We think that the dark band in this ice core is a tephra layer, or a volcanic ash deposit.

It is very rare to see such layers with the naked eye in ice cores so we all feel very lucky. Enjoy this video with our ice chemistry expert Dr. Ryan Banta as he explains more about this layer and ice core chemistry.

While we have a weather station that records variables including temperature, wind speed, wind direction, visibility, and the height of the ceiling, we often have back-ups and different methodologies for crosschecking the output of the weather station. The video in this post summarizes one such check.

Often measuring the height of the ceiling, or clouds, can be difficult and the instrumentation can record improper information if snow is blowing or if there are high winds. Since the height of the ceiling is vital information for pilots, we often check our weather station readings against that of a weather balloon. Enjoy this video of me launching one of these balloons that we used to measure the height of the ceiling! I am now an honorary weatherwoman at WAIS Divide.

Well, many of us here at camp are use to very active lifestyles back at home and therefore planned ahead for some fun recreational activities that would help us to stay healthy. I personally enjoying running so I brought some warm, waterproof running shoes and some nice warm running clothing! Many of us also have cross-country skis that we can use out on the runway that is groomed for the C-130 airplanes. The primary challenges to exercise here are a) finding time b) braving the bitter winds and c) getting motivated to go outside and freeze! Once you have finally prepared yourself, the running and skiing are excellent!

This last week was our first week working 24 hours a day. Our crew and the drillers are all split into three different shifts. I am on shift 2 and am responsible for helping to receive and document the ice cores from 3:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. After work I typically do not get to sleep until about 3:00 a.m. The primary reason for my late bedtime is because I have discovered that the weather tends to be the best in the middle of the night and I have turned the middle of the night into my exercise time. It is a good thing the sun doesn’t set around here! Most people aren’t silly enough to be out skiing or running in the middle of the night, but I do have a few skiing buddies who are willing to recreate with me. With the camp well marked with flags for safety and to guide the airplanes, you can go over 3 miles out of camp in every direction! Within a mile, the landscape becomes even more overwhelming as the camp disappears into the horizon and there is nothing but white and an incredible silence. The silence is really amazing. Imagine no sounds around you. We have no ambient sound from the everyday things we are used to at home. There are no noises from cars, insects, sirens, blowing leaves, honking horns etc. It is truly a unique experience!

Enjoy this photo of what you can look like after a good run here at WAIS Divide.

Peter Neff, my running buddy, always manages to look like Santa Claus by the end of our runs! All of the moisture from his breath freezes and accumulates on his beard!

We sleep in tents called Arctic Ovens. These tents are made in Alaska and could be considered Antarctic Ovens…especially in the morning! The tents are incredible at heating up with just the one’s body heat and the sun. In the morning, I have had temperatures as high as 65°F! That is roasting considering outside it is around 5°F (on a warm day)!

Our WAIS Divide Tent City. The tents are outside of “town” so that the noise of the generators and movement around camp doesn’t keep people awake.

The Arctic Ovens in Tent City.

Many of the people at camp sleep in a tent, but there are some communal heated sleeping areas. The tents are really one’s only private space so almost all of the members of the camp community have opted for a space in “tent city”. I have decorated my tent with photos of my family and friends and right now, I have a few holiday decorations up. I also have some rope strung around my tent for drying my socks and hats.

Even though the tents can get warm when you are in them, going to bed usually starts in a cold tent, which means you get into a COLD sleeping bag. One trick for getting the cold out of your sleeping bag is bringing a hot water bottle to bed. A hot water bottle is really helpful and can keep you warm throughout the night. I brought my sleeping bag from home in addition to the cold weather sleeping bag that was provided to us so I am staying plenty warm and comfortable. I sleep with the clothes I plan to wear the next day so I can get into warm clothes when I wake up. I am growing to love my little yellow tent and find that no matter what the temperature is I am always ready to go to sleep when I finally make it to my tent!

Peter Neff and his birthday cake of cinnamon rolls.

Ryan was even lucky enough to have about 10 letters arrive on a flight the day before his birthday! That is quite impressive because all of our mail comes on airplanes from McMurdo and both weather and the mail sorting can prevent letters and packages from arriving in a timely manner. Based on the mail that people are receiving in camp, it takes about 2 weeks for a letter to arrive at WAIS Divide from the United States. That is quite incredible considering each letter travels thousands of miles and takes several airplane rides! It may not be FedEx but it is still impressive!

Ryan Banta with his pile of mail including a great birthday card from his son. It was certainly a highlight for Ryan!

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!

An ice core.

We work in shifts for the packaging because it is easy to get tired and cold in our working environment. Part of ensuring the ice cores do not get damaged, and that they maintain their utility for different chemical and physical analyses, is making sure that the ice cores get no warmer than -20°C. So, the building where the cores are stored and packaged is cooled to -25 °C! It is hard to believe but often the air temperature outside is around 10°C warmer than where we work!

The drilling and ice core handling facility at the start of the 2008/2009 field season.

As we learn the packing process (I will go into more detail in another blog), we are also learning all of the nuances of staying warm for extended periods of time at -25°C. My technique, that I learned from the veteran ice core handlers, is to keep the core of your body really warm and that way your fingers and toes get enough warm blood to not get too cold. On top I wear 2 wool tops, a wool sweater and two down jackets. On the bottom, I wear two pairs of wool longer underwear and insulated bib overalls. Thick socks and boot liners with my sturdy blue boots keep my toes warm. Surprisingly, with all of the layers keeping the core of my body warm, I can get by with some light gloves on my hands!

Heidi covered in frost after work in a -25ºC environment.

Another trick, and one that I like the best, is eating LOTS of food. Both the galley where we eat and the warming hut where we can take breaks are stocked with cookies, crackers, and candy bars! It is not uncommon to eat 3 candy bars a day! I rarely eat candy at home so it is quite a nice treat to eat so much candy and know that my body is using all of the calories just to stay warm!

I am off to work now but I hope to get more posted soon! There is so much to share! Stay tuned for how to sleep in a tent in Antarctica, the ins and outs of a hot shower at WAIS Divide and much, much more about ice cores and they story they can tell! I will do my best to get photos posted too but internet is a real luxury here and we only have 5 hours of satellite internet a day! Sending photos is against the rules but I will try to figure something out!

Down at the Antarctic clothing issue office, we had the usual fun of getting our cold weather gear in order (Lisa was playing with her ninja alter ego) and got some good news: we’re leaving tomorrow morning on a C-17 USAF plane rather than the slower, smaller C-130 which means about a four-hour flight rather than almost eight. That makes a difference because these military planes are not built for comfort: they have little insulation on their skins so they are loud and cold close to the bulkhead.

Lisa trying on clothes in her best Ninja pose at the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center.)

The Clothing Distribution Center.

Lisa tests out her ‘bunny boots’.

After months of preparation filling out USAP (United States Antarctic Program) forms and travel requests, going to doctor and dentist appointments to become “physically qualified” for Antarctic travel, visiting Raytheon Polar Services in Denver to meet with support staff and plan our movements on the ice, and training Antarctic field correspondents, our time is finally at hand. In fact, I feel like we’ve already started our polar adventure; in addition to posting blogs from all of our Antarctic scientists, we’ve also been keeping up with Ice Stories correspondent Robin Bell’s Gambutserv Mountain (AGAP) project on her Twitter and the Xtreme South Facebook pages.

We’ve also met up on the plane to New Zealand and here in Christchurch a drilling engineer on his way down to the deep ice coring operation at WAIS-Divide. That’s one of those acronyms mysterious to an outsider but full of meaning for glaciologists and climate researchers. WAIS is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice divide, like a continental divide, refers to a region of the ice sheet where the snow falling on one side of the divide flows one way down to the ocean and snow on the other side flows in the opposite direction.

A map of the WAIS divide. Image courtesy of the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project.

The WAIS-Divide is an ideal place to drill ice cores because the movement of the ice there is downward rather than horizontal, leaving clear annual ice layers that can be counted to track the passage of time. Lots of snow falls in this region of the ice sheet, trapping gas bubbles between the snow grains that record the compositions of the atmosphere when the snow fell, preserving a climate record from 40,000 to 100,000 years ago. Lisa, Ron and I saw some ice cores when we visited the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver last spring, some of them dating back to the original International Geophysical Year in 1957-8.

Bubbles in an ice core. Photo by John Weller.

Ron and Lisa filming in the ice core storage room of the National Ice Core Laboratory. Photo by John Weller.

We won’t have a chance to go out to the WAIS-Divide ice drilling camp as it’s an additional plane flight from McMurdo and we already have a pretty full work and travel schedule once we do get to McMurdo. We hope to travel out by helicopter to some fields camps to see penguins, the communications station at Black Island, McMurdo Dry Valleys, and, the biggest prize of all: the South Pole.

In the meantime, the Ice Stories crew enjoys green New Zealand.