Antarctic Life: A Look Back At Our Time In the Field, Part 1

Friday, December 28, 2007 ·

As our team finishes up and we all make our way back to the States, I thought I’d post a variety of photos from our time in Antarctica. Our first stop on the journey home from our camp on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was Siple Dome, where we spent some time on our journey out after being delayed by weather. In these photos from our first stop there, one of the Siple Dome scientists prepares a weather balloon.

Siple Dome Weather Balloon

Sal fills a 10g weather balloon with helium. The balloon is used to determine cloud height for weather observations.

Sal releases the balloon and starts the timer. The balloon quickly flies off into the cloudy sky.

Sal watches the balloon with binoculars until it disappears into the cloud cover. He records the ascent time and reads the altitude corresponding to that ascent time from a chart. Now we know the height of the cloud cover!

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