So it is that time of year again when we deploy to the Ice. It involves a long flight from Wisconsin to New Zealand, through Australia this year, to get our gear before heading to the ice. The flight was about 30 hours, when you include the various layovers with the longest flight being from L.A. to Sydney Australia which takes about 15 hours.

New Zealand is still recovering from the Earthquakes of the past few years, and much of the city center is still cordoned off, though I was able to get relatively close to the old cathedral. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me so I couldn’t get a good picture, but it was a sad sight given the destruction. Otherwise a large number of buildings have been removed which made finding my way through Christchurch very difficult. For those that have been the Windsor is gone, and seems to have been replaced by what looks like a small apartment building.

The flight to the Ice was very early, 4:30AM at the CDC(clothing distribution center) but the weather was great. We were among the first flights to arrive at the Pegasus Runway instead of the sea ice runway. That made for a long ride in, on a Delta.

Then began a week of various training courses, meetings, gear gathering, and searching for cargo which should be finished tomorrow. When we arrived much of our cargo wasn’t here yet, but we’ve received the majority of it as of this past weekend so now it is a matter of finishing up meetings, getting everything prepared for the field and flying to various stations.

Another cool bit of news, is we may coordinate with another group to bring people and equipment necessary to do some google street view imagery to the areas around some of our stations.

With the new contractor a number of things have changed around the station, but much seems the same. So far the weather has been great, if a bit cold and windy. Hopefully that will be the case when we actually get to fly places and the real fun can begin.

Hello! This marks my first post to the On the Ice Blog for the 2012-2013 field season. It feels great to finally be down here, after some long, but relatively smooth, flights from the US to Sydney, Australia to Christchurch, New Zealand to here in McMurdo, Antarctica, where I am reporting from (Crary Lab to be specific). In this entry I will be talking about 1) current weather conditions, 2) the flights I took (with pix), and 3) my schedule for my first week or so in McMurdo.

1) The weather in McMurdo has been very pleasant for the time that Lee and I have been here. Currently, it is 14F (-10C) with winds out of the East at 11 knots and mostly clear skies. Not too shabby!

2) I flew out of Minneapolis on 24 Nov, transferred at Dallas, then LA (where I met up with Lee), then took the 15 hour flight down to Sydney. From Sydney we flew to Christchurch. We didn’t experience any delays, which made things much less stressful, and we arrived in Christchurch on 26 Nov in mid-afternoon. After getting the ECW (Emergency Cold Weather) gear in Christchurch the next day, then taking some time to wander through the city (still some parts in shambles from the earthquake in 2011), we left for McMurdo on 28 Nov.

We had to take the shuttle from our hotel at 4 am on 28 Nov. When we arrived at the Antarctic Center at the airport, we got our bags, watched an “instructional video” then drove to the C-17. After waiting for a while, we finally took off at 7:15 am. The flight was loud, but I think all of us were able to get at least a little sleep. It was a very cool sight when we first reached the Antarctic continent. Here’s a picture I took from the window of one of the hatches on the side of the plane:

Picture of Transantarctic Mountains in Victoria Land, with left wing of C-17 in upper right-hand corner

After that rush, another one came when we landed on the ice (we landed on the blue ice runway). My first steps on the Antarctic continent!

I have conquered Antarctica! Picture taken by Lee

We all took the Delta vehicle to get from the runway to McMurdo. It was a long, and somewhat bumpy, ride, but it beats walking. And to boot, I got to sit in the front cabin and get some good views:

View from front of Delta, with windshield wiper in foreground and Mt Erebus in the distance

3) Upon arrival at McMurdo, everyone attended a quick briefing, in which we received some general information and got our room keys. After that, Lee and I did some work in Crary, got some food, went on a short walk around McMurdo with Kathy and Cindy, and got our checked bags.

Today, Lee and I attended our science in-briefing at the Chalet and got our Lab trainings done. Tomorrow and Saturday are big days for me, as I will be completing snow school. I’m looking forward to that. I will update you all with a blog post after that, with pictures. Next week I will do my light vehicle training and the outdoor safety training. Lee and I will also have to schedule snowmobile training, but we aren’t sure what day we will schedule that for yet.

That’s all I have for now. Until next time.

Dave

Here’s more on South Pole Stations record breaking week of weather (Courtesy of South Pole Meteorology Office):

• December 24th: The peak wind speed of 29 kts/33 mph broke the previous record of 28 kts/32 mph set in 1996.
• December 24th: The temperature of -13.3°C/8.1°F broke the previous maximum temperature record of -15.7°C/3.7°F set in 1984.
• December 25th: The temperature of -12.3°C/9.9°F broke the previous maximum temperature record of -17.2°C/1.0°F set in 1978.
• December 25th: The temperature of -12.3°C/9.9°F broke the record for the all-time maximum temperature at South Pole.  The previous record of -13.6°C/7.5°F was set on December 27, 1978.
• December 30th: The peak wind speed of 25 kts/29 mph broke the previous record of 21 kts/24 mph set in 1989.

Thanks to everyone at South Pole for all of their efforts!

Happy New Year!

Here is an update on the South Pole and nearby Nico and Henry Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) record high temperatures recorded on 25 December 2011:

• The prior record high temperature at South Pole was recorded on 27 December 1978, not on 12 December 1978, as misquoted in some sources.
• Preliminary assessment of  the record high at Nico AWS was -8.2C or 17.2F on 25 December 2011.  This breaks the previous known record of -13.9C or 7F recorded on 4 January 2010.
• Preliminary assessment of the record high at Henry AWS was -8.9C or 16F on 25 December 2011. This break the previous known record of -14.5C or 5.9F on 5 January 2010.

*These are preliminary as AWS observations are still being reviewed during the 2003 to 2008 time period.

* Nico and Henry AWS are approximately 100 kilometers to the grid East and grid North of South Pole.

South Pole (and nearby AWS sites) have recorded record warm temperatures on December 25, 2011. South Pole Meteorology Office notes the following:

“The temperature topped out at -12.3C/9.9F yesterday at 0250 UTC/1550 NZDT 12/25, not quite to 10F”

University of Wisconsin Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at Nico and Henry AWS sites appear to have experienced record warm temperatures – and more will be posted on them after the data has been reviewed.

See the CIMSS Blog here for additional imagery: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/9445

So it has been a while since I’ve updated, things have gotten quite busy here.

In the past 2 weeks we’ve visited 5 stations,  I’m going to talk about the first 4 in this post and will have a separate post for the Cape Hallett visit.

The first day we flew in a Twin Otter plane to 3 stations on the Ross Ice shelf. The stations were Sabrina, Tom, and Elaine. All of these stations were repair/raise visits.

It was an amazing day on the ice shelf, with warm temperatures(in the low to mid 20’s) and calm winds at all of our stations.  Most of these stations you can look in every direction and see almost nothing on the horizon, which when the wind is calm provides a very surreal experience.

It was a long flight, and it required stopping off at a fuel cache, which was windier and colder than any of the other stops for the day.  It ended up being a long day, but a very successful one.

Last week we also went to Windless Bight.  This is a station that is relatively close to McMurdo, so we took snow mobiles out to the station, which was quite a bit of fun.  Again this was a raise of the station, so we took all the instruments off the station, added tower sections and raised the instruments up.  When we got there some of the station was buried in the accumulated snow, which meant a lot of shoveling.

I will try to do another update on Cape Hallett shortly, I’m currently waiting on a few pictures from some of the other people that came along.

Prior to Cape Hallett Number of Penguins seen: 0

Skua: 0

So we’ve made it down to the ice again. This year is a bit more involved than last year, which is why I will be down until mid to late January. So far the plan, which will inevitably change, is as follows.

November: Cape Hallett and Day trips via helicopter and twin otter throughout the McMurdo and Ross Ice Shelf regions.
December: A trip to Byrd Station for 10 days, which will include day trips around West Antarctica via twin otter, as well as a trip to West Antarctic Ice Shelf Divide, or WAIS, for a day. This is the location where a major drilling and ice coring effort is taking place. Later in the month I have a trip to the South Pole for a day. Interspersed throughout these trips are the standard day trips throughout the Ross Ice Shelf and McMurdo area.
January: The other groups we are working with arrive and my time will be spent getting them up to speed on how the season has been going, and again day trips throughout Ross Ice Shelf and McMurdo area as necessary.

Currently it is Sunday, the day much of the station shuts down and has a day off. The temperatures have been warmer than expected, right around a balmy 14F, which isn’t bad when the winds are calm.

I forgot to get batteries for my camera, so I currently don’t have any pictures to upload. I’m going to fix that issue today and hopefully I’ll have time to upload some pictures in the coming days.

Penguin sightings: 0
Skua sightings: 0

Sorry it has taken me so long to update.  Things have been a bit hectic here, and for a bit I was sick, but now I am back and ready to let everyone know about my first experience at a summer field camp.

Byrd Station:

For those wondering where exactly Byrd station is, S 80.01667 W 119.53333 is the lat/lon.  I was there for a full week, as opposed to 5 days, so I could get all the work done we had there.  We flew in on an LC-130, and the flight took about 4 hours.

Life in the camp:

So life at a field camp is considerably different than life in McMurdo.  For one you live in tent city.

Which at first I thought would be quite cold, but it is quite the opposite.  The sleeping bags are, and tents are extremely warm, to the point where I would wake up in the middle of the night because it was too hot.  This is all while temperatures were around 10 to 20 degrees F.

The next major difference, is the plumbing, or lack thereof.  Outhouses and “peegloos” are how things are handled.   And there is a simple set of rules for using these.  Basically there is a bungee cord used to hold the door shut when it isn’t in use.  This also doubles as a means of letting people know the outhouse is available.  Unfortunately this is too complex for some people, which is unbelievably frustrating.  Which is probably why I am still complaining about it weeks later.

The food at field camps is, surprisingly to me, much better than the food in McMurdo.  The staff does an amazing job with not the greatest ingredients.  One night we had filet mignon which was simply delicious.

There are chores to do around the camp as well.  Each day, everyone is expected to shovel 2 garbage cans full of snow.  This is to provide drinking/cooking/cleaning water for the community.  If you want to shower, it is 2 more garbage cans of snow.  This is a pretty cool system.   Also, if you stay there long enough(which I did) you are expected to do what is called “House Mouse” duties.  This means you do dishes for a meal, or empty the galley garbages into the containers to get shipped off continent.

Overall it is a great community where you get to know a lot of people, and people are willing to help out.  As I was the only person from our group sent, it meant getting help from people on station when flying/snowmobiling out to locations.  This is a win/win as it lets people get out of camp and see other parts of the continent, and it also gets me the help I need since putting a station in solo would be a pain.

While I was there I had 3 priorities.  An Install at a fuel Cache, a removal of a site called Swithinbank, and a removal and installation of new instruments at the Byrd camp station.  This at first seemed to be lofty goals, considering other groups had been waiting weeks at a time to fly a single time, and I was going to be backup(because of the delays).  But I was amazingly lucky and managed to get 2 flights the 2 days I was on the schedule, first as the #1 backup, and the second time as a #3 backup.

Upon returning from Byrd it was back to the game of getting things read for the next few trips, and for cargo getting sent off continent.  Namely, Jonathan and Melissa going out on the Odin to Franklin Island, my trip to Pole, and the helo trip to Mullock Glacier.

Then, I took a break to watch the Packers-Bears game.  Superbowl bound!

Mullock Glacier:

Finally, we began our attempts to do Mullock Glacier(which is located along the Trans Antarctic Mountains near McMurdo) before the group split for our various larger trips, and naturally the weather took a turn for the worse.  The past few days have been very windy(with some recorded gusts as high as 40+ knots and high 20 knot gusts in town), a little colder(though the wind makes it seem worse) and cloudy.  The wind and clouds more than anything bring flight operations to a grinding halt.  One day the runway got down to condition 2 for a while due to fog bringing visibility down to less than 1/4 mile.  Things let up yesterday long enough for the trip to Mullock Glacier, but this wasn’t in time for Melissa to go with, which meant that I was travelling with people from outside the group.  The flight was awesome, and there are some great pictures

The station was very windy, but the mountains in the background were awesome.

Tomorrow I head to the South Pole for a few days.

Moral  of the story:  It seems when I fly, so long as no one else in my group is coming along, the weather works out in my favor.

Sorry for the long time between updates, it has been rather hectic here, so this one will be a bit more comprehensive, unfortunately no pictures just yet(they’ll be put up in my next update which probably won’t be for a week or so after this, but more on why that is later.)

Before I get into the update/walkthrough of the last week it might be worth knowing I am just one member of a 3 person field team sent down this year.  The other members are Jonathan, and Melissa.

Tuesday January 4:

Our flight that arrived at Pegasus Runway at around 5AM.  For those who don’t know how the base down here works, there is a Ice and Snow runway system setup, called Pegasus, that is about 10 miles from McMurdo Station.  After getting off the plane you quickly go to the Delta trucks, or Ivan the Terrabus, which then take you onto base, which can take about an hour.  This is because you are driving on snow roads, which means you can’t go very fast or you destroy your roads, and this was compounded by the unseasonably warm weather the area had been getting prior to our arrival.

Next was a few meetings regarding rooming, lab space, and time tables for travel.  The group I work for is a bit different than many science groups, in that we travel all over the continent rather than stay in a single location.  This means we have considerable cargo shipped in and out of McMurdo, which was how the rest of the day was spent, working on sorting out the cargo line and setting up our lab facilities.

Wednesday January 5th:

So the day begins with yet more meetings, a “Happy Camper” refresher, and light vehicles training, down here you have to go through training for everything.  Last year Happy camper, also  known as Snow School, was a great experience, and the refresher reminded me of most of what I’d learned, but unfortunately I didn’t get to wear a bucket on my head in the refresher.

The rest of the day was again spent getting stations ready to be shipped out, part of the reason I haven’t updated as of yet was much of the day is spent working in an interesting(to me) but not all that entertaining to read about way.  So the next few days I will gloss over as they are primarily filled with the team building stations, battery boxes, putting things into cargo.

Today:

We finally got out into the field today, with everything in cargo(ready to be shipped to the sites we are heading to, and our test facility needs to be taken down so Melissa and I went out to take down some tower sections and remove some instrumentation.  Getting out into the field was great, if for no other reason than to get out and do something different.

To get out to our tower we had to drive a Mattrax truck, which isn’t as exciting as it sounds as the things are a bit on the slow side, but now it is one more things on my list of vehicles driven down here.

So we removed the instruments from the first one, which involved a lot of tower climbing, which is always fun.  Unfortunately we put our harnesses into cargo, so it was me hanging off of the tower with one hand and using the other to unscrew/remove equipment.  The second tower was the bigger problem.  It had to come out, which means digging down to the base of the tower and the guide lines to remove everything.  This is compounded by the fact that we were uncertain how deep it was, about 6.5 feet later we hit bottom, with Melissa doing most of the digging.  We also got kicked out for about an hour as the LDB(long duration balloon) group was doing a launch and the winds would blow the balloon in our direction.  We got some pictures from within the pit, which I will post later.

So for the next week I won’t be updating as I am going to Byrd station.  This is a Summer station, and I have one station to remove and two to install.  Jonathan and Melissa are headed to CTAM in a couple days with quite a bit of work.  This means we will all be camping out on various parts of the continent.  CTAM stands for Central Trans Antarctic Mountains.   Wish me luck to actually fly tomorrow, and to me successfully camping out.

Long story short:  The first week is amazing because of where you are, but not amazing to hear about the mad scramble of work.

Lesson learned: Don’t skip breakfast when you’re planning on being in the field for lunch.(This may or may not be what I did today)

Hey everyone, so as it turns out comments aren’t notifying me properly so it makes it difficult to approve the comments I get.  They are notifying someone else  So in the interest of his email and peoples comments getting attention I’ll disable comments and ask you to either email me, or use facebook to send messages/pose questions.  I will try to have a more in depth, comprehensive update of all that has been going on down here in the next day or two as things have been super busy.