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)

April weather was somewhat significant being the coldest April on record averaging -80.7F which was lower by 0.2F than the previous record set in 1998 (records began in 1957). On top of that, we set the second earliest mark in reaching -100F ever recorded dipping to -100.7F on April 13th. It’s only typical that as soon as April ended, we are on a streak of warm and unsettled weather. For instance, temperatures today are supposed to rise into the -30s Fahrenheit. It’s amazing to me that you can have a range of about -65 degrees without any daily help from the sun. If things keep up, which they look like they will for the near future, we are on pace for the warmest May ever! I wonder what is in store for the rest of the winter?

Taking in the sky from the Atmospheric Research Observatory

The station atmosphere was much quieter however. We only really had only one major event which was a glycol leak in the power plant. The power plant uses a 60/40 glycol to water ratio to cool the diesel generators. The waste heat from the generators transferred to the glycol mix is then run throughout the station to heat the building. My knowledge of how the whole system works is very limited but as I understand it, a thermostat broke open and created a geyser of glycol. It then landed on some of the exhaust manifolds causing it to vaporize and create a huge cloud in the power plant. This triggered the fire alarm. Luckily it wasn’t one of the loops that carry the bulk of the glycol or it could have been a much worse mess. Over the summer, we had so many false alarms that you kind of become desensitized to it always thinking it’s a false alarm. But when you hear the automated alarm system say that smoke was detected in the power plant, and that it’s not a drill, it really gets the adrenaline pumping. As you can imagine, the power plant is one of the locations on station where you could have things really go wrong.

Everyone on station is assigned to an emergency response team and mine is the fire team. Because we are on are own down here, it is our responsibility to deal with these situations. The fire team had some firefighting training back in Denver before we came down Antarctica and we also try to do some training on our own once a week to keep methods fresh. But we are by no means professionals. Needless to say, I was very relieved to find that the power plant was not engulfed in flames and nobody was injured in the incident. The heart rate definitely jumped initially with the thought that I might actually have to go in and drag someone out of a flaming building. We don’t have fire hoses so all we have are fire extinguishers to use on station (there are fixed water and CO2 suppression systems at various locations however). With all the luxuries that the station has, it’s easy to slip into a false sense of security. These types of incidents are reminders that we are still in a dangerous environment.

There are not any traces of the sun on the horizon any more. When the moon is out, it is like a floodlight on the South Pole. It’s amazing how bright it is. It sure makes walking to the observatory every day much easier. Now the moon has gone below the horizon and it’s extremely dark but the stars are incredible. Yesterday walking back from the Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO), I was lucky enough to see an iridium flare coupled with a really nice aurora. An iridium flare is when the solar panels of a satellite are at just the right angle that it reflects the sun’s light at you. It does it for just a few seconds as it passes overhead. Unfortunately I did not have my camera ready for a photo.

Well that about does it for the update. Seven months down, six to go!

The entrance to the ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory).

Those daily tasks that I mentioned mostly just involve going through all the equipment in the station and making sure that it is running correctly. Some instruments need daily adjusting to keep them acquiring good data. Others operate on their own pretty well (look for future posts to go more in depth on what exactly these instruments are and what they measure). Throw in setting up some new instruments, launching two ozonesondes (ozone measuring weather balloons) a week and flask sampling (capturing air to sample in flasks), it keeps one pretty busy especially when not really experienced with much of it.

Help has now arrived as Mark VanderRiet arrived last week and Lana Cohen has arrived today. With a couple of weeks under my belt, I am starting to feel much more comfortable on the day-to-day operations and things seem to be running smoothly for the most part. We’ve shipped most of the sampled air flasks that have accumulated over the winter back to their project locations (due to the fact that there are no flights to ship them during the winter season), and are getting ready to receive the shipment of new flasks and other supplies for the up coming year.

As for life on station, it is pretty incredible how we are living down here if you consider what a remote location this is. The room I was assigned is plenty big for my needs and is pretty comparable to the size of room that I had when I was on the NOAA Ship Fairweather. The recreation schedule here is full. Every night of the week there is something going on in the gym (volleyball seems to be the most popular), and there is a great selection of movies and TV shows in the store. The observatory is a great place to hang out in the evenings too if you want to relax and watch a movie. It also gives you a chance to shoot some evening Dobsons too (the Dobson is an ozone measuring instrument)! And by the way, winning bingo twice in one night is not a good way to make friends around here.

Once things settle down, I’m excited to show you all what kind of equipment we have at the Atmospheric Research Observatory, and what it measures. Hopefully I can get into some of the other projects that are going on down here at the Pole as well. I would think I’ll have time, I’m here for the long haul!

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– Let it begin!

Another concerted effort today to get the train packed up. We will have an open house this evening for our fellow residents of the South Pole, and so we are also trying to clean up a little bit.

We’ve had visitors stop by quite often while we’ve been here — today some folks from IceCube stopped by, and the day before that, members of the Heavy Traverse, which pulled over one million pounds of cargo from McMurdo to here, came by as well. Today will be a little more formal, with everyone at the station invited.

The last of the cargo is making its way to the sleds, and we will also (with any luck) do a last test of the radar systems tomorrow on a little longer test drive. Then we’ll pack up the radar equipment and get on down the road.

Anna Sinisalo prepares her radar system for the last radar test tomorrow on Sembla.

Click on the image below to open up the interactive, 360 degree panorama of the South Pole.

South Pole panorama

SUMMER CAMP, SOUTH POLE, ANTARCTICA– So, perhaps I was a bit ahead of schedule when I referred to Friday as the Eve of Discovery. Since then, AGAP has been playing the waiting game. Waiting to get to Pole, waiting to get acclimated at Pole, waiting to get to AGAP-South and now waiting for the rest of the science party to be medically cleared to fly our science missions.

In the midst of all that, I developed and recovered from the intestinal CRUD that was sweeping McMurdo. CRUD is the official term for whatever sickness is sweeping McMurdo in spite of the flu shots and constant handwashing. Initially, the doctors thought I was sick because I had taken Diamox, the recommended medication for altitude adjustment. When I was still eating tea and toast 3 days later, they decided I had had the CRUD. I slept through most of those uncomfortable days and being at Pole was just what I needed to forget being sick.

Eventually, I beat the CRUD and saw my name on the manifest to fly to Pole. We arrived just before midnight on December 18 for a planned 3 days of acclimatization at more than 10,000ft. When my illness resurfaced at Pole (CRUD part 2), I ended up having to stay 2 extra days. Most of my time was spent at Summer Camp, in the South Pole’s sturdy but temporary buildings called Jamesways. Although Summer Camp is a shantytown compared to South Pole Station, it was much more comfortable than I anticipated. We still have running water and plumbing, something I’ll be sure to miss at AGAP, and across from my little haven, there’s a lounge with 2 TVs and room to dance the night away if the spirit so moves you.

Hugging the Ceremonial South Pole.

I was impressed with South Pole Station and since it had so many public spaces, I spent much of my time squatting in the quiet reading room or in one of the lounges where the walls are lined with books. The station manager, who also contributed to the design and construction of the building, gave the AGAP group a behind-the-scenes tour. We learned how the building is designed to recycle all the heat it generates and saw the many 4-wall doors that would be closed if ever there was a station meltdown. Unfortunately, being in such an extreme part of the planet, where the weather can kill you, also means you have to plan for the worst. Everything in the building is duplicated. Each heating system could heat the whole building if the other one broke or needed repair. And on top of that, part of the building is a life preserver; a small section where everything needed for survival can be produced and maintained even if the other parts had to be abandoned.

At the South Pole, I did the ever famous handstand. Everyone wants a chance to hang off the bottom of the world.

I spent most of my last day at South Pole in the growth chamber, a greenhouse within the station where all the vegetables are grown for those that winter-over. It’s also one of the few places you can track down some humidity in the dry polar air. I knew before I came to Antarctica that it was the highest, driest, windiest and coldest place on Earth. But I now have a new appreciation of the high and dry aspects of its character. It’s common for people to get sore throats at night, not because they are developing colds but because it is so dry, it desiccates the back of the throat. In the course of the night, it dries out until the pain of it wakes me up. For the first time in my life, I have taken to sleeping with my water bottle cradled in my hands. But that’s only one of many strange habits I have these days. My favorite is that I have to wear sunglasses to go to the bathroom. Who thinks “Man, I need to go to the bathroom. I better find my sunglasses!” Acclimatizing to life in this frozen wilderness is not too hard when you’re excited about the science but I know I’ll have a whole new appreciation for life in NYC when I get back.

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– The Basler plane we’ve been waiting for finally came, from McMurdo, and we were able to load it up and send it off to Camp Winter with cargo. The six of our team members out there will have something to do for the next few days at least, as we sent them the tent that will serve as the garage space for fixing and modifying the vehicles.

Tom and the Basler plane, which has landed in an ice fog.

With any luck — knock on wood, cross your fingers, whatever it takes — we will do one more flight of cargo tomorrow, and then Tom, Lou and I will head out as well in the afternoon. We’ve been working hard here getting everything ready, and are looking forward to joining the others. If all goes according to plan (but really, when does that ever happen), we will have enough room and weight to bring a few treats for the guys that have been out at Camp Winter while we’ve been living the high life at the Pole. We’re hoping the TV can go along, and some food. They’ve been living off of dried food and last year’s frozen left-overs for the last few days.

The Basler, landing in an ice fog.

At this point, after being here at the South Pole long enough, the apprehension I had about what I was getting myself into has passed, and I’m mostly just ready to get to work on the science part of the trip. It’s really not that bad working outside when it is so cold out, and it is no problem to take a break should some body part or another get too cold. Today, for instance, I was working outside strapping cargo onto a pallet in my running shoes since I had been too lazy to put my boots on this morning when I went to breakfast. It was -43 deg outside. After a bit of that, my toes were getting cold, so I just told Lou I needed to run and get my boots. Her fingers were cold in her gloves, so we both took a little break to put on the right kind of clothing. The cargo can wait.

They fit! We had been a little concerned the large doorframes for the tent wouldn’t fit through the Basler door. Of course John had long ago figured out they had…he is well acquainted with planes. We even had the heavy shop on notice in case we were going to have to cut them to get them into the plane.

The guys out at Camp Winter have two of the four vehicles started, and all of the heaters in the modules started. The floor heating system is working, the water melter is working, everything is as ready as it can be. I was joking that we should show up tomorrow carrying lawn chairs and drinks with little paper umbrellas in them, since they have had to do so much of the hard work. Instead, we’re going to bring them some cookies from the wonderful galley and dining room staff, and chip in to help as much as we can.

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– South Pole is a constant construction site. The new station is still being finished up, but is very nice inside, sort of a cross between a high school building and space station.

The new South Pole Station, under construction.

Heavy machinery runs day and night to remove the snow that accumulates around camp. Walking between Summer Camp and the main station usually means dodging one or two of the large Caterpillars running around. There is a steady haze that hangs over the station from inversion layers…cold air pressing all the exhaust from the buildings and the machinery down towards the surface.

Part of the heavy machinery fleet at Pole.

We are here at the beginning of the summer season, and so there is a constant influx of Herc (LC-130 aircraft, or Hercules) flights, so far since we have been here there have been at least 3 each day. It diminishes any sense of isolation you might otherwise have. The winter-over crew, on the other hand, are all leaving as this steady stream of newcomers arrives. They seem a little overwhelmed at times, having had the station all to themselves the last few cold, dark months. The station population is now 243 people.

At times, there are more people than seats in the galley at meal times. It’s time for us to leave. Unfortunately, we can’t leave. After getting six of our group and minimal cargo out to Camp Winter, “bad” weather moved in, and the last few days the Basler aircraft that was scheduled to come and take Tom, Lou and I to Camp winter has been canceled. “Bad weather” is reduced visibility, and high winds (around 20 kts), but not a white-out type of storm. It’s actually warmer out than it has been (-38 deg C!), but the wind does make it a little more miserable to be outside than the last few days. To me now, after being here a week, -40 and calm winds feels like a nice day–enough of a nice day that Lou and I will remark to one another, “wow, it’s a nice day out today.” We’ve been working outside almost all day every day, sorting cargo, and somehow have become accustomed to the colder temperatures. It’s a bit of a relief for me, knowing I won’t be miserable working outside all the time when it’s that cold.

Rune and Tom outside sorting cargo on a cold day.

We have been in contact with the group once or twice a day since they left using our Iridium satellite phones. They are doing well, which we are glad to hear. It is a little colder and windier where they are, and can feel the difference in elevation…it’s 350 m higher where they are.

Einar and Tom talk to John at Camp Winter on the Iridium phone from inside our Jamesway.

Now we are stuck here at the South Pole, ready and raring to work, and the group out at Camp Winter has done as much as they can with the tools they have, with the skiway all ready for the Basler to land.

The large, heavy (over 4000 lbs) tent that will be used as a garage to fix the vehicles, in pieces. The rest of our cargo is behind it.

We are all ready to get down to business, setting up an enormous tent so that the mechanics can fix the vehicles, including making modifications to the vehicles which are currently operational. Last year, the vehicles had problems with the differentials. Seven were replaced in the field, in the open, by Kjetil, the team mechanic and medic–obviously, the team super mechanic and medic (although the vehicles, luckily, needed more attention than the people). The differentials have been re-engineered, and things should go better this year. Lou, our driller, and I are going to drill a ninety meter core while the mechanics fix the vehicles (well, Lou is going to drill, and I am going to do the core handling…measuring, weighing and packaging the core to get shipped back to the US from the Pole). Both of us are excited to get started on our hole.

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– Phase One of our traverse from South Pole Station to the Norwegian Antarctic base, Troll, is to recover the four tracked vehicles we are using, which are currently stranded 350 km from the South Pole. Svein, Kjetil and Rune are the cracker-jack mechanics who will fix two of the vehicles, which are currently non-operational, and replace the differentials (this being the part that broke several time last season) in all of the vehicles. Lou and I are going to drill an ice core while the mechanics do the repairs. The spot where we will be working is called Camp Winter, since that is where everything spent the last season.

Last week, a reconnaissance flight over the vehicles determined that the surface out there is too rough to land for the Basler aircraft we were scheduled to take on Saturday. This is because there has been more than one main wind direction, which results in sastrugi (wavelike ridges on the surface of hard snow) oriented in different directions, and a rough landing for any plane.

Sastrugi at the South Pole.

The Basler has two skis and is heavier compared to the Twin Otter’s three skis, lighter weight, and beefier suspension. The pilot on the recon flight had done a “ski drag,” touching the surface, but not landing, to determine how bad the surface really was there. He didn’t even want to land the Twin Otter near Camp Winter, but saw a smoother area a bit further away where he planned to land, and then taxi everyone over to the vehicles. The crew on the recon flight took pictures of the vehicles, so we think that, at least from the air, things look ok, and nothing major is missing or completely buried. As Einar happily pointed out there are no “little black spots scattered all over the snow.”

The Twin Otter plane.

The plans were changed so that John, Kjetil, and Svein will fly out in a Twin Otter to set up Camp Winter with minimal gear on the first flight. Glen, Einar, and Rune will follow. The Twin Otter cannot carry as much cargo as the Basler, and so there will be 3 more Basler flights as soon as they can make a skiway (a snow runway) for the Basler. The South Pole has a clean air zone, which happens to lie directly in the path between the South Pole and our vehicles, and so the Twin Otter, an unpressurized plane, had to fly “over” the clean air zone, at an altitude of 30,000 ft. This means that the passengers have to fly with oxygen masks.

At Camp Winter, the plan is to open up the workshop module (all the doors have been screwed shut to prevent them from blowing off and to keep snow from blowing in) and start heating it right away using a generator for power. The next task is to get one of the vehicles running so that they can groom a skiway for the Basler aircraft to land on, bringing the rest of our cargo out to Camp Winter. Making the skiway flat enough for a plane to land on means that the group out at Camp Winter will have to knock down the same large sastrugi (snow dunes that form into the wind) that the pilot had a hard time landing on. Sastrugi tend to be very hard, as they are made from windpacked snow. The plan for now is to use the blade on Jack to knock over the tops of the sastrugi, then improvise some sort of grater using materials out at Camp Winter…2 x 4’s, the decking for the modules, or chain. In a few minutes, Lou, John, Rune, and Kjetil, who all have experience grooming skiways, were able to come up with several options using materials out at camp.

Just to set the scene for what these guys are doing…they are flying from the South Pole, already in the middle of nowhere, but at least the middle of nowhere with 240 other people, and a galley staff dishing out warm, hot meals, an extremely large, warm station, wireless internet access in our tents (our tents!) in Summer Camp, running water, telephones, a game room, a gymnasium and weight room, lounges and big screen TVs, a pool table, and 3 to 4 daily flights coming in to diminish the sense of isolation. They are leaving to go 350 km from here, to four vehicles that have been left on the ice sheet for the entire winter. We have the recon flight pictures showing that nothing has blown away, and that nothing is completely buried. But we don’t know if the seals on the doors have held, or if the windscreens on the vehicles have broken and everything is filled with snow. We don’t know if the vehicles will start or if the heaters on the modules will fire up.

The Jamesway tents in Summer Camp where I’m staying while at the South Pole.

John has considered all these scenarios, and we have multiple plans for the multitude of things that can happen. We are sending the first group in with medical supplies (including a Gomow bag, oxygen tank, and meds to deal with altitude sickness, the most likely major thing that would go wrong), several generators, fuel, emergency shelters, clothing, some water, and a minimal set of tools. That’s it!

The mood leading up to the flight is one of relaxed confidence that everything is going to work out just fine. I think this is part of the Norwegian character. All of our meetings and discussion have an element of humor (except the safety meeting we had in McMurdo…that was all business). Today, handing out the emergency communication devices to use in case of a plane crash–an Iridium phone, a PLB (personal location beacon) and radio–Kjetil jokingly gave Svein the PLB since it “only has one button to push.”

Glen, Einar and Rune wait for the second Twin Otter flight to load while Tom offers his support, and a few jokes to ease the tension.