Early September, I made my way to SoCal to visit the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. It probably has one of the best campus locations I have ever seen. It is literally right on La Jolla Beach. Scripps has a couple of sets of flasks that collect air samples down at the South Pole so they wanted to give me some background on their program, history and some information about the equipment. I had to kind of laugh because the first time meeting Kim Bracchi, who was one of the people training me, she was just getting off the beach for an afternoon swim in the ocean. Typical California style. The group at Scripps is led by Ralph Keeling who’s father Charles Keeling is the person who began the longest running data set of carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This graph of data is called the “Keeling Curve” which describes the rise in carbon dioxide since the 1950’s. I find it cool that I get to take part in this kind of history.

The Keeling Curve.

The actual training on how to collect the flask samples didn’t take too long. They keep it pretty simple which is good for when you want to do anything for long periods of time. This gave me a good chance to get out and about in the La Jolla area which was fantastic. I was able to spend a few days at the beach, and have a couple nights out on the town in La Jolla and Pacific Beach. Both great locations.

Straight from there, that same week, I went up to San Fransisco to The Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a science learning center that has many hands-on exhibits for kids to try to gain some interest in science. The Exploratorium and NOAA just signed a memorandum of understanding so both can benefit from each other. They were holding a media training workshop for polar scientists in celebration of the International Polar Year so that we could be Ice Stories correspondents. This training was great. We learned some basics on shooting video, recording audio, taking still pictures, conducting interviews, and some storytelling. They also hooked us up with a bunch of equipment to use during our time on the ice. They had never had one of their correspondents winter over at the South Pole so they were looking forward to having someone from NOAA participate.

After the Cali excursion, I took two and a half weeks off to head back to Wisconsin to hang out with friends and family. I had a good barbecue at the parents house and got some last minute golfing in. It was also nice to hang out with some old friends before getting thrown into the South Pole with a whole bunch of strangers. This also gave me time to get a bit organized after all of my previous traveling to American Samoa and California.

This brings us into late September where I am finally back to my apartment in Boulder, CO. It was good to relax there for a bit, however I had to jump right into Trauma and Firefighting training. This lasted for about a week and a half and was a useful refresher to what I got prior to heading out to my ship assignment a few years ago. I can guess that I wouldn’t be the best person on a trauma team to assist in any injuries at the Pole so I think that helping on a fire team would suit me better. They require that you are on one or the other. The instructor for the trauma training was an interesting guy though. He was a retired Air Force Para-Rescue medic. He was dropped in some really bad situations with lots of casualties. I have a lot of respect for that work.

So with the training out of the way, I blinked and I found myself in Christchurch, New Zealand after 20 hours in an airplane (yuck!!!). Christchurch was great though. It is a beautiful clean city with lots of good ethnic food. I can’t wait to get back there after the Pole and explore New Zealand more. Can’t think about it too much though, I still have a year of frigid temperatures ahead of me.

View from the Air Force C-17 on approach to McMurdo Station.

Today, I arrived in McMurdo Station, Antarctica. We were told it was -15F with -30F to-40F wind chill. It was cold but it didn’t feel too bad because we had all of our extreme cold weather gear (ECW) on. The flight was pretty good. There is actually quite a lot of room on an Air-Force C-17. I was a little nervous when landing because you can’t see out the windows when in your seat. The approach to the Pegasus ice runway seemed to take FOREVER.

I prepare to don the ECW gear to exit the aircraft.

But when we landed and were able to get out of the plane, I looked around and couldn’t help myself from grinning. It is literally a breathtaking view when you first see it. The mountains are massive and bright white with some jagged rocks sticking out of the snow and ice. There is ice, ice, and more ice down here. It’s pretty cool. Tomorrow I will get my bearings a little better and try to figure out when I fly to the Pole.

So I’m finally in Antarctica with the next stop being the South Pole. Unfortunately, my case containing my camera gear got held up in Sydney and I haven’t gotten it yet. So there will be no video or audio but I do have my camera and computer to write and post pictures. Sounds like that’s all for now…it’s been a busy day and I’m beat. Talk to you all again in a few days.

The IPY 2007-2008 logo.

This is the fourth IPY. The first was in 1882-83, the second 1932-33, and the last– 50 years ago in the height of the Cold War– was called the IGY, or International Geophysical Year. Because of the momentum and scope of the International Polar Year (think Olympics of Earth Science, but with all the countries on the same team,) IPY research tends to be big, bold, creative and transformative. That is, IPY research tends to fundamentally change the way we understand our planet.

Sgt. Winfield Jewell reading meteorological observations at Fort Conger, Greenland, during the first IPY. Taken August, 1882.

Maybe you’ve heard of the ‘Keeling Curve’? It’s the graph that shows continuous measurements of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere since 1957. This is a graph that everyone should see, because it represents actual measurements which clearly show the rapid increase in CO₂ concentrations in our atmosphere over the past 50 years.

The Keeling Curve.

In 1957, during the last International Polar Year, a young postdoctoral researcher named Charles David Keeling proposed to measure the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Fifty years later, the Keeling Curve is a major piece of the scientific puzzle which shows us that burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

Dr. Keeling reading his graphs at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The CO₂ measurements, in Keeling’s words, also showed “for the first time nature’s withdrawing CO₂ from the air for plant growth during summer and returning it each succeeding winter.” He was talking about the annual ups and downs seen in the graph (the little zig-zags on the red line, and the “s” shape of the inset graph.) Atmospheric CO₂ dips as trees put on leaves (Earth breathes in) and rises again after they fall off (Earth breathes out.)

Those of us who want to better understand the Earth have tremendous respect for Dr. Keeling’s legacy and for the scientific foresight that can fundamentally change the way we understand our planet.

In May 2008, I attended the Next Generation of Polar Researchers Symposium – an IPY workshop for young polar scientists. Early career researchers (just like Charles David Keeling during the last IPY) involved with different types of research in the Arctic and Antarctic were able to discuss research ideas with one another and form partnerships for future scientific collaboration. We are the polar scientists of tomorrow (and today) and we all have ideas we’d like to put into action just as Keeling did 50 years ago.

A 1958 U.S. Postage stamp commemorating the International Geophysical Year.

To get a feel for some of the questions motivating young polar scientists, I asked each workshop participant to tell me (in one sentence!) what they hope to understand through their research. Look for that video clip in my next dispatch.