Greenland is much better logistically in some ways (I work on experiments both in Greenland and in Antarctica), but the ice in Greenland is unlikely to be as good for IceCube as in Antarctica, due to a presumed larger number of dust layers from dry periods in Europe.
replyThe US has a research station at Summit Station Greenland but compared to South Pole, it's spartan (like, the first time I went there, I slept in a tent because of lack of hard-sided berthing, but then a Polar bear came a few years later and now hard-sided berthing is required). There are longer-term plans to improve the station in Greenland but we'll see.
Another option that's been popular is to get it as deep underground as possible, hard rock mines with empty areas:
replyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Neutrino_Observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNO+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Kamiokande
There's a weird overlap in engineering and physics disciplines between the hard engineering/business practices of the mining industry, and particle physics.
Right, but for those they need to make/move/collect a large amount of transparent material, like heavy water etc for the particles to interact with. But they get that 'for free' with the ice.
replyand another option is putting it in the sea, see KM3NeT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT
replyLogistics is much easier for Greenland, but the optical properties of the ice are not as good as at the south pole.
reply