and said "Mom, it's happening again."  We all sat together and watched the bright nighttime sky.

Third, Vitamin D -  D3 that is.  There was a brief few days where I started to feel funky.  By funky, I mean a little crazy, aggressive, like a caged tiger.   That's when I started amplifying my intake of Vitamin D3. In fact, Vit D3 is added to my calcium supplements to maximize absorption and apparently (they should add this to the bottle) to prevent utter lunacy. 

For my fellow optics geeks, apparently it isn't visible light that is required, but UV light peaking at 295 nm that creates Vitamin D3. Fish products like Norwegian salmon are also good to consume.  Fish, like an average Trondheimer, need to consume Vitamin D3 from their diet of juicy phytoplankton.  Speaking of yummy treats, I see lots of people with sardines and other canned fish products around the lunch table at work and I get it now.  Those oilier fish are high in Vitamin D.  For those who might be sardine adverse, there are also many tanning beds in town as well. 

Apparently 85% of people tested in the U.S. were low in Vitamin D - important for bones and brains apparently.  Maybe sunscreen is making us dumber.  Maybe I'm just tired.  Maybe I'll dream about sardines.

to fly like a bird

11 January 2012

Trondheim Kommune

Trondheim

Norway

Dear Sir or Madam:

My two children are currently attending the Birralee International School Trondheim.  I was recently notified that they will no longer be eligible for a bus card due to the fact that the distance between our home and the new school location at Kalvskinnet is under the required 4 km.

I checked the website www.gislink.no/skoleskyss as indicated and it calculated the distance between our house and the Birralee School at 3.76 km with a walking distance of 45 min.  However, I argue that this estimate is grossly inaccurate for our house which is located high on the western hill above Trondheim.  As you will note in the graphic below, which is from Google Earth, the elevation is quite significant between the school and our house.  The distance you provide was only calculated as the flat 2-dimensional distance that a bird would fly following the route. 

Unfortunately, my children are not birds and cannot fly.  The true walking distance would be longer and the time calculated would be much greater (assuming an uphill ascent on the way home).  If you wish, I will walk the route with a GPS to calculate the actual distance with the associated ups and downs (troughs and peaks) in the path and provide you with a more accurate number.  I cannot assume that everyone in your office has a Ph.D. in geography like me, but surely you realize that your calculations are not correct.

For you to require a 9 year old, even a hearty Norwegian child, to walk 4 km through the loads of snow and ice in the dark for nearly an hour to and from school is ludicrous.  In the absence of growing wings, which would undoubtedly be an ideal solution for all parties involved, I feel there is no other alternative than you provide a valid bus card for my children's school journey each day.

Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Associate Professor and Working Mother