ANTCI-2005

Safe Flight Home

2005-12-20T04:42:00.000+13:00

Sorry for the late reply. I did not have good internet access while in New Zealand. They do have good internet cafes, but the place I went to did not have a way for me to upload my photos. Anyway, after a delay we flew from McMurdo back to Christchurch on a Kiwi C-130. The most exciting part of the trip was when our shuttle van got stuck in the ice on the trip from McMurdo Station out to the aircraft on the ice runway. The ice is starting to melt and in the transition between the land and the ice was particularly soft. Luckily a bulldozer was nearby and able to quickly pull us out so we did not miss our flight. It was a 8-hour flight and pretty crowded, but we were all happy to be on our way home. My wife Maggie was waiting for me in Christchurch. And we spent a few days exploring the south island. We went visited some old volcanoes near Christchurch, went to the beach and a harbor cruise (where we saw a bunch of dolphins). We also took the train to the "Southern Alps" of New Zealand and spent some time hiking (or "tramping" as the Kiwi's say) around some of the areas they filmed Lord of the Rings. Then we flew to the North Island and visited our friends Nancy and Bryan. They moved from Boulder to New Zealand a couple of years ago and we had a really fun time touring and hiking around the North Island with them. I had a really had a great trip South, but glad to be back home. I have another field trip coming up in February when study the Mexico City air pollution problem. Take care. Barry

Last Flights

2005-12-14T23:41:00.000+13:00

We had two really good flights the past two days. On Tuesday, Otter flew back and forth across the Reeves glacier and we mapped out the NO at multiple altitudes at both the top and at the mouth of the glacier. This should give us a good start at calculating a budget for NO outflow on this day. In addition, all the instruments were working well and we should have another good day of photochemical measurements (NO, NO2, OH, SO2, H2SO4, O3, jNO2, jO(1D), etc). Fred and Doug flew back North on Wednesday, and they hosted an ANTCI Project party. Thanks Doug and Fred for paying for all the refreshments. I wish I could have made it to the party, but I was out at the Otter doing my calibrations and then the 9:15 Shuttle driver forgot to pick us up at Willy field, so everyone was in bed by the time I got back to town at 11:15. This was Doug's last trip to Antarctica as he is going to retire. I know, he has said this before, but think this really is going to be his last project. So Ed got a poster of Antartica printed out at NCAR and well all signed it as a going away present. Today's flight was up to the plateau to get some more sampling of the "OH canopy" that surrounds the Antarctic plateau in the boundary layer. We could use some more data of this, and sounds like we go some. On the way home they stopped to sample some more glacial outflow. Even though the winds were weak, we still saw some modest amount of NO, so sounds like we can not ignore these types of days either. Interestingly, the weather forecast was for bad weather on the plateau, but pilots (Chuck and John) said is was beautiful. Chuck took a bunch of photos with my camera, but I forgot to get it back from him, so I will have more photos later. Other exciting news is that we all thought that we were not going to get back to New Zealand until the 18th or the 21st of Dec. But word we got today was that the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) has fixed the broken C-130 and we might get headed home on the morning of the 16th. We are not sure about this, but we don't want to miss our flight home, so after plane came back at 6:00 PM today we started taking everything off. By the time we left on the 10:15 shuttle we had about 1/2 of the instruments pack up. We still have a lot to do since we have to get instruments over the hill back to McMurdo and to the science cargo office. Hopefully we will have a few seconds to spare tomorrow to get this done. I better get back to my packing. I'll try to post more photos tomorrow. If you don't hear from me I was too busy and will try to post again from NZ. Take care. Barry

Flight over Mt. Erebus and sea ice edge

2005-12-12T02:33:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we had bad weather in the morning and so it was a good opportunity for the NCAR guys to work on the OH instrument. We were thinking about doing a test flight in the afternoon, but things just got a bit too crazy and then it started to snow again, so we had to cancel it. Good news is that today we went for a 4 hour flight and it is easy to say that it was a best flight of the season. All the instruments are working really well. The weather was quite nice. While the winds were not quite blowing exactly as we wanted them to, we still go a lot of good data. With only a few days to go, we are just happy to get a bunch more data. I gave my camera to our pilot (Chuck Slade) and he took a bunch of really nice photos. Here are a few of them. The top one is a view of the Mt. Erebus volcano with a bird's eye view of the plume of volcanic gases. Today David and Sae Wung measured quite a lot of SO2 in that plume. For the 2nd half of the flight we flew along the edge of the sea ice looking to sample trace gases that are emitted by the ocean. While the winds were blowing from the ice to the ocean (and not from the ocean to the ice as we were hoping) we still intercepted a few patches of air that had elevated levels of some of the marine gases we were looking for. Here is a cool shot of the ice sheet edge (with the shadow of the Twin Otter). This gives you an idea of how thick the ice sheet is. Someone told me the ice sheet where the Willy Field runway is (not this photo) is 25 feet of snow and 240 feet of ice on top of 1800 feet of water. In this photo, sure looks like the ice is over 200 ft thick. Tonight after dinner Fred Eisele gave the Sunday Science talk about the ANTCI project. We have a science talk every Sunday night and the idea is to tell all the non-scientists (and other scientists) here in McMurdo what we have been up to for the past month. There are also Wednesday Science lectures in the Crary Library, but the Sunday talk is geared towards the general public. I was encouraged to see how many people were interested in hearing a talk about the "Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation" and really surprised how many good comments and questions the talk generated. Nice job Fred. On the way back to my room I almost stepped on this Skua. He or she really has a good camouflage. Then off the back porch of my dorm I saw a big seal hanging out on the McMurdo floating ice dock. It was starting to get cold and I didn't have on my heavy jacket so I didn't get a good photo of the seal, but I'll check to see if he is still out there tomorrow. Tonight we also found out that one of the C-130s that was going to take a bunch of McMurdo people back to New Zealand is have some major mechanical problems. So chances are not all of us are going to get out of here before Christmas. This is really tough for everyone. Not sure how it is going to work out, but we only have a few more days of flights and then packing up. But would be good to know when our flights will be. Anyway, not much we can do about this. Take care. Barry

Snow delay followed by two flights on Friday

2005-12-09T23:43:00.000+13:00

Again, sorry for the lack of postings. The weather delay turned into a snow storm that lasted until after midnight. The good news is that I was able to collect some more snow samples for UH Professor Jim Lawrence. Bad news is that we were stuck in McMurdo and not flying around collecting data. Everyone was snowbound and trying to use the internet at the same time, so I couldn't get any photos on the blog. I took the break in flights to finish up the Final Exam for my Introduction to Climate Change. Exam is next Monday, I wish my students well. I tried to make it fair and not too hard. I have been testing questions out on the graduate students here in Antarctica, and they all think the test is too easy, this is a good sign as my Intro class is aimed at freshmen and sophomores. This morning we finally made it back to Willy Field, and it took over 45 minutes in the Delta to get there. As the road is all drifted in with soft snow, the Delta is the only passenger vehicle that can make it. It is a long bumpy 45 minutes, so you don't want to forget to bring something important because it will take you at least 2 hours to get back to the airfield. When we got there we found the buildings and aircraft were surrounded by snow drifts. After a couple of hours of shoveling and digging out, we got everything back to normal and started up the instruments for a 1.5 hour OH test flight. Looks like the NCAR guys have figured out the problem and now are working on a solution. That is good news. Three hours later we did another short (3 hour) science flight sampling the gases coming out from the Mt. Erebus volcano. Bad news for me is that one of my computers did not start properly, so I didn't get any data. This happens sometimes, and no one to blame other than myself. I have to do a better job of training the guys that are on the flight to recognize and fix any problems with my instruments.

Weather Update

2005-12-08T10:06:00.000+13:00

Weather forecast was pretty good. We woke up to Condition 1 weather on Willy Field this morning. But now down to Condition 2, and starting to look like Condition 3. The snow crews our out on the road to Willy getting it useable again. So looks like airfield will open at noon, and we hope to get our test flight off at 2:00 PM. Weather is not favorable for a trip to the Plateau, so 2nd flight today could be a glacial outflow experiment.

Twin Otter and windy conditions return to McMurdo

2005-12-07T22:17:00.000+13:00

A tired Twin Otter crew returned to McMurdo on Monday night. While weather conditions prevented them from sampling at AGO4, they still made it to the TAMS site and collected lots of data between Pole and McMurdo. Actually, the weather was quite nice at AGO4, winds were only 5 kts, but because AGO4 is about 12,000 ft, our Twin Otter (weighted down by all the scientific instruments) is too heavy to take off from AGO4 without some stronger headwinds to help us out. That and the fact that there really isn't much of a runway, so the drifts over the old runway make it difficult to get up to the required speed. Luckily, the guys were thinking a head and collected snow cores from Seismic Center, TAMSEIS Camp, and AGO4 on the way to the pole. Tuesday was a rest day for the pilots and gave us a chance to work on the instruments. I was lucky that the spectroradiometer calibrations had not changed very much over the 3 long days of sampling and we have beautiful weather for calibrations on Tuesday. For Wednesday we planned two flights. A short 1.5 hour flight to investigate the NO levels near the NCAR OH inlet. We are still trying to figure out why the OH instrument sometimes has problems when we are flying at higher altitudes. Since the winds were not cooperating (i.e, conditions not favorable to measure outflow from the glaciers) we decided to try and sample the Mt. Erebus plume in the afternoon. So we all went out early on Wednesday morning and got instruments warmed up and ready to go. Unfortunately, the winds started to pick up and 30 minutes before takeoff the airport was shut down as it became Condition 2 visibility. By the time we got back from Willy Field to McMurdo we had condition 1 visibility. We kept hanging around the Crary Lab hoping for the winds to die down, but no luck. I went over to the McMurdo machine shop to get a core extractor fabricated. We are really lucky to have such top notch facilities here in town. These guys are really good at what the do and it makes it so much easier to do our science. For tomorrow, we have rescheduled a morning OH test flight, and as forecast has changed we are hoping to have an afternoon flight to Midpoint Charlie up on the plateau. This is part 2 of a "day/night" sampling strategy. As Sun is up 24 hours a day, this is really a "higher Sun vs. lower Sun" comparison. All the instruments are going to be sampling on the way to Midpoint C and then they will land there and Doug will get a long sampling tube and sample NO coming out of the snow. While this is going on, Ed and Sae Wung will collect a bunch of snow cores. Forecast says that conditions should be better in the morning. We will keep our fingers crossed.

Cesar Chavez HS Advanced Placement Environmental Science Class

2005-12-07T14:30:00.000+13:00

Here is a photo of Millie Cowart-Priest's 2005-06 Advanced Placement Environmental Science senior class at Cesar E. Chavez High School. I visited this AP Environmental Science class before my trip to Antartica, and plan to talk with them again in January. I also want to get this class interested in the Megacities Impact on the Regional and Global Environment (MIRAGE-Mex) field campaign in Mexico City, in March 2006. This is an NSF project that will involve many scientists and students from dozens of Universities and national laboratories in U.S., Mexico, and Europe. Chavez HS is the only Environmental Science magnet school in Houston, and is a mere 7 miles from the University of Houston - Main Campus. To learn more about their school take a look at the following website (http://hs.houstonisd.org/chavezhs). I am also hoping that some of these excellent students will think about coming to the University of Houston next fall to major in the Environmental Science or Earth and Atmospheric Sciences programs.

McMurdo is melting

2005-12-05T18:28:00.000+13:00

For the past 3 days the afternoon temperatures have been above 0 deg C (i.e., above 32 F) so everything is melting. We have had some warm days before, but it has gotten bad enough that they have had to create a network of small drainage ditches to keep the water from pooling up during the day. At night the standing water freezes up again. Since we are all acclimated to colder temperatures, this is almost much T-Shirt weather. Problem is, that if the wind picks up or a cloud blocks the Sun temporarily, it feels much colder. Since the weather was so nice and we were all anxiously awaiting the return of the Twin Otter, Will, Andreas, and I took a hike up Scott's Hut Ridge. This is a new hike that starts at Scott's Hut (see Andreas' earlier post on Scott's Hut for more information) and goes up near Arrival Heights, you get a not so flattering view of Mac-town from up there.

South Pole Update

2005-12-05T07:33:00.000+13:00

Sorry for the late reply, McMurdo has been undergoing some network upgrades, so evening internet access has been patchy. Seems to be working quite well right now, maybe the upgrades are working. On Friday, after 13 hours of flying, Dave, Fred, Lee and our Pilots (Chuck and Tony) finally made it to the South Pole. They were facing a pretty strong head wind much of the way, and also had a tough time getting off back into the air at AGO4. As the Otter was quite heavy with all the extra equipment and fuel. Everyone was pretty tired from the long flight on Saturday. On Sunday the plan was to fly from Pole to AGO4 and then fly up the slope. The hope was that we would the nitric oxide level would decrease as the Otter flew up Dome Argus. Since the NO is produced in the snow, our hypothesis was that the NO would be higher as it accumulates down the slope (and lower as you go up the slope). Unfortunately, the weather was still not very good at AGO4 on Sunday so they did a local 4 hour flight out of Pole. I have not yet heard what they found, or exactly where they flew, but it was probably something like this: a bit down slope from pole, and then back up the slope as far a they could go, before they needed to turn around to get back. Sounds like most of the instruments are working well and the current plan is to head back to McMurdo today. If the weather cooperates, they will try again to fly to AGO4 collect a snow sample, refuel, fly up the slope, refuel, and then fly back to McMurdo. We are expecting them back later tonight (Monday) and we will be waiting for them at Willy Field. Since they haven't sent me any photos of the pole, I have attached a few from my trip there 5 years ago.

Tales from Happy Camper School

2005-12-04T19:48:00.000+13:00

Happy camper school was a lot more fun than I thought is was going to be. The whole idea of HC school is to teach the scientists and staff here what to do if they find themselves stranded out in the field. Away from station with only thing things in a survival kit. This could happen if you are traveling by helicopter or Delta or snowmobile to a remote field camp and something bad happens. For our project, if you want to fly on the Twin Otter (which is flying hundreds of miles from station) and the plane has problems, then you might find yourself camping out in the cold. I am not afraid of camping out in the snow. I have spent over 12 weeks camping in a tent on the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet as part our research up there. The difference is that if something goes wrong in Greenland, I can always walk less than a quarter mile to the "Big House" to get out of the elements. It could be cold in there, but better than being in a tent. With our work in Antarctica we could find ourselves stranded a long way from station and it could be a few days before help arrives. So while I wasn't scared of sleeping in a tent I knew that I wasn't prepared to be stranded in the middle of nowhere. Photo of the guy in blue dragging a Scott Tent is Trevor, our happy camper instructor. He is over qualified for this job has he has lead mountain climbing expeditions all around the world. Seems like he might sleep half his nights outdoors in a given year. In any case, the day started out pleasant enough with cloudy conditions and a little bit of snow as the 12 of us rode in the Delta from McMurdo out past the Scott Base to Happy Camper School on the Ross Ice Shelf. As we hung out in the instructor hut (aka the I-Hut, the blue Jamesway on the left) and learned how to light a stove and to use the VHF and HF radios it started to snow a little bit more and it started to snow a bit more. Then we went outside tested are radio skills by trying to call the South Pole. One of our radios didn't work, which was a valuable lesson to test you equipment before you go into the field. With the other radio we were finally able to call the Pole and chat with them. Jim Crawford got to tell the Pole-Ops (South Pole Operations Center) to keep a look out for the Kenn Borek Twin Otter (with tail number SJB) that was heading their way. Then we gathered up some sleeping bags, tents, and tools (shovels, saws, snow axes, sleds) and headed out to our campsite. By now we could not see more than a 1/2 mile and the wind was starting to pick up. As we started to set up camp, we heard that we were now in Condition 2. And we could see less than 1/4 mile. The weather rapidly got worse, and as the winds picked up we could barely see 30 feet. After we got up the first Scott Tent. Trevor sent Jim Crawford (Guy with the beard on the left) and Dan Rudd out to set up a line of flags to make sure we could find our way back to the road and the outhouse. Jim said they could only see about 2 flag lengths at a time. So they had to be sure to stick together. After the 2nd Scott tent was up, Trevor taught us how to build an snow wall to protect us from the wind and create a space to set up the mountain tents. I was surprised how easy it was with people all working together. In a matter of 2-3 hours or so, we had all the tents up and Jim Pierce had the stoves on and was melting snow for us so we could make some hot chocolate. We were pretty busy hauling snow blocks and fighting the wind will setting up our tents that we did not take many pictures. Normally snow school students are supposed to build a Quinzee, an igloo like structure but because the weather was so bad, Trevor let us off the hook. Fortunately, there were a couple of Quinzees near our camping area from previous Happy Camper classes. So we all picked a place to sleep, and went over to the cook tent to enjoy a dehydrated meal. Two choices were beans and rice or chicken and rice. They were not that bad, but I would not want to live off of them for a more than a few days. Will, Jim, and I (the 3 ANTCI campers) shared the larger mountain tent. It was a bit cozy, but super warm with the sleeping bags they gave us. I was a bit noisy with high winds blowing the tents around, but thankfully the wind died down after midnight and I was able to fall asleep. While Trisha, Estiban, Jim, and Peter divided among the other tents, 4 members of our group (Andre, Mike, Laura and Megan) decided to sleep two of the Quinzees and Dan slept in a snow trench. Sounds cold, but Dan swears he was comfortable. The survival kit only has a couple of small tents, so chances are if you are stranded in Antarctica, some of your party is going to have to sleep in a snow trench. If I every get a chance to do this again, I'll try to snow trench. The next morning is was beautiful out, bright and sunny and no clouds to be seen. We packed up camp in less than 2 hours and then had a chance to explore the neighborhood. Here is photo of Will crawling through the entrance to a Quinzee. Then Trevor arrived with the Delta to pick up all the equipment. We went back to the I-Hut and he showed us how to make a Quinzee and then tested us on our survival skills. He gave us a survival kit and said that we had 20 minutes to set up the tent, set up the radio and place a call to the South Pole, build a snow wall, and melt a liter of snow. So we all split up and get everything going. We selected a patch of snow for our "snow quarry" that was more like concrete. While that wasted some time, 25 minutes later we had everything accomplished. I have to admit after taking the class, I feel a lot better about how I would do if I found myself stuck away from McMurdo.

Heading South

2005-12-03T09:17:00.000+13:00

Hi. As Barry told you I will be writing this blog while he's away. He also had mentioned in his previous post that the Twin Otter's flight to the South Pole was cancelled yesterday. The reason is that between McMurdo and the South Pole the plane has to land 3 times to refuel. It lands at locations on the plateau where oil drums have previously been left. (While refueling, we will be taking 20cm snow core samples. These samples will be frozen and analyzed later to look at the snow photochemistry happening in these places.) Because of all these refueling stops in order to leave the weather must be good at McMurdo, the South Pole, and these 3 stops. And it must be good weather for the next 10-12 hours (how long the whole trip will take). Luckily, the weather was good enough this morning to leave. So 3 of the 11 members of the team headed to the South Pole. Another 3 members (including Barry) went to "Happy Camper." This is over-night survival training where they teach you how to build ice huts and be able to survive if you are stranded. Because I already took this class, I remained behind. Myself and the remaining 4 members of our group had the job of packing up the tent we've been using as an office (above). This is because the runway where the Twin Otter has been located is moving. McMurdo is located on Ross Island and up until now the runway has been located on the sea ice surrounding it. However, this ice will start to melt and in February an ice-breaker will break up the ice (hence the name). This allows supply ships to dock at McMurdo. To the right is a picture of the runway now (you can almost smell the VOCs) and at bottom is a picture after the ice breaker comes through. The new runway for McMurdo is called Williams Field (aka Willie Field) and is located on Ross Island.

Bad Weather and More Test Flights

2005-12-01T22:56:00.001+13:00

Today the weather was overcast and windy (i.e., cold) in McMurdo, but it was the bad weather on the Plateau that canceled the Twin Otter flight to the South Pole. Photo on the left shows how grey it is out there this evening. So today we did two test flight around McMurdo as a chance to look at a problem with the OH instrument. It is a strange problem that only occurs on the airplane at the higher altitudes. This also provided an opportunity for our Teacher from Atlanta (Mike P.) to get a ride on the Otter. Here is a picture of Jason, the Twin Otter mechanic that keeps the plane flying and also helped us install all the instruments and probes on the aircraft. These guys spend a lot of time away from home, so it has got to be tough for them. The other two photos below were from yesterday (30 Nov) when we flew across the mouth of the Byrd glacier looking for outflow. This was a good science flight. The winds were a bit lighter than forecast, but we still measured elevated levels of NO (in the newly fixed NO instrument). It was good to get some data again after a few days down. Now we have to try and fly almost every day to get in all the flights. It will be tough, but hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow and the Ottter will make it to the South Pole. In which case we will fly one local flight and then (after a crew rest day) fly back to McMurdo on Monday or Tuesday. While this is going on, I will be at Happy Camper School learning how to camp in the snow and how to light a camp stove and use an emergency radio. Sounds kind of silly, but this is required before you can fly on the Twin Otter. Since Otter will by flying in some remote regions. If aircraft has some problems and needs to land out in the middle of nowhere. It is good if everyone has had the proper training on what to do in an emergency and how to set up camp, cook, and call for help on the radio. yesterday on the way back from the Byrd glacier the Otter overflew the Mt. Erebus volcano again. Here is a photo of some steam coming out of the top. No surprisingly, there was quite a bit of SO2 in this plume. Since I will be out on the ice (camping) tomorrow night, Andreas is going to try to write a guest blog tomorrow. Pleas feel free to email me any questions. Take care. Barry

Test flight and Science Flight 04

2005-11-30T23:47:00.000+13:00

Yesterday, David returned from the Pole with the new nitric oxide instrument and installed it in the Twin Otter. And today was a busy day with a 2 hour Test Flight in the morning followed by a 5 hour Science Flight in the afternoon. Here are some photos that Chuck (our pilot/co-pilot) took from the Twin Otter during the Test Flight. When the plane returned at 8:30 PM, I stayed around to download my data and then calibrated the zenith and nadir spectroradiometers. Normally, I can wait to do this tomorrow, but tomorrow morning (Thursday December 1st) the Twin Otter is heading for the South Pole. The trip to the South Pole will take about 10 hours of flying and the Twin Otter will have to refuel two times. As the crow flies, the distance between McMurdo and the South Pole is about 900 miles. Since the Twin Otter only flies at about 125 miles per hour. And has a range of about 500 miles, they will be stopping for fuel a couple of times on the way. One good reason to be at the Pole this weekend is that the Ice Runway is closing down. And the McMurdo airport is moving to Williams Field on the permanent ice shelf over by the New Zealand station (Scott Base). It is amazing that they can tow the Tower, the generator, the galley, the bathrooms, and all the other buildings to Willy Field in only 2 days. While at the South Pole the crew will fly two local flights to survey the atmospheric chemistry on top of the plateau. And then on Monday they will fly back to McMurdo on the way they will stop a few times and also sample the nitric oxide in the snow and collect some shallow snow cores and surface snow samples that can be analyzed back at the labs at UNH (Jack Dibb) and UMaine (Karl Kruetz). While Fred, Dave, and Ed at the South Pole the rest of us will pack up all the equipment from our Jamesway at the Ice Runway and transport it back to the Crary Lab. Then on Friday a few of us (Jim, Will, and I) will take the Happy Camper School and learn how to survive by building a snow cave to sleep if we were to get stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Andreas' Trip to Scott Hut

2005-11-29T20:44:00.000+13:00

Andreas (the Graduate Student from University of California) went on a tour of Scott's hut and was lucky enough to get a peek inside. Hi, Scott's hut was built by Robert Falcon Scott during an expedition to try to reach the South Pole in 1901. He sailed into McMurdo Sound and set up camp. The hut (called Scott's Discovery Hut) was built in 1902 and still stands. Unfortunately, it was too drafty to keep them warm so they slept on the ship most of the time. The team did not make it to the South Pole, but the hut was used three more times during expeditions to the South Pole. It was used twice by Ernest Shackleton's crew and once more by Scott during his succesful voyage to the pole. Unfortunately, he died during the return from the pole. The hut is a 15 minute hike from McMurdo. Occasionally they allow people to tour the inside. These tours are restricted to 8 people in order to prevent damage. Once inside you notice the smell of seal. During Shackleton's voyage, the crew burnt seals inside in order to try to keep warm. In addition a large number of supplies were also left. Outside, there remains a dead seal that was killed during the last voyage there. It has not decayed much because of the cold. For more information you can go to the Antarctic Heritage Trust.

Questions from Laura and Mario

2005-11-28T23:42:00.000+13:00

Laura Jackman wrote: This is Laura Jackman from Cy-Fair College in Houston, Texas. I hope yÃ’all had a pleasant Thanksgiving. While it is difficult to be without your family on a special holiday, what you are doing is an important and unique experience. Is this your first trip to Antarctica, if not when was your last visit there? You have taken many pictures of the area and I want to thank you for addressing some of the everyday issues you are involved in such as how you eat, where you sleep, and even how you handle your trash. I was wondering if you could share your most surprising experience (or discovery) there? It can be related to your data collection, the weather, or anything else from your day-to-day experiences. Also, I was reading that a good portion of your entries includes repairs and setting up equipment. Could you give a percentage of the time that you have spent on fixes, setting up, flight time, and data collection? Sounds like the daylight is playing with your sleep time; hope you are getting enough. YaÃ’ll stay safe and good luck with your research. Answers: Laura, Thanks fothe encouragementnt. It is hard being away from my family. I am hoping to catch up with my parents soon after I get back to Houston. This is my second trip to Antarctica. My first trip was in early November 2000, and I was at the South Pole for less than 2 weeks. I was down at the Pole to set up some instruments and teach someone else how to operate them. That project was related to the work we are doing now. Since then we have learned a lot more about the Antarctic atmosphere. But seems like we still have a lot of questions. In a sense, 2 to 3 weeks is the perfect amount of time. Long enough to get a feel for the place, but not so long to be away from home. My most surprising experience is how quiet it is here and how "big" Antarctica is. While their are a lot of airplanes, helicopters, and big trucks around here. It is easy to go for a short walk from the small town of McMurdo and feel completely by yourself. The landscape here is incredibly large. Right now I am looking out the window at some Mountains. It that are 4 or 5 miles away, like you could walk to them in a couple of hours, but they are really over 80 miles away. They are just really big and you have nothing else to compare them to. The other thing that is really neat is how nice everyone is to each other here. You don't have to worry about someone stealing your laptop and everyone is here because the want to be here. Everyone I have talked to seems to be excited or curious about the various science projects going on here. Unfortunately, too much of our time is spent setting up and doing repairs. But things are getting better. We have only flown 3 of our 18 scheduled science flights. So lots more data collection to follow. We will not get all 15 of our remaining science flights in, but we still have about 17 days to in our experiment. So looks like we will be flying every day (weather permitting) from now on. Since flights are typically less than 5 hours, every now and then we might be able to fly two flights in one day. With most fieldwork, I would say about 40% of the time is just getting everything set up and planned and the other 60% is collecting and analyzing the data. Mario Vigorena wrote: I'm Mario Vigorena, a student from Cy-Fair. I was the kid that did the research othe Antarcticic Treaty and when our professor told us about your experience, I was like THATS COOL. I mean the pictures are just fascinating and knowing that Antarctica has such a large scientific significance ... I was intrigued to know that such treaty was passed. Well back to questions concerning you guys, I would like to know in more detail what you guys are really looking for. Does it have something to do with the interaction of the stratospheric ozone hole and the Sun and how that changes the chemical structure of the snow? Are the pollutants from fossil fuels involved? What about our increased demand for such energy resources? Like, what's in for the world? Answers: Mario, Good questions. We have about four primary questions (actually hypotheses) that we are looking at. They are all related to air chemistry and how this impacts snow chemistry. One has to do with how Sunlight causes chemical reactions to occur in the snow. One reason we are interested in this is because when glaciologists drill through the ice here in Antarctica and analyze frozen water that fell here as snow 100,000 years old, they want to know how reliable this record is. We are starting to learn that chemicals arpreserveded very well (relatively unreactive) and others can change over time. In this regard, the ozone hole does play a role, since it lets in much more sunlight to do the chemistry, but the ozone hole has only been around for less than 30 years. So it is not important over geologic time. Pollutants from fossil fuel combustion are quite important in atmospheric chemistry, especially near (and downwind) from large cities like Houston. In addition to atmospheric chemistry, the CO2 from coal and oil also is a greenhouse gas. The good news about Antarctica is that it has very clean air, because it is so far from any big cities. The bad news is that we still can measure long lived pollutants (like DDT and PCB's) in the snow. The interesting difference between the ice core record in Antarctica and Greenland, is that in Greenland (downwind from the US and Russia) scientists have measured the increase in pollution over the last 200 years since the start of the industrial revolution. The value of the ice core record is if can give us some information about how the atmosphere was in the past, before humans started burning coal and oil. If we can understand how things worked in the past, we should have a better idea of how things might change in the future.

Measurements over the Antarctic Plateau

2005-11-28T21:10:00.000+13:00

Sorry for the late reply. The network has been down on station for the past two nights. It was out for almost 30 hours, just came back on line this afternoon. A few of you have sent in some questions, so I will do my best to answer them later tonight. On Friday morning the Twin Otter flew up to the Antarctic Plateau. I gave my camera to our pilots (Chuck and Rob) and they snapped a bunch of photos along the way. When we stopped to refuel and Doug took the opportunity to make some measurements of the production of nitric oxide (NO) in the snowpack. Things went well on this flight, but it was below - 30 C on the plateau, too cold for the fuel pump to start. So Rob had to used some compressed air to push the fuel out of the drums and into the aircraft fuel tank. This took a long time (over an hour) and everyone (and all the instruments) got very cold. Based on these measurements we are starting to think that we might have a leak in the NO instrument. So we are going to delay the 4th science flight until we can be sure that the NO instrument is working. Today (Monday), Dave Tanner flew to the South Pole to retrieve the NO instrument that we left there a couple of weeks ago. Since we know this instrument works, we are thinking that we will fly with this instrument on the Twin Otter for the next few weeks, and then return it to the Pole where it can make measurements for the rest of the year. Dave left on the 7:15 AM flight to the pole and is scheduled to return at 1:00 AM tomorrow morning. While my spectroradiometer has been working very well so far this trip, it did not like the -30 C temperatures when the Twin Otter was stranded on the plateau for an hour on Friday. It was "frozen up" (i.e., too cold for brass and steel metal gears to move) for about 20 minutes after fueling. After it finally warmed up enough to start, it was not really working so well. So I spent some time this morning checking it out and I am pleased to report it working well right now. But I am keeping my fingers crossed that we do not have any permanent damage to the gears. Above is a photo of the Antarctic Plateau from the air. This is what it looks like as far as the eye can see. When I went to the South Pole (5 years ago) it looked just like this. This is very similar to what it looks like on the top of the Greenland Icesheet as well. To the right is a photo of some ripples in the ice. I don't know much about this, but I thought it was interesting how regularly spaced these are. I do not know if these are crevasses, or the "mega-dunes" that I have heard about. I'll ask around and see if I can find out.

The trip to nowhere

2005-11-27T21:30:00.000+13:00

While we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, I was surprised how big a holiday it is down here. The airfield is closed for the entire weekend. I still went down to the aircraft to grab my data and Will, Dave, and Fred spent a lot of time working on the NO instrument. But for most of us, it was our first real time off. Saturday I slept in late (and missed the 5 km Turkey Trot). It snowed the night before, so the race was "officially" called off, but more than 40 people went and ran it in the cold and slippery conditions anyway. It is always cold and slippery here, so most runners know what they are getting into. Instead of the race, I went to the gym to shoot some hoops and managed to play in a few Dodgeball games. It was a lot of fun, and the first real exercise (besides walking out to the ice runway a couple of times) I have had in 2 weeks. The Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday was an amazing, I ended up eating dinner with Kathy Welch. She and I were both Graduate Students together at the University of New Hampshire many years ago. Kathy has worked down here every summer for the past 7 years (or longer). She works in the laboratory in McMurdo doing the chemical analysis on the snow, soil, water, ice, etc. samples collected in the Antarctic Dry Valleys. I had a nice dinner, and met a bunch of Kathy's McMurdo friends. They have a great Recreation Department here in McMurdo. Every day there are a couple of outings scheduled, but this is the first time we have had a chance to take advantage of them. Andreas signed for the exclusive tour of Scott's Hut (I am hoping he will write a blog about that for us). And a bunch of use managed to get on the "Trip to Nowhere". While we didn't know where we were going, the idea was to get a ride in the back of a big red truck, a "delta", and go 20-30 miles out of town. We ended up stopping at one of the ice leads where some seals were hanging out. It is hard to see them in the photos, they are mostly black blobs. We were not allowed to get closer than 75 yards, since you are not allowed to disturb the wildlife here. Mike Pastirik got this much better photo here. It was a lot of fun. But the best part of the weekend was when I heard about the pick up soccer on Sundays in the Gym. I really enjoyed getting a chance to run around and play soccer until I could barely walk.

Glenn's trip to Scott Base (American Night)

2005-11-26T21:31:00.000+13:00

Glenn Diskin is a scientist at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. He is flying a Laser Hygrometer instrument on the ANCTI Twin Otter. On Thursday Evening, he took a short trip over to Scott Base (the nearby New Zealand Station). Thursday is American Night at Scott Base. On any other day of the week, the folks from McMurdo Station are allow to visit by invitation only. Here is a message from Glenn with more information about his trip. I was eagerly awaiting the chance to visit Scott Base Thursday evening. Since arriving at McMurdo Station on November 14, I hadn't had a chance to do much of anything but work on my instrument. The combination of a really quick build and the great difficulty in working down here left me troubleshooting nearly full time. All I had seen were the Twin Otter, our Jamesway and the buildings on the Ice Runway airfield (McMurdo International Airport!), my dorm room in building 155 (which I shared with up to 5 roommates, depending on the night), and the galley, plus the "road" connecting the airfield to the "town." With time nearly running out to catch a shuttle over to Scott Base, I headed over to Derelict Junction, to wait with about 20 other people for the next ride. It sounded like such a journey, going all the way to Scott Base, but after about 1.5 miles, we were there. Up the hill and across the pass in the little ridge separating the U.S from the New Zealand side of the peninsula on Ross Island, and back down the hill to the Kiwi base. Not very far, but what a different feel. McMurdo feels like I imaging a mining town to be like (sort of like the town in October Sky, but smaller). It's not white and snowy. It's brown. Volcanic rock and soil are everywhere, and when the snow melts, the brown is all that's left. That plus the very functional looking buildings. But Scott Base is much smaller, all the buildings are painted the same cute green color, and it doesn't look as industrial as McMurdo does. It's more like a campground. After a quick visit to the Scott Base gift shop, for some shopping and a look at the photos and mementos on the walls, I decided to walk back to McMurdo and enjoy the view. My photographic skills aren't the best, but I tried to take some shots to capture the feel of the Kiwi side. The shot to the left is Mt. Erebus, the active volcano on the island, seen from a different view than we usually get to see it from. It's a really great walk, and I heartily recommend it to anyone!

Thanksgiving Day

2005-11-25T02:56:00.000+13:00

At 2:00 AM on Thanksgiving day it really started to snow. This was when we were supposed to take off, so I am impressed that the weather guys are doing so well. It was enough snow for me to be able to collect some snow samples for Jim Lawrence back at UH. Jim measures the oxygen isotope ratios of water vapor, rain, and snow. So far I have been here two weeks and we have only had two significant snowfalls. Hopefully we will get a few more. Because of the late take off, and the fact that my instrument is working well, I took the chance to do some laundry. It was pretty easy to do and didn't take that long, so I probably will not wait so long next time. The washing machines are free and you don't even need to buy any detergent. I was the only person doing laundry at 0900 AM, so no waiting for the washers or dryers. It sure doesn't feel like Thanksgiving, but we are all really missing are families right now. When I was walking to the lab this afternoon (a little after 2:00 PM) I remembered to take a photo of the sundial. This is one of the few places were the sundial is useful 24 hours a day. It is good enough to set your watch by. For me it still takes a bit of getting used to the fact that at solar noon, the Sun is due North. After the cloudy at cold afternoon, the wind died down and it was warm, clear, and beautiful out this evening. The Twin Otter took off successfully at 2:20 AM. We are always a little late for take off because we want to turn on all the instruments after engine start and make sure everything is working before take off. This usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all have a lot to be thankful for and I am looking forward to spending next Thanksgiving with my family.

Mike's random walk

2005-11-24T18:46:00.000+13:00

Michael Pastirik, the High School teacher that is working with the ANTCI project, made some observations and took some photos today. Here is what he had to say:

McMurdo was gray and overcast last night. This morning the station was covered in a dusting of about three-quarters of an inch of powdery snow. It was beautiful.

There is a scheduled flight tonight at 2AM. Sounds late, but remember the sun doesnÂt set. All trips in the plane require that one takes their ECW and complete snow or happy camper school. Even though you didnÂt ask, there is no bathroom on the plane. The polite word for the device used is chamber pot, but everyone here says pee bottle. It is plastic and has a screw on top, so it will not get spilled during a bumpy flight. Enough said.

I strolled about town after working on the nitric oxide snow-sniffer (works fine!). The first stop was the firehouse. Firemen and Firewomen are responsible for a great number of things. At first, it might strike you as odd that there is a firehouse. However, remember that Antarctica is a desert, windy, and the station has all kinds of things to burn. If there is a fire, water has to be drawn from the total supply purified for the town, and if the power station burns, then the station or water plant needs to be evacuated in one or two days. There is little margin for error in Antarctica. In addition, to their fire fighting responsibilities, firemen let people into their rooms when they lose keys, clean oil and other spills, attend aircraft arrivals and departures in case of a disaster, and the list goes on.

I continued my set of errands and went to the post office. It was there I met LaVonne H. Weber. I asked her about mail service in Antarctica. The shipping point in the States to and from Antarctica is San Francisco. Mail takes about three weeks to travel in either direction.. It costs the same to mail things here as it does back home. Mail arrives irregularly, with emergency transport and National Science Foundation (NSF) receiving priority. Four hundred pounds of mail arrived from the States last week.

Injuries happen, and people do get sick in Antarctica. If one needs medical care, there is the McMurdo Community Hospital. It is a small facility, but for more intense care, one is flown to New Zealand. Sometimes, it is not physical tending that people need, but spiritual time. The McMurdo Chapel is open to one and all. It overlooks McMurdo Sound. From it, over the transition (ice/ground area), one can see over the airport to the Transantarctic Mountains. The highest one tops 13,000 feet. It does make one contemplate the bigger picture.

Off to get a 12 foot bamboo pole with a red flag on it. Everything is flagged for safety. If there isnÂt a marked trail, or a flag trail (red or green), one should not go there. Casual walks in unmarked areas can be catastrophic. Search teams will look for you, but a foolish decision about not following rules and doing your own thing, can result in injury or death to you or rescuers. To say the least, this is frowned upon. By the way, two other flag colors are important to know. Black flags indicate danger, do not go there. An example of proper black flag use is to warn of crevasses. They are a constant source of danger. The other color flag is yellow. It is typically used as the indication for an outdoor field station pee site. There was someone on my happy camper school who seemed to be working on losing a popularity contest. He dug a trench for a shelter, and did a nice job at it. It took everything I knew to prevent myself (I wasnÂt alone in this.) from moving the pee flag to the edge of his trench once he fell asleep. For the record, I didnÂt do itÂ

A minor thing struck me as I came back into the building today. All exterior building doors are very sturdy here. About half resemble industrial-size freezer door handles. In tropical and temperate climates, refrigerators are used to cool things, thick doors and sturdy handles prevent the inflow of heat. Here, in Antarctica, the cold surrounds us everywhere and the door keeps the heat in and the cold out!

I talked with my wife (Barbara) and daughter (Carsen Lee) on the phone today. It is great to talk with them. It is hard to hang up. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the States. We will celebrate on Saturday night. Saturday morning I am going to participate in the Turkey Trot run/walk, eat, and I signed up to scrub pots and pans in the evening. I would like to think that a cafeteria worker could get the time off. Staff works hard here. Tonight, I plan to go over to the Kiwi Station (New Zealand) station named after Scott. I plan doing a bit of shopping, and having a bit of adult time.

Take care of one another! mp

Today's science flight canceled

2005-11-23T23:50:00.000+13:00

For the third ANTCI science flight, the plan is to take off after midnight and fly onto the Antarctic plateau and then go as far north as possible (i.e., until we have a little more than 1/2 a tank of gas, so you have enough to get back home). Reason we are doing this in the middle of the "night" is that the UV rays from the Sun play a key role in the chemistry we are looking at. So we wanted to do a comparison between low and high Sun conditions. This planned flight is the low Sun flight. We should be able to get to a latitude of about 75 degrees and at that time of the "night", the Sun is about 6 degrees above the horizon. Then a day or so later we will go to the same location in the middle of the day, and the Sun will be about 30 degrees higher.

While the Twin Otter is at this northerly location, the plane will land and we will collect some snow samples and also measure the gases coming out of the snow. About 20 minutes later the Otter will take off and head back to McMurdo. The photo on the right show some important notices on the door of our aircraft: "Do not open door with flaps extended", because the with the flaps down the door could damage the flaps. And "This aircraft is operating without a certificate of airworthiness". This just means that all the stuff we are hanging from the windows and top and bottom of the plane mean it is no longer FAA certified. The plane is still quite safe and will be regain it's certification as soon as we take all of our stuff off the plane. This normal for research aircraft. Once we found out the flight was canceled. We took the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the instruments that have been causing us some problems. Fred and Lee worked on the OH instrument, and think they have it working much better now. Doug and Will double checked that they did not have any leaks in their tubing and practiced snow NO sampling. Glenn replaced a hard disk that had crashed on the last flight. This is a bit of a concern for all of us as the plane is unpressurized and we got up to 14,000 ft last flight. Hoping that this is a one time only failure. Fred has planes to take the Otter up to 18,000 ft (with oxygen for everyone), so that will be an interesting test. Jim Crawford (shown on the phone, left) and I took the Laser Altimeter out of the plane and figured out how to change some of the settings to slow down the data rate and convert output from meters to feet (since aircraft convention for altitude is feet). After a bit of trying, we finally figured out how to "talk" to the instrument and change the settings. So we should get better data on next flight. Photo of the guy with the funny T-Shirt is Andreas. He is a graduate student of Don Blake's at the University of California - Irvine. Andreas and I have been on a bunch of field missions to Greenland in the past few years so, and I can tell you that even if he is annoying, he works pretty hard. He recently started a blog: http://annoyinganteater.blogspot.com, check it out if you have the time. Otherwise, tomorrow is November 24th (Thanksgiving back in the States), but here at McMurdo Station, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Saturday, so it does not interfere with the work week. Not so nice, but it really doesn't matter that much since the important thing is that we are not going to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families (a big deal for me). So we will all be thinking of what we are missing, and also what we have to be thankful for.

Sandra Southerland - Air Traffic Controller

2005-11-23T14:12:00.000+13:00

Below is another guest post from Mike Pastirik; Science Teacher; Cedar Grove High School; pastirik1@hotmail.com

Today I introduced myself to Sandra Southerland an air traffic controller at McMurdo. Sandra is African-American. We shared breakfast time together. Quiet, and reserved, but as the conversation proceeded she proved to have a quick wit and a wry sense of humor.

Sandra is a former Navy air traffic controller whose first assignment was in the Indian Ocean at Diego Garcia helping to land military jets and transports. She hails from West Palm Beach, Florida. She has a husband and an eighteen month old daughter. She views this experience (which she has tried for three years to get) as a great opportunity, and a stepping stone to bigger things. She misses her family dearly, and emails or calls daily. Concerns she didn’t have in Diego, but has in McMurdo include the periodic penguin walking across the runway, or the leopard sea sticking its nose through its entry hole.

I asked her straight-up about opportunities for minorities and women. She said there are great openings for both, but education and hard work are the keys. To be an air traffic controller, one must complete a five to six year program in college, or gain entry to the profession through the armed services. It was breakfast, and she didn’t want her picture taken, but she invited me down to the tower today for a tour and said she would then. I’ll be there! I got to the air traffic control tower about 3:00 pm just in time to see a C-130 landing on its trip from the pole. Sandra directed the plane in. It was quite a sight to see this big plane land. Next up was our Twin Otter for take-off. I got lucky, and it was Sandra’s turn again. The plane looked so little compared to the C-130. People’s lives depend on the quality of work done by the controllers. After a brief tour of the inside of the facility, we said goodbye and parted. The pilots, crews, and planes seemed to be in good hands. Mike Pastirik; Science Teacher; Cedar Grove High School; pastirik1@hotmail.com

Outflow from David and Reeves Glaciers

2005-11-23T00:14:00.000+13:00

Monday and Tuesday we flew to the mouth of the David and Reeves glaciers ( "south" of McMurdo in the map on the right). The long river of ice extending from the David glacier is the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Both flights were a success because most of the instruments worked and we measured increased levels of NO (nitric oxide) in the outflow of the glaciers. Interestingly, the winds from the Reeves glacier were much stronger than over the Drygalski ice tongue, and the levels of NO were higher in the flow from the Reeves. On the way back from the glaciers we flew downwind from Mt. Erebus and also noted some higher levels of SO2 (sulfur dioxide). Lee Mauldin (an NCAR scientist on our team) took this picture on the right of the Drygalski ice tongue flying at 100 ft above the surface. After the flight, here is Marty Buhr downloading the NO data. Calibrations are a very important part of making measurements. Most of the instruments are calibrated in flight. Marty has a bottle of NO (with a known amount of NO in it) on the plane and every 10 minutes he samples from the NO cylinder to check that he is getting good measurements (at this time he also does a zero check as well, to look at the background counts). For my sunlight measurements (ultraviolet and visible), I do calibrations after each flight with a series of light bulbs. I have compared these light bulbs to calibrated lamps in the lab at NCAR. In Antarctica, I measure the light from these bulbs for 5 minutes each to make sure the instrument is performing correctly. I also can check the alignment of the optics, but looking at some specific Hg (mercury) emission lines. Sometimes after a hard landing, I need to adjust the instrument alignment. Thus far the pilots have done a great job and I have had only minor changes in my calibrations. Here is photo of the calibration stand and the quartz light collection optic (the white hemispheric dome at the top). The calibration bulbs shine light through the hole in the center of the photo.

Mike's trip to the Greenhouse

2005-11-21T16:15:00.000+13:00

Up the hill and to the right, hidden behind construction lumber on a non-descript path is a bit of paradise at McMurdo Station. Paradise is warm lights, warm air, green plants and a hammock. All can be found in the McMurdo greenhouse. Building 147 is a great treat for the eye starving for more than the stark beauty of black rock and white ice at the base.

As one enters the building, one is reminded to quickly close and slam the doors to prevent heat loss. A brief list of rules for the visitor, a sign-in sheet and the sweet smell of growing herbs, and vegetables greets one just inside the foyer. Not a soul was present while I was there, but a quick look around clearly signals that the place is tended to regularly and loved by the caretaker. The greenhouse is actually two trailer sized buildings connected (not actually a double-wide), and contrary to temperate climate greenhouses, not glass enclosed, but the ceilings and walls are lined with reflective Mylar. Light from overhead sources reflect off the Mylar and bathe the plants in life-giving light from all directions. The peppers, cucumbers, parsley, lettuce, basil and other plants are grown hydroponically (without soil, but anchored in a mineral rich water pot). The plants were at all stages of development from seed to readily harvested fruit.

As I strolled the aisles between the growing plants, I savored the rich smells of the herbs and spices, and fought off the temptation to pick a pepper from the vine. I sat a few minutes in a chair provided by the caretaker, and drifted off imagining a spring season to come. On the way out, I promised myself a return visit and left my email address so I could be contacted to be a volunteer.

Mike Pastirik; High School Science Teacher; ANTCI Cedar Grove High School (near Atlanta, Georgia); pastirik1@hotmail.com

Cold calibrations and Sunday evening movie

2005-11-20T22:53:00.000+13:00

Today was less fun than most with high winds and a bitter fog hanging over the ice runway making it feel like one of the coldest days since we have been here. This afternoon I calibrated both of my systems and as my hands were starting to feel frozen, Jason brought over the Herman-Nelson heater (the yellow box with the green hose) and heated things up right away. It was so hot that it started to melt the ice next to me. So I shut it off as I finished things up. It is nice to know that if need to work outside for long periods of time, we can find some heat to keep us from getting too uncomfortable. Luckily, I can calibrate the upward looking radiometer inside the aircraft. This was much warmer, but took much longer because 4 of us were trying to work on the same rack (Lee on the laser altimeter, Glen on the water vapor instrument, and Jim on decoding the navigation system feed). Here is picture of Lee working behind my calibration system (the black cylinder on top of the white power supply). This plus the fact that we are sitting right next to the door means that we have to move when anyone is trying to get to one of the forward instrument racks. I am not complaining, it was much warmer inside, just took a bit longer. Otherwise, we had a fancy dinner tonight, with big/ thick strip loin steaks, potatoes, and green beans. It was too much food. But a special treat. The fog of the morning finally gave way to a light snowfall at night. While I had some work to do, I heard that the Sunday Evening movie at the Coffee House was a good one: "Rabbit Proof Fence". It was a nice break, the first movie I have watched since I got here. And the first time I forgot that I was in Antarctica. Coffee House is a nice place because it is not too loud and they sometime have live music there. While I usually don't drink much coffee, I have started to drink more since I have been here because it is a quick way to get warm and the caffeine helps keep me awake in the afternoons. So things are pretty easy here, much easier than for the first scientists to work at McMurdo Station.

Lucky to be here

2005-11-19T23:22:00.000+13:00

First thing this morning the electricians came out and rewired the power for the twin otter aircraft to an electricity pole on the other side of the street. We did this because we were having problems turning on all of the instruments at the same time. By the time the we had everything on, the voltage in the back of the plane was down from 110 to 98 volts. This was enough for some of the instruments to stop working. The power re-route helped quite a bit, be we are still having some minor problems with everyone up and running. Right now we have a work around: we run one of the instruments off of an extension cord running from the lab to the Twin Otter. And this seems to keep everyone's instruments happy. Later on I fixed a small problem with one of my instruments, it was not a big deal, but one of those things that require you to take everything apart to do a 5 minute repair. So all in all it took a about an hour to get everything apart, 5 minutes for the repair, and another hour to put everything back. But since we had an afternoon test flight, I had plenty time to do this needed repair. Here is a photo of David Tanner from GaTech. I have worked with Dave for over 8 years on various projects in Canada, Tahiti, Greenland, Hong Kong, South Pole, Japan, etc. So I have known him a long time and can say he is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. He is really good with instruments and goes out of his way to help other people out when they are having problems. Needless to say, he has helped me a number of times. Anyway, here is photo of Dave checking on his SO2 and nitric acid instrument before today's test flight. The Twin Otter took off at approximately 2:45 PM, and flew at three extended altitude legs at 12,000 ft then 6,000 ft and finally 100 ft for 40 minutes each. The good news is that more of the instruments are working (than during the last test flight) and we think we are collecting good quality data. Progress was made on the 2 to 3 instruments that are still having some problems. This is normal, but we hope to have all instruments working before first data flight on Monday. While we were thinking it might be nice to fly on Sunday, turns out the airfield is pretty much closed on Sundays. This is OK as it gives us a bit more time to fix the last few instruments. The last photo is of one of the dorms. Not a very pretty building, but very functional. I also wanted to point out the prominent recycling bins. Every thing that is shipped to the U.S. stations here in Antarctica is shipped back when it is no longer needed here. This includes every can, bottle, piece of paper, or food waste. Everything. So all our trash has to be sorted into 6-7 different categories. Everyone that stays here has to take a 40 minute class that explains the whole procedure. Some day soon, I will devote a separate post, just on the recycling system Finally, today when I went to lunch I got to talking with one of the guys working in the kitchen, he was really interested in our measurements. Turns out that he has a graduate degree in Environmental policy and he just took the job in the kitchen to get down to the ice. I think this is a pretty common story for many of the folks working here and just got me thinking how lucky were are to be here doing our research, getting paid to do something we really enjoy. While we sometimes have to work long hours and are away from home and family, we are still quite lucky.

Successful test flight

2005-11-18T22:13:00.000+13:00

Today we finally got our Twin Otter into the sky. The test flight was a success because we passed the "smoke" test. All the instruments ran full power and none of them burned up. Most of the instruments collected data, but a few of them still need a little bit of work. Here is a photo of the ANTCI Twin Otter returning from the test flight. My instruments worked well, but Marty had a tough time lowering the sampling "periscope"that I am using on the bottom of the plane. It seems a bit tighter than in Calgary. Again this is probably due to the colder conditions here. However, we can probably try a little silicone and see if that helps in the 2nd test flight tomorrow at 2PM. Also shown are three of the sampling inlets. The large gold sampling inlet is used for the OH, HO2, and sulfuric acid instruments. The smaller inlet is for both SO2, nitric acid, and hydrocarbon sampling. Here is a photo of the ice field air traffic control tower. They control all the C-17, C-130, Twin Otter, and helicopter flights over the ice. Sounds like the last C-17 flight of the season was a few days ago. The ice is gradually getting a bit thinn and not sure they it can hold a fully erloaded C-17. We are all hoping the ice runway lasts until Dec. 2nd as originally planned. The funny looking tracked vehicle is a Tucker snow machine that will soon be transported to the WAIS Divide Ice Core site. This machine will be used to groom the snow runway at the WAIS site. Next year the ice core drill will be setup and installed at this site, and hopefully in November of 2007 they will start coring in earnest.

Test flight tomorrow morning

2005-11-17T21:38:00.000+13:00

Seems like Murphy's Law is alive and well here on the Ice Runway. Things are still going pretty well, but today we have had a few bumps in the road. This morning we were trying to run most of the instruments at the same time and found out that the ground power unit we have down here is not quite putting enough power (at a lower voltage), less power than it is rated for. As a consequence we were concerned that we will not be able to have all the instruments up and running at the same time during our pre-flight warm up tomorrow. The aircraft guys are looking into this, and in the meantime, we are going to try use a 50 ft extension cord or two running from our Jamesway Laboratory to the aircraft. We will see how it goes tomorrow. Other excitement today was that the big fuel truck game to refill the tank the gasoline stove in our Jamesway. It is not really that exciting, but I like to see all the different big trucks that are around here. In a future post I will try to include a photo of a different antarctic vehicle each day. Here is the photo of the ANTCI lab space in room 310 of the Crary Lab. This is where I hang out and look out the window while I send out the blog. Hopefully soon I will be working on some data. It is a nice view towards the South from which I can easily see planes take-off and land on the ice runway. Here is a photo of a helicopter flying over to the Dry Valleys. Today I also learned that over 3,000 people worked at the U.S. Antarctic stations (McMurdo, Palmer, and South Pole) last year. And approximately 90% of them traveled through New Zealand (the rest came by ship or flew from Punta Arenas, Chile). These folks orgininated from 49 states, about 80% were here in the austral summer season, the rest wintered over. The average age was 38 years old and more than 1/3 were female. There were more than 150 different science projects and over 600 research personnel performed research. If you are intersted in learning more about working down here, check out: http://www.polar.org/

Cy Fair Environmental Geology Class

2005-11-17T19:21:00.000+13:00

This is Sergio Sarmiento's Fall 2005 Environmental Geology Class from Cy-Fair College in Cypress, TX. Sergio is also a graduate student at the University of Houston, Geosciences Department. I am glad to report that some of Sergio's students have been sending me questions, and hope to get a chance to visit Sergio's class next semester.

Calibrations before test flight

2005-11-17T18:32:00.000+13:00

This morning I thought that getting a little exercise might help, so I walked the mile from the center of McMurdo to the ice runway. It was a plesant walk, with light winds and lots of sunshine. On the way to the ice runway I snapped a couple of pictures of McMurdo Station. It was a beautiful day, warm enough that we were working with out jackets this after noon. After about 25 minutes I finally arrived at the ice runway and took this photo of the 3 Ken Borek Twin Otters lined up next to each other. By this time the wind had picked up so it was much colder out. I wore a lot more warm weather gear tonight having learned my lesson the day before. After dinner Jason and I re-installed my "new" re-sized inlet in the freezing cold conditions. Jason also installed the bench seats in the Twin Otter, so we now have a place to sit while working on the instruments. This puts us one step closer to being ready to fly. Finally, things are starting to look like we are almost done the installation phase. Turns out that a bunch of us still need a little more time to make sure our instruments are working properly, and calibrated so we postponed the first test flight until Friday. Tomorrow, onemembers of our team: Don Blake (from the University of California, Irvine) is heading back to New Zealand and then the U.S. He was the first member of our team to arrive here, and last week spent a few days at the South Pole getting instruments ready to operate over the winter. So in addition to our Twin Otter flights, we will have some year round surface data from South Pole. We wish him a safe trip home.

Working on the Twin Otter

2005-11-16T18:59:00.000+13:00

Today was a cold clear day as the wind continued to blow hard. And most of our work was on the Twin Otter so we here outside most of the day. Here is a picture of me the day before when it was quite warm, so you can see I have a lot less cold weather gear on. All the instruments are on the Twin Otter, but that is only half the battle, now we have to hook everything up and make sure they are working properly. I had a slight problem, the port that I am sampling from was a pretty tight fit during the Calgary test flights. Since it is some much colder here, the metal has contracted so much that I can not really use my inlet. So Jason and I took the sampling port off, and I took it up to the Machine Shop where they are going to machine some of the metal off (to make the hole a little bit bigger). On the way to the shop I snapped this picture of Mt. Erebus. Mt. Erebus is an active volcano, just a mile or so from McMurdo. We are actually going to sample some of gases coming from Mt. Erebus once we get everything hooked up and working properly. The machine and Carpenter shops are one the far side of McMurdo (up the hill a bit). So after climbing up there, I thought I should take a photo of the view from the top. In the background you can see the ice runway with all the planes. Later on when things settle down a bit, I was hoping to climb observatory hill, a small mountain right next to McMurdo (not shown in this photo) and get some even better photos of the town.

Have you seen any animals?

2005-11-16T06:50:00.000+13:00

Question: We are glad you made it safe. Keep us updated with weather conditions. Continue being safe. Our class picture is on the way. How is the animal life out there? We look forward to more pictures -Ms. Cowart's Environmental Science class Answer: Hope all is well in Houston. I have seen two sightings, a large sea-gull like bird called a Skua. He was chasing people trying to get them to give him something to eat. They can be pretty aggressive and they are surprisingly big (and fast). Here is picture of a Skua outside the dining hall (or Galley in Navy terms). I took this photo while I was sitting in the shuttle that ferries us back and forth to the Ice Runway. This Skua dive-bombed a bunch of people while we were waiting to leave. I also saw my first penguin, I think he was a adeladie penguin. He was hanging around the ice runway, looking at all the different planes. He didn't come over to say hi to us so I didn't have a chance to get a good picture. We are not allowed to get too close to any of the wildlife. The penguins are hanging around the ice edge. And as the ice starts to melt, I hear that we will start to see more penguins. So I should have some better photos soon.

How cold is it? And other questions:

2005-11-15T23:30:00.000+13:00

Brando Asked: First, thanks for the real time window allowing all of us in Houston to look in on you guys in Antarctica. It the time stamp at the end of each message local (central time) or is it you local time? Also, in condition 2 weather situations, you say the wind chill can be below 75 F. The temperature is actually 75 degrees below 0? Even with the proper clothes on how long can you stay out before it becomes unbearable? What is the temperture inside the buildings? Answer: Brando, Good question, all the posts are in New Zealand time. Since it is summer here, we are currently in Daylight Savings time. So I am posting 1 day and5 hours behind. So at 6PM on Monday in Houston, it is 1PM on Tuesday in Antarctica. Yes, that is 75 degress below zero. We can get wind chill below -75 F here, but it is quite a bit warmer in McMurdo right now (-29C Windchill). This sounds cold, and it is, but when you put on all the cold weather gear, you are just fine. The problem is that when we are working on the aircraft, we usually have to take off our mittens to hold a wrench or tighten a screw, so your hands can get cold kind of fast. You just has to take frequent breaks to warm up, which makes it take a lot longer to get things done. After about 30 minutes or so (unless you are walking or hiking) you start to feel the cold and are thinking about getting back inside. Temperature inside the buildings is quite warm, same as at home in Houston. So when you are inside you forget how cold it is outside.

Rest of the team arrives

2005-11-15T17:13:00.000+13:00

Today the last 5 members of the ANTCI science team arrived via C-17 from Christchurch. They include the oldest member of our team (a retired professor from Georgia Tech) and the youngest (a student that recently finished his undergraduate degree and is thinking about graduate school). In addition, today we added two NASA scientists (one is a modeler and a measurement specialist), as well as a high school teacher from New York. In this photo they are arriving in the Ivan Terra transport vehicle which took them from the ice runway to the NSF headquarters on station.

This is a photo of me standing on the ice runway. The ice is about 5 to 7 feet thick this year, thick enough for C-130, C-17, and C-5 cargo planes to land on it. The blue ice shown here is the ice frozen this season. The white ice is ice that is left over from last year, and re-frozen in the bay the following year. Apparently the white ice is less "predictable" and bumpier than the blue ice, so this year when the ice breaker comes, they will try to herd all the ice out of the bay, so next season the ice runway will be almost entirely new blue ice.

Here are a few of the C-130 aircraft parked near the ice runway. They all have skis on them so they can take people and cargo inland to sites such as the South Pole and Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) divide. This special ski equipped C-130 fleet is operated by the 109th New York Air National Guard (out of Scotia, NY near Albany). They are the only air wing in the world that fly cargo planes with skis (http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/ang/109.html). Apparently NSF will be starting to drill another Antarctic ice core at the WAIS Divide next summer (see http://waisdivide.unh.edu/ for more information).

Here is a picture of Marty and Jason getting the last rack on the aircraft. Now we just have to finish hooking up all the inlets, do a bunch of tests, and perform some calibrations and we will be set for our first test flight (probably on Wednesday). The NASA water vapor instrument just arrived today, so we might need a few days to get completely installed.

First Day of Integration

2005-11-13T19:31:00.000+13:00

Hello all, My name is Andreas Beyersdorf and I will be writing today's post. I am a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine and am working on the same project as Barry. Today was our first day of integration (installing our equipment on the Twin Otter). Because of the weight of the equipment we had to use a forklift to place the racks which will hold our equipment onto the plane. Fortunately, there were no accidents and we have installed 2 of the 4 racks.

Barry had previously posted about the condition 1 (whiteout) on Saturday, November 12. I had the unfortunate experience of being out at "Happy Camper" that day. "Happy Camper" is a survival school where they make you camp outside for the night and teach you what to do in case of a whiteout. Luckily, the weather didn't get bad until after we had set up camp. However, when we were about to leave we found out our transportation was stuck and they had to send out the search and rescue to get us.

Well I'll talk to you all later, Andreas

Near whiteout conditions

2005-11-13T18:30:00.000+13:00

This morning it started to snow and then the wind picked up. Soon the ice runway was classified as Condition #1. So we were stuck inside the Crary Labmost of the day. I spent part of my time catching up on my email, organizing some photos, and reviewing a paper. The McMurdo Station Guide defines the three classes of weather/travel restrictions: Condition 3 = winds less than 48 knots, wind chills warmer than -75 F, and visibility greater than 1/4 mile. This is considered the normal weather condition in McMurdo. Condition 2 = One or more of the following: wind speeds of 48-55 knots, wind chills of -75 to -100 F, or visibility of less than 1/4 mile. During Condition 2 weather you must check in and out with the Firehouse by radio prior to leaving town and upon your return. Condition 1 = Wind speeds greater than 55 knots or wind chills colder than -100 F or visibility less than 100 feet. And only mission critical travel is permitted and only with the approval of the Station Manager. Reason we had condition 1 today is that visibility was so poor due to snow storm and winds. Part of the station can be different conditions (e.g., earlier today, ice runway was condition 1 while the rest of the station was condition 2). Since our Twin Otter aircraft is parked on the ice runway, we had to wait for the weather to improve before we could go work on our instruments and start to install them onto the aircraft. Right now (11PM Saturday Night) it is beautiful out, nice and clear and sunny and very windy, but forecast says that later tonight another storm is coming through, so we are not sure we will be able to work tomorrow either. This is how it goes in polar regions. Could be worse, a bunch of guys that I few to McMurdo with were supposed to fly to the South Pole today. They are still here, and probably will not get to the pole until Monday.

Arrival in McMurdo

2005-11-12T13:49:00.000+13:00

My bag arrived at my hotel Thursday night, in time to catch the flight from Christchurch to McMurdo on the US Air Force C-17 cargo plane. Me and the other 47 passengers were lucky to catch a ride on the C-17 as this is the fastest way to get from ChiChi to the ice (only 5 hours). Plane was loaded down with supplies and scientific instruments, but still plenty of space for us. An uneventful flight, I got to read my book and try to sleep. Otherwise, I snapped a few photos of glaciers near the end of the flight. After we landed we headed into the NSF Office (a.k.a. the Chalet) for a briefing on the rules of the Station. While we are all here for science reasons, most important rule is to "Be safe at all times" as it is still a long plane ride back to civilization and a real hospital. And when the weather is bad, could be a few days or more before you can get help. Also learned that McMurdo Station is the largest research facility in Antarctica. It is located on the southern tip of Ross Island and lies 2,415 miles south of Christchurch and 850 miles north of the South Pole. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) , through the US Antarctic Program (USAP), coordinates US scientific research in the Antarctic. Research performed in and around McMurdo includes marine and terrestrial biology, biomedicine, geology, geophysics, glaciology, meteorology, upper atmospheric physics, and last but not least... atmospheric chemistry (the reason I am here). During the austral summer the population of scientists and support personnel at McMurdo often exceeds 1,100 people. In the winter, the population drops to roughly 250 people. For more information about McMurdo station and the current weather conditions, check out: http://www.mcmurdo.usap.gov/

Gear Up at the CDC

2005-11-10T22:22:00.000+13:00

Today, we met at the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center) at the International Antarctic Center here in Christchurch (http://www.iceberg.co.nz/), which is also where we will be checking in at 6:30 AM tomorrow to catch our flight to McMurdo. The folks at the CDC are wonderful and they gave us two large duffel bags full of gear, including: Ski goggles Wool socks (5 pairs) Snow boots Snow overalls Fleece jacket Fleece pants Fleece body Suit Long underwear (tops and bottoms) Expedition weight long underwear Wool mittens Leather mittens Leather gloves (2 pairs) glove liners (2 pairs) fur lined mittens nylon gloves nylon mittens neck gaiter face mask fleece hat fleece yazoo hat nylon/gore-tex coat Antarctic Parka water bottle While we were checking to see if all our clothes were the right size, the CDC staff was also checking on my lost bag and scanning my laptop for any viruses and to make sure OS was up to date. I will upload some more photos when I to Antarctica tomorrow.

Only lost one bag

2005-11-10T17:39:00.000+13:00

I made it to NZ yesterday a bit tired and minus on bag. I am still waiting for my bag to catch up with me but found out today that it is not lost, just took an unscheduled trip to Australia. Fortunately, it only has some clothes and extra boots in it. More importantly, the box with the optical collectors and computer equipment is here with me, safe and sound. I shipped most of my equipment to Antarctica (via Port Hueneme, CA) back in September in time to catch a boat ride south. But a I need a little more time to finish the calibrations of my optical collector (and replace a broken amplifier in one instrument) so need to hand carry some equipment with me on this trip. My journey south started in Houston on Monday (07 Nov 2005) with a 2:30 flight to Dallas. Not a very auspicious beginning, but American Airlines has the contract for all the US Antarctic Program (USAP) flights to the New Zealand. So from Dallas (an American Airlines Hub) I flew to Los Angeles and then a few hours later (08:45 PM Pacific Time) boarded a 747-400 Auckland, New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland a little after 9:00 AM on Wednesday 09 November after crossing the international date line in the middle of the Pacific. So total flight time was a little more than 12 hours. I still haven't figured out how to sleep on a plane so managed to watch about 4.5 movies and read the inflight magazine while most everyone else was asleep. After looking for my lost duffel bag and filling out the appropriate paper work I cleared NZ customs. I raced over to the Auckland Domestic terminal for a short (1.5 hr) flight from Auckland to Christchurch, NZ. Happy to report that the rest of my bags made it safely and I caught a shuttle to my hotel in Cathedral Square (i.e., central part of Christchurch where Christchurch Cathedral is located). Made it to the hotel (via shuttle bus) around 11:00 PM but my room was not ready to took a walk around town. Took some photos of the cathedral and visited the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.

Univ. Houston: GEOL1302: Intro. Global Climate Change

2005-10-13T09:30:00.000+13:00

These are my students in Introduction to Climate Change Class. I imagine it is difficult for them to have a few different professors presenting the lectures this semester. However, I am sure they will all do well on the final (December 12).

Test Flights in Calgary

2005-10-04T08:07:00.000+13:00

ANTCI Twin Otter test flights went well. After a week of late nights integrating the 4 racks of instruments, we flew a successful engineering check flight and scientific test flight on Sunday. Monday morning we downloaded all the instruments and boxed them up to send them on their way to McMurdo. Normally we leave all the instruments on the aircraft for the transit flights. But the Twin Otter guys need the space (and weight) on the aircraft for extra fuel so the Twin Otter can make the long trip from Calgary to Antarctica. They will be flying south through US, Central America, and South America. From Punta Arenas, Chile, to Palmer Station. Then over to McMurdo. Will take a couple of weeks to do all this flying. The photo shows the ANTCI Twin Otter (Tail Number SJB) before the first flight.