Notice the bit of sunlight on the side of my face!

The main station and sunrise. This photo was actually taken a day before “official” sunrise. In actuality, the sun takes a several days to rise.

On station, we have begun the large list of tasks posted by our station manager which mostly involve shoveling out buildings that have been dormant for the winter, and performing deep cleans of bathrooms, hallways, and work areas. I’ve decided that I have spent enough time inside so I volunteered for a few shoveling tasks namely the cargo office, cargo DNF (the building that houses cargo waiting to be sent out or received that can’t be frozen), and a summer camp Jamesway tent. The FEMC (Facilities Engineering Maintenance and Construction) crew is probably the busiest group with the station opening work as they have to get fuel to all the buildings and start heating them up so they are ready when the summer folks arrive. Our heavy equipment operators are busy as well removing snow and beginning to smooth out the skiway for the first flights. They have had a little bit of trouble due to the cold temperatures because they cannot operate the bulldozers under certain temps.

The BIF (Balloon Inflation Facility) is just below the Sun. To half cylinder shaped buildings to the left are the Jamesways that are being dug out and warmed up for the summer crew.

At ARO, I’m just finishing up inventory to figure out what needs to be shipped down during the summer. It is mostly unchanged from last year because we haven’t had many problems with the instruments this year so there will probably just be a few items to alert people back at ESRL in Boulder, Colorado about. We are also at our intensive ozonesonde launching period where we are launching every 2-3 days as opposed to our normal one per week. It’s been rather unexciting in the depletion department this year. It seems that the polar vortex may not be all that well defined as some years with very low ozone levels. A description of the process of the annual ozone layer destruction over Antarctica can be read in my previous post, “The Ozone Hole: It’s Still There!” Once the sun is a little higher in the sky, we will be able to resume daily measurements with the Dobson Spectrophotometer (measures total column ozone through the atmosphere).

The solar instruments have also been placed back on the roof and are collecting data again. Initially they were having trouble with the -90F temperatures, but we have seemed to iron out the problems and they are now tracking the sun well. For an overview of the solar instruments, see the previous post, “As Sunset Approaches, Let’s Talk Solar Radiation”.

The roof of ARO and various solar instruments.

The next thing that is on tap for myself is organizing all of the flask samples that have been taken over the winter and getting them ready to ship out in the summer. Mostly that just involves writing up the paperwork so it’s ready to go for my replacement (yay paperwork!). Oh, and packing. The thing I look forward to least is also on the agenda. I will need to find boxes to ship home all the things that have kept me entertained here such as my Playstation 3 and movies. As well as excess clothing that I don’t want to travel with.

As I mentioned in “The Ozone Hole: It’s Still There!”, I will be posting an ozonesonde launch with the plastic balloons that we use. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgot! I have it videotaped and will get it posted soon!

Here are some more nice pictures during the last month or so:

The Moon and Venus. The were the last two visible objects in the sky as the sun was closer to coming above the horizon.

ARO from halfway between the station and ARO

The Moon over the Clean Air Sector, directly opposite of the rising Sun.

Nice reflection off the corner of ARO

The Moon about to set out over SPT (South Pole Telescope)

Dirt and liquid water, unusual problems in Antarctica.

As is becoming the norm for us, camp put in did not go smoothly. High winds meant that only our high priority cargo got to us but the rest was delayed for a few days until the winds dropped enough for the helicopters to fly with external loads. So for the first few nights, we all slept in one tent. It was a large tent, so we were pretty comfortable. But I had forgotten to include cooking pots in the high priority cargo, so we had nothing to boil water in until we broke open the survival bags. We felt a little silly opening the survival bags just for pans, but making hot meals was much better than eating yet another bag of gorp.

Maybe if the rest of our tents don’t ever get here we could sleep in an ice cave?

Becker camp. The big multicolored tent was all we had for the first few days.

Of course, the high priority cargo did include enough of our science gear that we could work, so despite the winds we started ROV missions immediately. The ice in the crack, which we had hoped would provide easier access to the ocean, was very hard and not as thin as we might have wished. Drilling took hours every day, and lots of muscle. Combined with the hard ice were pockets of thin crust, which led to wet feet for everyone on the team at one time or another. But, the crack did provide a smooth, and nearly continuous, pathway for hauling our gear.

Everything we need to operate SCINI fits in two sledges.

And those two sledges can be hauled by the support team of 5 people.

After finding such unexpectedly rich communities at Heald Island last year, I was not sure what to expect at this site. Even with that, I was surprised – this time, at how little life there was. Anemones were the dominant taxa, with a smattering of brittle stars, sponges, and these mysterious white sprinkles that, at a diameter of 1 mm, we could not resolve the finer details of. We profiled extensively from 130 to 30 m, where the seafloor contacted the shore ice. At 40 m, there was a thick benthic diatom layer, but nobody consuming the plethora of productivity. And oddly enough, the ice was no thicker than 11 m even off the crack, much thinner than an Ice Shelf should be.

Isabelle on the right and Bob on the left give a sense of scale to the McMurdo Ice Shelf. Heald Island is behind Bob on the left.

So, as is also becoming usual for us, our field time led to more questions than answers. Why is the ice shelf ice so thin here? With the thin ice and consequent high light levels, why are there so few grazers utilizing the high productivity? Are the sprinkles biological, geological or chemical in origin? And finally, what caused the salt outcroppings we found on the slopes near our camp?

Isabelle next to a mysterious salt outcropping. We later read that these are mirabilite chunks that have been pushed around by glacier action.

We were very happy that camp pull out was more efficient than put in, allowing us to return to McMurdo in time for Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. Though we did have one triwall slingload self-destruct on the return, nothing was lost. And turkey day dinner was a decadent extravaganza of crab legs and chocolate truffles, in addition to the ALL the traditional Thanksgiving fare. We are so spoiled here. Perhaps the contrast to cold gorp dinners enhanced our appreciation, and the presence of good friends certainly added to our pleasure, but I think the meal was a gourmet a treat as any I have ever had. We owe so much to the wonderful folks here who keep us going in so many ways. I hope that you recognize as much to be thankful for in your lives as we do on the frozen continent.

Packing up the triwall prior to it self-destructing on the flight home. We did let Isabelle out before we sealed it.

The helo ready to take the last of our camp gear. Fortunately this time the last flight (for us people) went off as planned.

Farewell to Becker Point.

In the 1970’s, an international effort to fly ice-penetrating radar over Antarctica resulted in the first rough maps of the sub-ice world.  A ski-equipped Navy LC-130 Hercules was outfitted with radar and flown for long distances.  This reconnaissance was invaluable, but the program went by the wayside after the specially modified airplane crashed doing other work.  The concept was largely put aside until the early 1990’s when glaciologists and geologists got together and tried again.  By this point, it was clear to some that critical additional information could be obtained by including other measurements, namely gravity and magnetics to help understand the geology beneath.  Incredibly, the scientists stuffed all these instruments and a laser altimeter (we didn’t have satellite laser altimeters then) into a much smaller aircraft, a deHavilland Twin Otter.  The Otter is much cheaper to operate and supportable at temporary field camps, so it was perfect for high-resolution studies of specific problems.  

A ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules with jet assisted takeoff (JATO).

Field camps were built each season and LC-130’s delivered fuel for the Twin Otter to use.  This went on until 2001 and then again in the 2004-05 season, and many discoveries were made; however, the Twin Otter just can’t reach the deep interior without heavy support, and this has become very expensive.  Such resources are also very limited.  LC-130’s are very costly to operate, are much larger than needed for this type of work, and require a huge ground crew to support.

The Twin Otter.

The Twin Otter flying over Thwaites Glacier Remote Field Camp.

Having outstripped the capacity of Twin Otters, what next? In my next dispatch, I’ll tell you about what might seem an unlikely platform for Antarctica research: a twin engine aircraft that first saw action during World War II.

Enjoy this video about the process, including the take-off of a C-130 full of ice from WAIS Divide.

In all, we are having no trouble staying busy! Next up, getting the core processing line set-up for the new ice cores that we will begin drilling next week!

A few of our several iceberg choices in Bay of Sails.

Icebergs are moved by wind and currents, and when they come in contact with the seafloor, plough across it leaving a swath of destruction. Cape Evans, on the eastern side of McMurdo Sound, is bathed by plankton-rich water from the open Ross Sea, providing a good food resource to benthic communities during the summer months. But at Bay of Sails, on the western side of the sound, the water has spent a long time circulating in darkness under the thick ice of the permanent Ross Ice Shelf, so it is very oligotrophic, or food-poor. I am interested in the differences between how these two communities recover from iceberg disturbances.

Though the benthic communities locally are not eating well, we are!

To start this effort, we did a reconnaissance helicopter flight. Scottie, our pilot for the day, flew us in beautiful loops and spirals over the dozen icebergs scattered in the bay. We were looking for a berg that was grounded on the seafloor, was in about 50 m water depth, and was close enough to other icebergs that we had alternate target options. Since the bathymetry in this area is poorly known, I had to guess at depths based on distance from shore and iceberg height. I selected a moderate-size, tabular-looking berg about 2 km from shore. It was a good choice, but a better one was about a km further offshore, as we discovered from our initial survey with an extremely high tech weight on a tape measure.

Marco and Henry think a better iceberg is that way.

However, the helo landing site is that way.

Okay, I guess we’ll go home for now.

Parallel with selecting the camp location, we have been packing up camp gear. 335 pounds of food, 330 pounds of water, sleeping bags good to minus 40, tents, fuel for the stove and heaters, sleds, safety supplies, another 1485 pounds of stuff. And then there is the science equipment – drills, electronic gear, the ROV itself, power supplies, batteries and generators, all in all 760 pounds of toys. Then there is the 1000 pounds of people. Not to say we are fat, but several of us are up to three desserts per night. Yow!

How much stuff will fit in one helicopter? 1200 lbs in an A-Star, and 2000 lbs in a Bell212.

All of this is sorted into classifications of Can Freeze, Do Not Freeze, and Keep Frozen (some of the food). Bags and boxes are weighed and tagged. Hazardous material is certified as safe to fly. Much of the Can Freeze camp gear has gone already in an overland (well, over-sea-ice) traverse to a fueling depot about 10 km from Bay of Sails. The helicopters will carry it the rest of the way to us.

Like an n-dimensional puzzle, it all unfolds to a full field camp, dwarfed by the landscape.

My bedroom.

It’s a little nerve-wracking, making sure we remember everything, and enough of it. I have lists, and lists of lists, and I wake up in the middle of the night to make more lists. Remembering to bring all the things we needed to Antarctica was bad enough, but the field camp list must be pared to a minimum yet not leave out anything. We will get a resupply flight after a week, to bring us more water, so we do have that opportunity to fix any bads, but it would be very unproductive, not to say embarrassing, to have forgotten the batteries to the joystick to drive the ROV.

Team SCINI at field camp I: Kamille, Dustin, Isabelle, Francois, Stacy and Bob. Doh, Dustin has forgotten his black Antarctic uniform pants!

Tonight as the sun dips to touch the horizon I think that we have all we need to survive. But I am worried about the engineers getting their stuff packed; they are still out doing tests at 10 pm, 12 hours from when it must be on the helo pad. I am beginning to think that procrastination and engineering must go hand in hand. I think a walk up Ob Hill is in order to reduce my stress!

The view of Erebus and Terror from the top of Ob Hill, colored by a midnight sun.

Packing for a three-month trip sounds easier than it is. I have been packing and unpacking in preparation for my adventures in Antarctica and I think I am finally ready to go! Here is a video of the packing experience (packing is now known in my household as the Duffel Shuffle). It’s a good thing my bags are packed because I leave on Monday, November 9th. Enjoy!

It took several hours to sort, weigh, and tag all of the personal luggage going out to the ship. It took several more hours to ferry the personnel by helicopter, and the luggage by landing craft. I stayed with the luggage to help keep it organized and insure that no pieces were mixed in with the outgoing science party. The day was windy with several snow squalls, and the landing craft rolled and crashed over large swells during the 20 minute ride out – it was a lot of fun.

Wearing a cold-water survival suit, waiting on the beach for the landing craft launched from the icebreaker.

It was surreal to pull up next to the icebreaker (399 feet long) in the launching craft (perhaps 35 feet long). Our little boat was getting pummeled by the waves – I had to brace myself against the handrail during the entire ride – and spray from smashing into waves had been washing over the open deck. However, as we pulled into the leeward side of the icebreaker, the immense ship sheltered us from the wind. I’m not sure, but the icebreaker must be at least 6 stories tall; it was like pulling the boat up to the base of an immense cliff. The Coast Guard personnel threw heavy lines up to the ship and secured the boat then we clambered up a rope ladder and onto deck. A different crew member immediately helped us gather our luggage, and showed us to our rooms.

The rest of the day was spent organizing (no surprise there). We hurriedly unpacked our own gear into our rooms then began the long process of finding all of the project gear in the cargo hold and bringing it up to the lab spaces. Somehow, in the narrow hallways and cramped stairs (more like ladders) of the ship, everyone managed to maneuver their equipment into the labs.

We left the Barrow area and cruised west then north, to avoid the waters near Barrow during whaling season. We then traveled east then north again; by this morning we were passing – and occasionally crushing – large pieces of floating ice. We have not cruised through any solid ice yet, only fields of floating ice. This morning I ducked out onto a side deck before breakfast to take this picture of dawn. Temperatures have been hovering around 30 degrees (Fahrenheit).

This morning we launched for captures for the first time. As we flew to the north, trying to radio track some bears for recaptures, I looked back and saw the icebreaker sitting in the trail of open water it had created. The ship that looked awesomely large from the water looked small from above. The deck from which we launched is visible at the stern. Unfortunately, because we did not encounter large areas of solid pack ice as we flew there were no safe places to perform captures. After short flights, we returned to the ship. We are currently underway and we plan to cruise north for about two days, towards different collared bears, in hopes of working on better sea ice.

The pace of work has continued to be frenetic – our lab is finally up and running, and all of the instruments seem to have made their journey intact. All of the capture equipment was in place for the flight today, and hopefully we will use it soon. Tonight is chance to catch up on some rest.

The hut which is my home away from home for several days in Barrow.

Inside, the curve of the walls stands out. I am enjoying the last couple days on shore before heading to the ship.

This morning we woke to a thick dusting of snow which did not melt as the day warmed. We are staying at the facilities of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, or BASC, which is a kind of clearinghouse for many research projects that are based in this area. The area also houses the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife, and I?isa?vik College.

This bowhead whale skull stands in front of the college. Subsistence hunting of bowhead whales continues to be an important cultural feature of this area. The autumn hunt begins tomorrow here in Barrow – perhaps over 30 people will launch in small boats from the beach outside of town in the morning, seeking to find and land a bowhead whale.

Our study is the lead project on the science portion of the cruise on the US Coast Guard Polar Sea which begins tomorrow. Several other projects and a total of 24 personnel are involved in the science portion, and in the last three days, everyone has arrived in Barrow and found temporary accommodations. Tomorrow morning I will get up early and walk over to a small warehouse with a large load scale, and, hopefully, beginning at about 715am, each person will come by and we can count, weigh, and label their baggage. Two helicopters and one small boat will be used to ferry people and luggage to the icebreaker, which is planned to be anchored several miles offshore to the west. Simultaneously, 32 people and all of their luggage will be disembarked from the ship. After several meetings and rounds of organization today, the schedule seems to be on track.

All 4 of our Aerosonde unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) survived the trip to Antarctica, and have been setup and test run on the loading dock of the lab.

Dave working on one of the Aerosondes in Crary lab.

The Aerosondes are relatively small, with a 9 foot wingspan. Despite their small size they are capable of flying through strong winds (they were designed to fly through hurricanes), which is good as we expect to see close to hurricane strength winds at Terra Nova Bay, where we’ll be conducting our science flights.

The temperature has remained below 0 F since we’ve arrived. The warmest temperature has been -4 F and the coldest, in McMurdo, has been -36 F yesterday. The past few days have been both cold and windy.

This video was taken from the Crary lab loading dock on Sunday morning. The temperature was -30 F and the wind was blowing 30 mph.

Sunday was particularly cold and windy, with wind chill temperatures down to near -70 F. Despite the cold weather myself, Nick, Peter, and Paul took a walk to Scott’s Hut, located just north of McMurdo. The hut was built as part of Sir Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic expedition in 1902. We’re hoping to get a tour of the hut tomorrow afternoon, as no unescorted groups are allowed to enter the hut to ensure that the historic artifacts are not disturbed.

A clear contrast between the old and the new – Scott’s Hut and McMurdo Station.

Nick, Peter, and Paul bundled up for our walk to Scott’s Hut.

While the weather is one aspect of coming to Antarctica at this time of year that I’ve really enjoyed on this trip, the other is seeing the transition from the long polar night to the long days of summer. Since we’ve been here the length of daylight is getting noticeably longer. When we arrived last Wednesday sunrise was at 10:53AM and sunset was at 2:59PM. Today sunrise is at 9:41AM and sunset is at 4:08PM, giving us more than 2 hours more daylight now than just a week ago. By September 21st we’ll have 12 hours of daylight. Once the sun rises on 19 October it will not set again until 24 February.

In many ways, everyday life in McMurdo isn’t too different from life back in the US. We live in dorms, that keep us well insulated from the cold. The dorm rooms are setup to accommodate 2 people per room. I’m sharing a room with Dave. There are communal bathrooms on each floor of the dorm, and each dorm has a TV lounge room.

Dorms

Our meals are prepared for us and served in a cafeteria in building 155 (all of the buildings here are referred to by numbers). Meals include breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as a midnight meal called Mid-Rats for people that work the nightshift.

Nick, Peter, Paul, Jim, and Dave (from left to right) in the cafeteria.

Building 155, which is the location of the cafeteria, some dorm rooms, and a store that sells snack foods, drinks, souvenirs, and essentials like soap and shampoo.

There are two bars (Gallagher’s and Southern Exposure) and a coffee house in McMurdo.

McMurdo Coffee House

Gallagher’s bar

We are able to go to a gym that includes cardio equipment and weights. The only problem I’ve found in going to the gym here is that I find it very difficult to put on my big parka after working out, since I’m usually very hot and sweaty. I’ve taken to walking the 100 yards from the gym to my dorm in just my shorts and T-shirt after a work out. This is fine, even with the temperature down near -30 F, although my T-shirt did freeze stiff during the less than 5 minute walk back to my room the other day. At least the cold weather makes it easy to cool off after a workout.

We spend most of our time in the Crary lab, which contains offices as well as lab space.

Crary lab

Jim, Peter, and Paul working in one of the offices in Crary lab.

Unlike my office at home I have a very nice view from my office down here, which overlooks McMurdo sound (covered with sea ice at this time of year) and the Royal Society Range of the Transantarctic Mountains across the sound.

This afternoon we visited the Berg Field Center food room, to get food to stock our hangar at the Pegasus ice runway.

Berg Field Center food room

The drive from McMurdo to the runway takes about 30 minutes, and if the weather becomes too bad we will need to stay out at Pegasus, rather than risking getting stuck trying to drive back to town. Weather conditions here are classified as conditions 3, 2, or 1. Condition 3 is considered normal weather and there are no restrictions on travel. Condition 2 is defined by stronger winds (48 to 55 knots), a wind chill temperature of -75 to -100 F, or visibility less than 1/4 mile. During condition 2 weather you are required to check out with the firehouse before leaving town. Condition 1 weather is the worst weather, with wind speeds greater than 55 knots, wind chill temperatures less than -100 F, and visibility less than 100 ft (often due to blowing snow). During condition 1 weather you are not allowed outside and off base travel is not permitted. If we happen to be at Pegasus when condition 1 weather occurs we’ll need to stay there until the storm ends. If we are driving between Pegasus and McMurdo and get caught in condition 1 weather we’ll need to stop where we are and wait in the van until the weather improves, since it is too easy to get lost and drive off of the road in whiteout conditions.

Now that the last flight to Antarctica, until the end of September, has been completed, we are now cleared to start setting up at the Pegasus runway. We are planning on going out to Pegasus tomorrow to begin setting up our office space. Our hangar will be a large tent, and is going to be setup by the carpenters later this week. That should be ready for use by the end of the week. Once that is setup we’ll be ready to start our flights. I’ll include some photos of our facilities at Pegasus on my next post.

Thankfully, that fog cleared soon and we got back to captures. We had great luck the first day out, capturing our first bear by 9am. It was a small bear and we all thought it was recently-weaned, making it about 32 months old. However, when we checked its marks we discovered it was a five-year old female, making it an adult. She was in decent shape but she was short and did not have lots of fat. Unlike a lot of bears we capture in summer her fur was clean and mostly free of mud.

We captured this adult female last week. Because she was not very fat, her limbs appeared longer and thinner than other bears we have captured. She is laying on a blue tarp on the tundra.

That afternoon we caught another bear immediately after we finished working on the first bear. The warm weather from early August had disappeared, and temperatures were much colder. We set up the windbreak to make our sampling easier, and shortly thereafter it began to snow lightly. I was really excited – I had not yet seen snow in August. We finished up that bear and began to fly home, only to have the other helicopter spot an adult male bear. It was a bear we had not captured yet and it was on a large island that would make darting possible. While they began the capture, we flew back to Oliktok to grab some additional supplies before joining the other helicopter.

I had not done a full sampling on a large adult male, so it was a different and fascinating experience to do everything on a 950 lb bear. We did not wrap up until late at night, and when we returned we did not finish our lab work until 2am. It was a great day, increasing our total captures by 3 all at once.

The cool weather and low clouds stuck around for the next several days. Here, we landed our helicopter next to this beach during a break from looking for bears. The tundra at the left is slowly being eroded into the beach.

We flew over this area one afternoon. Our pilot suggested that this was the remnants of a fenced pasture built with driftwood. Some folks – perhaps those of the local indigenous culture – may have used it to keep caribou.

We extended our stay at Oliktok by several days in an attempt to catch just one or two more bears. We caught one more bear, an adult female in excellent shape with lots of fat; she was very large for a female, weighing 770 lbs. She had no young and was most likely pregnant. If pregnant, she will likely dig a den into a snowbank by October or November, and begin hibernating. She will give birth in December or January while hibernating, then she and her young will emerge in the spring to head out onto the sea ice and hunt seals.

On last Thursday afternoon, I drove the two hours from Oliktok back to Deadhorse and returned the truck. I caught the afternoon flight to Barrow, then Anchorage, then Seattle. I slept on a bench in the Seattle airport for several hours, then I caught a flight to Minnesota to visit family, where it was 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) and humid – quite a change from the north slope. I had the opportunity to give a public talk in Minnesota, with an audience of over 50 interested friends and family.

We now have a short break between field seasons. I have sent a complete set of field gear to Seattle, where it is being loaded onto a US Coast Guard icebreaker, the Polar Sea. This ship will leave port in late August, eventually making it offshore from Barrow in northern Alaska. In late September, we will use helicopters to get onto the ship from shore, and we will begin traveling north to get to the edge of the retreating sea ice. Once we make it to the ice we will spend the month of October recapturing bears that have spent the summer on the sea ice. Simultaneously, a second crew will return to Deadhorse and recapture bears that have spent the summer on shore.