Antarctic Adventure

Helicopter recovery

2009-10-14T08:47:00.007+13:00

We finally got on the helicopter yesterday, and now all of our instruments are safe and sound in the lab. It was a little windy in town yesterday, but we decided it was good enough to take off, to see what it was like by our instrument. Here we have take-off:
This is McMurdo. It is a bustling metropolis. Our instrument was about 50 miles east of town, smack in the middle of the Ross Ice Shelf. Flying over that, there isn't much to see except for mount Erebus and lots and lots of white. The flight was pretty bumpy, and we could see the wind kicking up a lot of snow on the ice surface:
See all that blowing snow on the surface? It was windy.. Hugh didn't think he wanted to go outside. The view from my knee was good enough for him:
"Burr...it looks cold out there. Leslie, you're nuts."

Actually, it wasn't that cold out there, only -24 (sheesh...Antarctica really warps your sense of what is cold and what isn't..), but those winds. They were crazy. I'd say they were about 25 or 30 knots. But, we got the instrument and I got a picture:
I look terrible, but it was windy! After this, we got back in the helicopter and headed for home. It was a great adventure, and our pilot, Marko, was awesome.

I also captured another "Monet" shot this morning. I call it "Flags".
That's it for now. Courage.

Short post

2009-10-09T16:29:00.006+13:00

Hello. I know, I know. It has been a long time since I've posted. Here's the thing down here: there isn't a whole lot to do. Especially when the weather is bad and you're trying to finish your thesis. BUT! I have good news to report: my thesis defense date is set, and I will be presenting my work on November 13. Which is a Friday. Excellent...

First up: When traveling to Antarctica, you must have at least one picture taken of a close-up of your face, completely covered up, except for the eyes. So many people look like this on a daily basis that I'm sure you'd never recognize them in the galley if you ran into them. And yes, I'm smiling in this shot.

Here we have one from a short walk to Hut Point:
That's Scott's Hut behind me with station further behind the hut.
And finally, this is the only picture of a balloon launch that I've been able to not only get my hands on, but actually post on this blog. I don't know what the deal is: sometimes Blogger doesn't want to work.
Here is our last big instrument launch of the season. We are getting the instrument ready to go, and there are some people in the background holding the balloon. We have already gotten two of these instruments back, with the third and final one still on the ice. Stephanie, Mahesh and I are supposed to go out on the helicopters tomorrow to get it back, weather permitting. I'll update again after the helo ride!

Sea Ice and Seals

2009-09-24T14:11:00.007+12:00

Yello.
Well, it has been a fun filled couple of days. On Tuesday, we had our Sea Ice Training. No, not Happy Camper. Thankfully, I don't have to camp out in the freezing cold again. Sea Ice training is a class that teaches you all about what to look for when you're out driving around on the sea ice in the different vehicles on station. We learned how to spot cracks, and how to determine whether it is safe to drive over a crack. The rule on station is: 1/3 of your track length and 30" thick ice. So for a wheeled vehicle with 12" of tire in contact with the ground, the crack can't be bigger than 4". The 30" ice thickness is a standard rule of thumb for most of the vehicles on station.

To determine how thick the ice is, you have to drill to the bottom.
Here, Stephanie is drilling down through the ice near a crack we found. We drilled 30", with no problem. But we wanted to see how thick the ice was, so we kept on drilling until the drill popped out of the other end. Then we dropped a weighted measuring tape down the hole to determine how thick the ice was. 175 cm. Not too shabby. Almost 6 feet thick.
Here is a close up of our ice crack and our drill:
The image is at a weird angle, but you can see our crack and where we drilled. We dug a hole near the crack that went down to the sea ice (it was covered in snow), and inside the crack was a slushy water. Ooh. Frightening. :-)
This picture is one of me. Drilling away. Our snazzy vehicle we took out onto the sea ice is behind me. It is called a Hagglund. You can go for rides on them in Christchurch at the Antarctic Center for the low low price of around $20. Or, you can go all the way to Antarctica and get to cruise around on them for free. Your choice. I have some nice, artistic Hagglund shots, but you'll just have to wait for Calendar '10.

Now that we were all sea ice trained, we could go out to the seal group's camp. They are doing a study on the feeding habits of Weddell Seals (remember him from last year?). They catch a seal, gear him up, and release him to collect data. I couldn't take any pics of the seal release we got to see, but it was really cool. They are incredible animals. However, it was so beautiful on the ice, I thought I'd share some of the pics I did take:

That's Ross Island. McMurdo is in the front, near the shore. That Monstrous behemoth behind station is Mount Erebus. Oh volcanoes. You are so intimidating. Here's another, closer shot of McMurdo with Erebus in the background. If you click on the thumbnail of this one, you'll be able to see the station a little better.
Well, I hope you enjoyed some sights around McMurdo. In a couple of days, the summer flights will start coming in regularly, and we'll get some fresh food. We haven't had a flight since the end of August.

Hugh gets "cabin" fever

2009-09-21T15:06:00.009+12:00

A few days ago, Hugh got fed up with hanging around my bed all day long, so he decided to go out for an adventure and find some sights and some food. He headed to Scott's hut at Hut Point. Here he is with the hut behind him:
Hmm... no food there. Continuing on to Vince's Cross, Hugh had to stop and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
Very pretty. He also wanted to stop and get a picture of himself with the station in the background. Very nice, Hugh. Who's taking these pictures?
It was beginning to get windy and cold out there, so Hugh decided it was time to get back to bed, without a meal. Besides, I was going to be home soon, and he couldn't let me catch on to his schemes. But I know now...oh, I don't get how this works.

But wait!! What's this?
Oh, rats! While this is food, it is 100 year old food. So, rather than eat the 100 year old seal, Hugh posed for a photo.

This concludes Hugh's journey to Hut Point. He didn't get inside the hut, but when I do, I'll post some pics.

Courage

McMurdo town

2009-09-11T14:37:00.006+12:00

Hello again! All is still well on the other side of the world. We have launched a few more balloons, but no more big ones. Bummer. We're waiting for all the elements of the universe to come together for those. It is tough.
I took a walk around station yesterday, and got some pictures of some of the buildings in our neighborhood. The first is the most important, Building 155:
This building houses one of the dorms and the most important place of all: the galley. I'll get some pictures of the inside soon. Across the road from Building 155 is the medical center:
Also in town is the coffee house, one of my favorite buildings:
You can go there to have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and sit and read a book, or play a board game with some friends. We are planning a Risk Epic Game soon.
There is also a gym, called the Gerbil Gym:
I go here as often as I can to walk a bit and I've even tried indoor rowing. It is a nice place to get away for a little bit.

Finally, on one end of town is the chapel. Inside the chapel, as in most, is a beautiful stained glass window. But the one in Antarctica has to have some Antarctic flair. Enjoy!
Well, that concludes our mini tour around McMurdo. I'm sure there will be more to come. Have a good week!

Second week

2009-09-06T16:22:00.004+12:00

Hello! Nothing much new has been happening around here. Except for the insanity of cold and wind we had for a few days. We had lows of -50 F with wind chills as low as -90 F. That was pretty cold. It lasted a while, too. Everyone was shocked by this cold. I don't think that happens very often at McMurdo. To celebrate the conclusion (hopefully) of the cold weather, I had my picture taken by the McMurdo Station sign yesterday:
Hello Fluther! For this picture, it was only -20 F (or so) with moderate windchills (-60?). Balmy weather, compared to what we have been experiencing.

We've also had some more spectacular polar stratospheric clouds (nacreous). Check them out!
I can't get enough of these things. They are so beautiful. Everyone on station loves them, too. As the sun sets, the colors can change really fast, so they look like they are changing all the time.

As for my photo project, I snapped some shots during one of our most recent high wind and cold weather days:
Ob Hill looks a little fuzzy because of some of the blowing snow all around it. As we watched, we could even see little whirls near the peak. I like this shot. I think it has a very nice crisp look to it, despite the fuzziness.

We launched one of our big balloons a few days ago and got great data. Tonight, we are hoping to launch another one, but this time we hope to launch when there is a polar stratospheric cloud above us. That would be a great measurement for us. Wish us luck.

Courage

Yes, I really am here

2009-08-31T10:02:00.007+12:00

Thought you might like some actual verification that I am here in Antarctica. Problem is, I like being behind the camera, not in front of it. But, I try to please all, so here are some "action" shots.

First up, "Look! A mountain!" (I wasn't actually trying to point at that mountain, but that's how it came out.)
Just being silly. This is our view from Building 70 (our remote receiving station). Here is a shot of me just chillin' outside of Building 70:
We call it the telephone booth. Because it isn't much bigger. Spending 3 hours in this hut during a balloon launch can be a little boring, so we have to remember to bring plenty of things to occupy ourselves (read: crossword puzzles).

Finally, here is the beast we get to drive around station. The wheels are too big for the wheel wells, so you can't turn the steering wheel all the way around, or you'll rub the tire.
So there you have proof of my being on the ice. Yesterday, it was -30 F with wind gusts of up to 40 mph. I don't think I have to say that it was C O L D.

That's it for now. Courage.

One Week Complete

2009-08-29T13:33:00.005+12:00

We've been here for one week! Tonight is Italian night in the galley, which is always an enjoyable feast. It's the one meal a week we can have a glass of wine with our dinner, so it is pretty nice. Everything has been going fairly well on the other side of Earth. We launched another balloon a couple of days ago (don't worry; I'll post some launch pictures as soon as I can get my hands on some). The launch went really well. During the launches, a couple of us drive up to the top of this hill just outside of town where there is a communications building. We have one of our receiving stations in there because it has a great view of the sky all around it. When we left the building this time, this is what we saw:
For this one, you really have to enlarge the thumbnail to get the best perspective, but isn't that cool? This is looking pretty much due North, and the sun was setting. The lighting was just right that the sky was brilliant orange and back lit the mountains. Pretty awesome.

As for my photo project, enjoy "McMurdo Fog":
It is dark like that because that is exactly what it looked like for us. Notice how Ob Hill is pretty unrecognizable. Hopefully, we will get a Condition 1 storm (visibility = zero) and I can take a shot then.

Hope things are well in the Northern Hemisphere. More posts to come!

Fixed picture problem

2009-08-26T07:37:00.020+12:00

UPDATE: Problem fixed! Many thanks to the folks in the seal group on station for helping me diagnose the problem I have been having with Firefox. I now have four internet browsers on my computer... I think I'll keep them. They make me look geeky.

Here are some bonus pictures.

This was the view yesterday as the sun rose over the station. These are the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen.

And here is picture number one for my photo project:

This is Observation Hill with the National Science Foundation's Chalet in the foreground. This one is "Sun rising over McMurdo". I'm going to take the same shot every day (or every other day), at different times of day the whole time I am here. Like Monet.

Anyway, things are OK here. We launched an ozonesonde two days ago. The next instrument we'd like to launch is one of our particle counters. Hopefully, we can do that tomorrow.

Courage.

I have arrived!

2009-08-23T18:42:00.001+12:00

UPDATE: Pictures are now linked. Click on the thumbnails to view the full sized picture.

Hello! I writing to you from Antarctica! After two delays in Christchurch (which ended up being a nice break), we woke up on Saturday at 2:30 am and headed to the airport to gear up and board the plane. We took off at about 7:30 am New Zealand time, and arrived over McMurdo a little over 5 hours later.

Landing in a C-17 is strange. You can't see anything, and all you can do to figure out where you are and how far away from the ground you are is to try to "feel" the way the plane is moving and shaking. The crew told us it was about -25 F on the ground at McMurdo, and boy, they were right. Cold! But this year, I was prepared. I managed to capture a few pictures of my first moments on the ice.

Here's a view of the plane behind me as I walked away from it. The air was full of ice and diamond dust particles, so I think these images are quite impressive.

Here are all of us Antarcticans boarding Ivan the Terra Bus to be taken back to McMurdo. I didn't ride on Ivan but on a bus, instead.

It has been pretty nice here, and it is only day 2. Tonight, as well as last night, there were pretty spectacular polar stratospheric clouds (or, nacreous clouds) all over the skies surrounding the station. This evening, I couldn't help myself, and had to take a couple pictures.

How about them apples? If you are new to my blog, and you're not sure what these strange things are, I explain the phenomenon a few posts back. We try to take ozone measurements when these clouds are present because they are key in the destruction of ozone. To measure these clouds, we use a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to measure the light scattered from the clouds. The characteristic green LIDAR beam is well known around station, and here is my best 4 second exposure shot of it:

For now, it is time for me to get ready for bed. We have another long day of getting all of our gear in order and ready for a launch. Hopefully, we can launch tomorrow. Until next time: courage.

Day Four in Christchurch

2009-08-21T08:38:00.000+12:00

We are on our second 24 hour weather delay today. I suppose the weather in McMurdo is not good for flying. Christchurch is a beautiful city, but I'm ready to get to work and measure some ozone. Maybe the third times the charm.

Hugh is my adventurer again this year. He had such a good time freezing on the ice last year that he decided to join me again. I'd put some pictures up, but the wireless here isn't letting me. Oh well.

We have had nice weather since we've been here. That makes biding the time a little easier. We don't really know what we're going to do today, but I'm fine with just taking it easy and relaxing a little.

Well, I'll keep you all up to date on when we get to the ice. Hopefully, tomorrow's the day.

I'll be back!

2009-05-14T10:11:00.000+12:00

In case you haven't heard and are still following this, I'm going back to the ice this August!

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

Last few days

2008-10-27T20:46:00.000+13:00

We only have a few days left (we leave a week from today), so I have been trying to pack a few last minute adventures in, while I still can.
Today we had to take a trip to start packing some of our equipment away, so on the way home, we stopped at the Scott Base sign post.
Ooh! They have camping, picnic, dining and even docking facilities! (Can you find Goldbug in this picture? AKA, Hugh)

Later this evening we hiked to the top of Observation (Ob) Hill. It was a spectacular night. Beautiful sky, and beautiful station. The hike was a bit rough for me, what with the asthma and all, but we made it to the top and got some amazing pictures.

As we hiked higher and higher, I took pictures to mark our progress. Here is Hugh and the station below him.

And here we are together about mid way up the hill.
Finally, we made it to the top. Where's Hugh? (There sure are a lot of crosses around station.) Isn't it beautiful?

Because Hugh didn't get any pictures at Happy Camper, I wanted to make sure we got one in front of Mount Erebus.
It was a great hike. And the best part was: we got to slide down the whole thing coming down. Weeeee!

Next post = Last post from the Ice. :-(

Antarctic optical phenomena

2008-10-22T19:58:00.000+13:00

Because of the extreme cold temperatures, both near the ground and above us, there are some pretty amazing optical phenomena to be seen. The first, and one that you will probably be familiar with is the 'sun dog'.
This phenomenon is also referred to as 'mock suns' because of the appearance of one (or, in this case, two) bright spots next to the sun. This picture also shows some of the arc around the sun, too. On this day, it was a beautiful clear day. But on walking outside, the air all around us was glittering. There were ice crystals everywhere (Not snow. Think smaller. They are referred to as 'diamond dust'.) It was these crystals that gave us such beautiful sun dogs. Ice crystals have hexagonal shapes, and as light passes through these little crystals, the light is reflected and refracted back into the viewer's line of sight, causing bright spots.

The second phenomena is really only 'optical' when there is light to interact with them, but occur when the temperatures are just right. We all know that clouds form in the troposphere (or we do now), but what if I told you that there were stratospheric clouds? My God! She must be mad! No. I'm not.
I know, I know. Not much to look at. But this is the only one I saw all season. Just before we arrived on the Ice, we were told that the sky was filled with them, causing the most beautiful sunsets you have ever seen. And boy, were they right:

This picture is in focus (see the horizon). But doesn't it look like an artist just brushed the sky with his brush? Simply amazing. This picture was taken by the station dentist, Kim. The previous one was taken by Luca who ran the LIDAR.
So what are these? They are called polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) or nacreous clouds (when you can see them). They can only form when stratospheric temperatures are very cold (-80 degrees Celsius. That's -112 F) and at altitudes between 15 and 30 km (about 50-100,000 feet). They are composed of water and nitric acid. But not to worry, they are completely natural. We are particularly interested in these clouds because of their reaction with ozone. Long story short, these clouds produce activated chlorine which is an ozone destroyer. When these clouds are present (Antarctic winter), the ozone hole intensifies. We measured these clouds when we first got here, but they are quick to disappear due to the rapid warming of the stratosphere as we got more and more sunlight.

The last phenomenon is a personal favorite of mine: fata morgana. This is a type of mirage (superior). Inferior mirages are the ones we are most familiar with. This is what you see when driving on a hot road and there appears to be a pool of water in front of you. What is actually happening is the sunlight is being refracted, or bent. Similar to putting a straw into a glass of water and seeing that it "bends", light is bent toward the colder (denser) air. For Fata Morgana to appear, the surface temperature has to be colder than the air above it. Here is some amazing fata morgana we saw, as photographed by Luca:
Do you see that strange band of "cliffs" at the bottom of the mountains? Looks pretty fake, right? Well, it is. This is the fata morgana. Light is bent toward the colder air, but our eye interprets that as being higher than reality. Here is a nifty slide I made to try to explain it better.
Angry Man is seeing the refracted light from the mountain, but his eyes follow the same line up (they don't curve back down). So what he thinks he sees is a really tall cliff, or mountain.

I hope that makes sense. It is easier to explain in person. But that's it for Antarctic Optics, Leslie Style.

Recovery. Antarctic style.

2008-10-16T19:44:00.000+13:00

Part 3 of 3. (If you missed parts 1 and 2, see the previous posts "Tractor trip" and "Happy Camper".

For those of you unfamiliar with our ballooning escapades, I'll fill you in on a few extra details. In Laramie, after we launch our instruments, a few of us pile into a van and hit the roads in a valiant effort to recover the balloon and instrument package. We have all sorts of tracking equipment on both, and are usually able to locate both with no problems. Here on the ice, we only recover the instruments, but in a much different way.

Before we get to the recovery, how about some pictures, courtesy of the station dentist, Kim, from our last big balloon launch (Wow. There are too many commas in that sentence.)
Here is the whole set-up. We had two people holding the balloon (that was about 150 pounds that they had to hold down. Not easy to do.), two people on the rest of the balloon (we only fill a small portion of the balloon, the bubble. As the balloon ascends, the gas expands and fills the rest of the plastic until *POP*.), I am holding the parachute, Mahesh is holding the mast (with all of our tracking equipment on it), and Jen has Jupiter (the instrument. Not the planet.)

As the balloon rises, the instrument samples air and gives us information on the size distribution of particles in the atmosphere (Jupiter uses a laser to shine on the particles, based on the scattering caused by the particles, we get a size distribution).
So this picture above shows what we have to find out on the sea ice. And this is what it looks like on the sea ice.
This is the same instrument as in the launch pictures above. It was about 40 miles away from station on the sea ice. How, you may ask, did we ever find such a thing?
Well, only by the greatest means of transportation ever devised. Helicopter.
That's me and our pilot. Pretty cool, no? Even I'm jealous of me.
I was able to get some pretty amazing shots as we left McMurdo. Here is one of the station just as we took off.
And here is one of Scott Base (the Kiwi base).
It was a beautiful day and a thrilling adventure. Helicopter with a personal pilot who has years and years of experience is the only way to fly.

Well, that concludes my four day Adventure Saga. I hope it was as thrilling for you as it was for me.

Tractor trip to Cape Evans

2008-10-15T10:15:00.000+13:00

Part 2 of 3
The day that we got back from Happy Camper, I basically took a shower, ate some food and fell asleep. I think I lost consciousness around 6 pm. It had been a long 36 hours. At 7:30 am, I was beginning to think I should pry myself out of bed (13.5 hours was probably enough sleep for one night), when the phone rang. Turns out, a couple of the guys on station were going out to Cape Evans (about 15 miles or so from McMurdo) that morning to groom the road, and they had two extra seats. Would Mahesh and I be interested in going along for a ride?

Yes we would.

I scrambled to wake myself up, get dressed and head out to the tractors. We drove through town, and got on the sea ice. From that point on, we were driving on frozen ocean. Oooh.
Here I am with one of the tractors.
It was a cloudy day, but you could still see pretty far. It is too bad it wasn't clear; the area we drove to is right at the base of Mount Erebus. That would have been really cool. But we drove. And drove. And drove some more. Eventually, we came to an small island called Big Razorback. John (one of the drivers) said he saw seals there the day before. And guess what? They were still there. I had to do a lot of editing on this picture to zoom in close enough to the seal, but here is my friend, a Weddell seal. He is waving to you.
There were about eight of them, all laying out on the snow and ice. There was a crack that we could see right at the base of the island where they came up from.
Continuing on our journey, we eventually came to Cape Evans. Scott and his men constructed another hut here, I believe in 1911. It was from here that Scott and his team departed for their journey to reach the South Pole. Scott was determined to beat Amundsen and his men to the pole but unfortunately, did not make it in time. Amundsen and his team relied heavily on sled dogs to bring them South, while Scott used a mix of horses and dogs. The horses didn't fare as well as had been anticipated. On the return journey home, Scott's men perished one by one. Eventually, unable to continue on due to malnutrition and a horrid blizzard outside of their tent (a Scott tent. Ooh. Ominous.), Scott and the final men died.
There was an interesting snow drift behind the hut.
We weren't able to enter the hut, because we were not on a tour and didn't have the key. But in front of the hut there was an anchor of a ship. I've heard this story before, but for the life of me, I can't determine what ship it came from. There was a ship anchored to this spot, but was torn away from its chain, and was lost to sea. All that remains is this anchor.
On the return journey back to station, we stopped to take a few pictures of some icebergs near the Erebus glacier tongue.
It was an incredible day, and the day that followed was equally as amazing.

Stay tuned!

Happy Camper

2008-10-13T16:46:00.000+13:00

First, let me preface this post by saying that the past four days have been the most adventure filled, awesome days I have ever had. So in order for you to fully grasp the enormity of the events that have taken place, I will post only one of these events today, and save the others for the next posts. So read fast! You don't want to miss a thing.

On Friday, Mahesh and I had to attend a two day course commonly (and lovingly) referred to as "Happy Camper". This course teaches you how to be prepared in the event of being stranded out on the ice, or at some other remote location in Antarctica. As part of this course, the campers have to construct, maintain, and sleep one night in a winter camp.

We started the day at 0900 where we got the basics on what is included in survival bags that everyone must have with them when traveling away from station. Then we traveled out to the Happy Camper site. After learning how to use the stoves and getting a little bit of last minute information, we headed out to our campsite... a vast field of white.

Unfortunately, pictures of this expedition are rather sparse as the temperatures were freezing my camera batteries faster than I could snap pictures, but I did manage to get this great shot of Mount Erebus. We had a beautiful day.
The set-up of our camp included building a wind wall out of "quarried" snow bricks (we sawed them out of the snow below our feet), setting up Scott Tents, setting up mountain tents and building a quinzee. We also learned how, if all else failed, a snow trench can save your life. Here are a few shots of our finished camp.
That is the quinzee in the middle with the shovel sticking out of it. This is basically a hollowed out pile of snow. The way we built it was by piling up all of our gear, and shovelling snow on top of the gear until it was covered in a 12 inch thick layer of snow. There were 20 campers, so this did not take much time. After allowing the snow to harden and form to its new shape, a hole is cut on one side and the gear can be pulled out, leaving a hollow center. Where the shovel is in this picture is the entrance. It is dug down below the floor of the quinzee to allow for the cold air to pool up, and not enter the quinzee.
This is the entrance. In the background of these two pictures you can see the mountain tents and the Scott Tents (the tall yellow ones). This tent uses the same design as Scott's expeditions, nearly 100 years ago. Can you guess where I spent the night?
Behind the tents was our "kitchen" area and the wind wall.
It was a very long day of excruciatingly difficult work, followed by a long, very cold night. I think reports were that the low reached -15 F. That's cold. But, we were all well prepared, and we didn't suffer a single casualty. Whoo hoo! A few of us said that it was the "stupidest fun thing" we had ever done. Lesson learned: Now that I know how to do it all, I am sure I could do it again if I had to. But I'd never want to do it again.

By the way. I slept in the quinzee. Wee!

Scott's Discovery Hut

2008-10-04T08:57:00.000+13:00

Last night we took a walk to Scott's Discovery Hut. It is located, how appropriately, at Hut Point, just a short distance from McMurdo. It was built for Scott's 1901 expedition to the ice, but was not lived in during this expedition as it was too cold. It was however, later used by Shackleton and his crew in1908, and again by Scott in 1910, and one last time by Shackleton in 1917. At one time, there were 16 men living in it for a month. It was, in a word, amazing.
Approaching the hut:
We'll come back to the hut in a bit. First, we continued walking past the hut up to Vince's Cross.
Here are some of the views from that portion:
Here I am, with Scott's Discovery Hut behind, and McMurdo Station further behind that.
And finally, the view from Vince's cross.
Pretty pretty, no? Back down at the hut, we found something they left behind.
That is a seal. A dead seal. A dead 100 YEAR OLD SEAL! Wow. Just wow. But wait! There's more. Before entering the hut, we had to clean our shoes off really well so we didn't track in salt and dirt and such. The lock on the door was giving us a hard time, but Chicago winters have prepared me for such a thing, and we eventually got the door unlocked. Entering the hut was incredible. There is snow everywhere in it, and it is dark. We had these sub-par flashlights (boy, could we have used some X-Files flashlights) and really could only see things by taking a picture, and looking on our LCD screens which, amazingly, hadn't frozen by this point. I know people have been there before, but I felt like Carter discovering Tut's tomb.
Their food and gear has all been left behind. Even their stove is ready for cooking:
It was very cold and very dark inside. It smelled pretty bad, I'm sure we all breathed in some fairly foul stuff. And, there was snow everywhere:
It must have been truly horrendous for these men who had to survive here. One last picture. I haven't edited any of these yet, but I love this one. I think I'll call it "Closing the Hut":

Ballooning Collage

2008-09-27T17:36:00.000+12:00

Wow. What a day. First I have to tell you, if you read the 'Current Weather' on Weather Underground this afternoon (for you, morning for me), it may have said that winds were 58 mph, with a 'Light Thunderstorm'. Well, I can say with certainty, there was no thunderstorm. Though that did make me laugh. But there were 58 mph winds, and I heard that the max we got throughout the morning was, I believe 108 mph. As some of you may know, that is hurricane force. Cooooool. I got to be a weather weenie for sure this morning. We had a storm move through from about 5:30 am until, well, it is still passing through (6 pm), but the worst of it was over by noon. I woke up to the building shaking, and took a peek outside and all I could see was...white. I'm not kidding. Just a window of white. It was incredible. I'm sure glad I wasn't on I-80 driving back to Laramie. At McMurdo they use a 'Condition' system for weather: Condition 3 is good weather, Condition 1 is horrible weather. During Condition 1, you are not allowed to leave the building you are in. So, poor me, I just had to go back to bed. But it was Condition 1 until about 11 am, when they changed it to Condition 2. It was so surreal. But, it is spring. Weather is crazy in spring. I wish I had had my camera. Next time.

Anyway, I thought I'd post a few pics of recent balloon launches, courtesy of Luca, our Italian colleague who has been running the LIDAR.
Here is Mahesh (holding the balloon), Jen and myself getting a balloon ready to launch an ozonesonde. Prior to this stage, we have to inflate the balloon with Helium.
Jen is checking that the balloon has enough lift to take the sonde and balloon up to 30 kilometers.
And on the other end, here I am inflating it. That gun is heavy. I look like a bank robber.
Here I am posing with Benny, the balloon. (I didn't really name it, it just came to me right now.)

Once we have everything set up, we can launch. It takes about 3 hours or so for the balloon to ascend and fall, the whole time we are getting live data from the instrument. It is pretty cool to sit and watch the ozone increase, and then sharply decrease when the instrument gets to the hole. We have seen some good 'zero' ozone levels up there.
Well, that's all for today. Hope your weather is better than mine! Go Cubs!

Cold. Windy. Arrival Heights.

2008-09-24T19:28:00.000+12:00

Hello! Today we took a short trip up the hill to Arrival Heights. This is located just a short drive from McMurdo. It is a protected area due to the sensitive instruments being used up here. First, we got a tour of the Kiwi lab up here where we got to see a Dobson Spectrophotometer.

This beast of an instrument was invented in the 1920s by, you guessed it, Dobson. This one here at Arrival Heights has the serial number "17" on it. It is ye olde. And, it still works. We think this one has been in use since at least the 50s, but probably earlier than that. It is used for measuring total column ozone, or basically how much ozone is in the atmosphere directly above the instrument. In does this by, in a nutshell, sending two wavelengths of light up into the sky. One of these wavelengths is absorbed by the ozone, the other, not so much. By comparing the amount of absorption, the total amount of ozone can be interpolated. Wow. Cool.

Afterwards, we walked the 200 feet to the US building, all the while I was taking some pictures.
This shot is taken in the direction of McMurdo. The hill you see is Observation (Ob) Hill which we have a nice view of from the lab.

Here I am at Arrival Heights with the sea ice behind me. The horizon is the ocean.
Here is Jen leaving the Kiwi lab on the hill. It was really windy.
And this is a view of the Transantarctic Mountains.

Isn't this place amazing? Well, off to a lab party. Have a good few days!

Trip to Scott Base

2008-09-19T00:03:00.000+12:00

Well, I know it has been a while, but that just goes to show how busy Jennifer has us down here! We work day in and day out, it is unbelievable! (Seriously, it really isn't like that at all. But we have been really busy with launches. Four successes!) But this afternoon, we did get a little respite, after a grueling 2 mile hike (again, I am kidding. The "walk" was easy.) to Scott Base. Scott Base is the New Zealand Base just about two miles (or less) from McMurdo. We were invited for dinner by a colleague of our group, and then stayed for "American Night" at their bar. Scott Base is much smaller than McMurdo; only about 23 people are there right now. So being invited for dinner is a real treat.
Here are some pics from our walk down the hill to the base.
Scott Base is really nice because, aside from the creamy green all the buildings are painted, they are all connected. Which means you don't have to keep putting on all your gear going from building to building.
And, the piece de resistance, a picture of me!
I promise, I have more pics of me, I'll try to get them as soon as I can. And in case you're worried about the temperature out there; it is after midnight right now and it is +5 degrees F. So it wasn't horribly cold. All in all: nice hike, nice dinner, nice drinks, and nice company!

Our lab and views of the neighborhood

2008-09-08T22:54:00.000+12:00

Hello again. I thought you'd like to see what I see every day. This is our lab in the Crary Center. I just took a picture of this side for now because this is "my" side. In the back is where we prep our ozone instruments prior to launch and in the front, Hugh is sitting by the receiving station where we can keep track of all of our equipment as it travels through the atmosphere.
Here is the view from that window in the background.
And one last picture for now, this is the shot from the loading dock on the other side of the building. Mountains of Antarctica!
Today these mountains were absolutely stunning with Mount Discovery taking first prize for being the most amazing mountain I have ever seen (take that Mount Rainier). Hopefully I will be able to get some shots tomorrow.

Christchurch and Departure.

2008-09-05T08:26:00.000+12:00

Well, after a quick plane ride followed by a very long plane ride followed by another quick plane ride, we arrived in Christchurch, NZ. The long haul plane was pretty wonderful; wonderful service, enough leg room and lots of movies. The only problem was about halfway through the trip, in the middle of the night (we were all asleep), we awoke to some really crazy turbulence and the pilot came over the intercom to tell us to buckle up and sit down! But, just as soon as it started, it was over. We speculated later as to what it could have been; I thought we were pretty close to the ITCZ, so it could have been just really strong thunderstorms (for you non-weather folk, the ITCZ is located just North and South of the equator, where you get good thunderstorms.) But I think we decided it was a gravity wave (dissipating thunderstorm).
But we arrived, and I explored, and here are a couple pictures (click on thumbnails to see the whole picture. My camera takes amazing pics.):

This is the arts centre, which was amazing. Lots of handmade gifts and trinkets. And it is really close to our hotel. I will definately be back there upon my return.
And for those who were wondering, the "animal de tour" for this trip is the amazing Hugh (though a couple others managed to stow away in my luggage). And here he is in a tree in the downtown Christchurch.
The second day in town, we travelled back to the airport to go to the Antarctic Centre, where we tried on all of our gear that was issued to us and got briefed on the next days journey. This is a shot of the Antarctic Centre.
So the next day we woke at 3 AM and went back to the Antarctic Centre to begin our trip. We got geared up (I'll send pics later of what we look like in our gear), and went through security. After what seemed like ages standing around in enormous parkas and snow pants, we got on shuttles which took us to our plane. A US military C-17. No windows (except for one), very uncomfortable seats (I have a greater respect for the troops who have to sit in these all of the time), and we were off.
About three hours into our five hour flight, Jen told me to look out of the little window on the emergency exit. This is what I saw:
We had arrived over the ice pack. How cool is that?!
So we landed, and deplaned. It was cold, but nothing I haven't felt in Laramie before. What an amazing place. The weather was clear (Condition 3) but I am sitting in my office now and it is windy and snowy, though it is a balmy 7 degrees F. We are going to try to launch a ozone balloon today, but we have to keep a weather eye.
That's it for me. I'll have more exciting pictures soon.

Time to pack.

2008-08-30T05:50:00.000+12:00

Oh boy. It is time to get packin' for this trip. Below you can see everything that has to fit into my one checked bag followed by everything that must fit into my one carry on. This will be interesting. Now, I have already done a practice pack, and the weight of the checked bag was significantly less than 50 lbs (although, for international travel, you are allowed 70 pounds. I just can't lift that much. So I'm shooting for 50 or less). I just hope I can do it again.
Well, wish me luck.

Ballooning

2008-08-23T07:28:00.000+12:00

Before I head on down to the ice, I thought I'd tell you a little about what we do here at UW. The group I am a part of launches balloons carrying up to 150 pounds of scientific equipment. These instruments measure ozone and aerosols. As the balloon rises in the atmosphere, we get what are called soundings of all different atmospheric elements (such as temperature, pressure, etc.) and profiles of the different things we are measuring. In Antarctica, we will mainly be focusing on the ozone, as we will be there in a time when the ozone hole is present.

Here is an example of the balloons we launch here in Laramie. We launch at dawn because winds tend to be relatively still at this time of day, and there is very little air traffic. These balloons can reach 100,000 ft.

And the whole set up of balloon, parachute and instruments.

While I have been on plenty of Laramie launches in the middle of January (cold, cold, cold), I think Antarctica will be a whole new cold.

2008-08-18T14:02:00.000+12:00

This is Lake Marie near Laramie. It is nearly impossible to take a bad picture of this place. Click on the picture for the full size.

Countdown

2008-08-18T06:52:00.001+12:00

14 days and counting...