Really Bad Weather

The weather got even worse today. We actually made it to work this morning and the the weather got really bad after we got there. We had 60 mph wind gusts and visibilities were at times less than 100 feet. The place that had 95 mph winds yesterday, had 102 mph winds today. It wasn't so bad being at work in the buildings, but going to bathroom was quite treacherous. In fact on one trip, the wind actually knocked me off of my feet. Luckily I wasn't hurt. The whole experience was actually pretty fun. Below is a video of the walk to the bathroom (sorry, as exciting as it would have been, I didn't capture the fall).



It got so bad that we actually had to leave work before they shut down all transportation. If visibilities drop below 100 ft, all transportation is shut down and you aren't even allowed to go outside. So we left work early so we didn't get trapped at work all night - after all, we didn't want to miss our big Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Things do look like they will finally improve tomorrow. Here are a couple of pictures of the storm.

Co-worker of mine (Larry Fox), walking back from the bathroom. It just looks miserable.

This picture about says it all.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Hope all is well. The weather down here has taken a turn for the worse and it appears it will remain that way for the next 48 hours or so. So, because of that, I cannot get a call out of Antarctica to the States, so for those of you that I said I would try and call, sorry. I will keep trying, but I might not be able to get a call out for some time now.

We got about 4 inches of snow last night. That is actually a lot for down here. Much of Antarctica is actually a desert, and there are places close to here (called the Dry Valleys) where they get virtually no precipitation throughout the year. They are some of the driest places in the world, even drier than the Sahara. The 4 inches of snow was nice and actually masked some of the ugliness that is McMurdo. The downside to the snow is that today the winds really picked up. We had 45 mph winds this morning and all that snow just blows around and reduces visibility, and also creates huge snow drifts. At times this morning visibilities out on the ice were less than 100 feet, and winds about 10 miles away were about 95 mph. When conditions are that bad we cannot make the drive to work, so I actually have a day off (my first since coming down 3 weeks ago). I feel like a kid having a snow day off from school.

Hopefully I can get some pictures of the storm and post them tomorrow, although they will probably just be a lot of white.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

Ice Caves...

I finally got to go on the ice cave tour yesterday, and it was absolutely amazing - definitely the highlight of my trip so far. The ice caves are located at the Mount Erebus Glacier Ice Tongue, about 7 miles north of McMurdo Station. The ice tongue is part of the Erebus glacier that comes off of Ross Island and floats on the water. The sea water remains frozen most of the year (and really cold the rest) so unlike other glaciers, when it reaches the water, it does not break off and make icebergs very readily. Also, the area is protected by 2 peninsulas so this keeps large wave away after the ice melts, which also helps prevent iceberg formation. So what results is about a 5 mile long 50 foot high glacier sticking out from the island.

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All along the edge of the glacier there are ice caves. Many are unstable and could collapse at any time as the glacier moves, but there are a couple you can go into safely. The one I went into had an opening about the size a manhole cover, then you slid down an ice chute about 20 feet to where it opened up into a much larger opening. The whole cave was probably about 100 feet deep, and the main room was probably about the size of a 2-car garage. There were many very cool stalactite like formation made of ice crystals, and the whole place glowed blue from the light passing through the ice. It was very neat. At one point the guide had everyone be quiet for a few minutes and you could actually hear the ice moving around you as the glacier creeps slowly along.

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Because the glacier is floating on the water of the ocean, there are of course tides. The water of the ocean goes up and down and liquid water from below is actually forced up through cracks in the ice as the tide changes. This creates pools of water in front of the glacier which of course quickly freeze into light blue ponds of almost perfectly clear ice near the caves. It is really a neat experience that I will not soon forget. Below are just a few of the many pictures I took.

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The edge of the glacier with a collection pool below it. It was very gloomy outside, so the blue of the pools didn't quite come out as well as I would have hoped.

Another view of the edge of the glacier with a pool at the base.

The chute entrance to the cave with a guy I work with already at the bottom.

Ice crystal "stalactites"

A view through the cave to another entrance

Inside the main room of the cave - that is actually the color it was in there.

A view along the side of the glacier.

New York Times Article and other stuff...

One of the experiments that my facility launched from Antarctica last year has apparently made some pretty significant astronomical discoveries. Not really knowing that much about it, I guess they made one of the first actual measurements of dark matter. Anyway, the group has published a paper in the magazine Nature and today there was an article in the New York Times about the experiment. Below are 2 links. The first is a rather lengthy article, but there are some really good pictures of the launch from Antarctica. The second is a one page summary that is much more palatable to those of us who aren't genius astro-physicists. There is a REALLY good picture on this one as well. It gives a view of the entire flight train of the balloon at launch. You can really tell how big everything is on this picture. The orange thing about a third of the way up on the flight train is the parachute. Everything above this is the balloon and when it is fully inflated will be a sphere with that diameter. Anyway, here are the links.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/science/25dark.html?ref=science

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/11/25/science/20081125_DARK_GRAPHIC.html

There's not much else going on down here. It has been a little warmer lately - temperatures have made it all the way up to the low 20s on several days. It's funny that 20s actually seem warm down here. If I was back in Texas, 20 would seem frigid. Tonight I get to go on an Ice Cave tour at the Mount Erebus glacier. I am really looking forward to it, not only because from what I've heard it's pretty awesome, but also it's something to break the monotony of my daily schedule. So tomorrow, hopefully I will have some really good pictures to share. Below are just 2 random pictures from the past few days.

The ANITA payload outside. They still have to add another row of antennas to the bottom and solar panels

An Adelie Penguin near Ross Island. I guy I work with actually took this picture. I have only seen 1 penguin since I have been here and didn't have my camera.

The Payloads...

Today I thought I would write a little bit about the payloads we are going to fly this year. 2 of the 3 are actual science experiments, while one is a NASA test flight for a new type of balloon. The 2 science payloads are extremely large, complex and are studying things that I really could even begin to describe with any intelligence. But I will give it a shot, and leave out as much of the boring, dorky science stuff as possible. All of these payloads, after launched will float at about 120,000 feet, circle the South Pole 1-3 times and hopefully remain in the air for 30-45 days.

The first payload we will launch is called the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass experiment (CREAM). It is from a group from the University of Maryland. Basically the experiment measures cosmic rays. From their website, it says the goal of the experiment is to "extend direct measurement of cosmic-ray composition to the energies capable of generating gigantic air showers which have been mainly observed on the ground, thereby providing calibration for indirect measurements". Yeah, I don't know what that means either, but below is a picture of the payload without its solar panels. When fully assembled it will weigh 6000 pounds.

The second payload is called Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) and is from a group from the University of Hawaii. If you thought CREAM was confusing, ANITA is even worse. This one is a radio telescope to detect ultra-high energy cosmic-ray neutrinos. The website says, "neutrinos are of great interest to astrophysicist as they are the only particle that can reach earth unattenuated at all energies". Once again, no clue what that means - I just forecast the weather. This payload is huge. It will weigh about 6000 pounds as well. In the picture below, if you want some scale to see how big it is, that is a 6 foot tall ladder in the bottom right corner of the picture.

Our final flight is a test flight for our new Ultra Long Duration Balloon (ULDB). This is a new design of balloon that NASA engineers have designed and basically we need to conduct several test flights before it can be used to support actual flights. The new balloon was designed in hopes of allowing balloons to remain in the air for around 100 days. Right now, they are limited to about half of that. No pictures of this yet because they haven't started building the test payload.

Well, anyway, sorry to bore everyone to death today. Although I know very little about the actual experiments, it is pretty cool to actually be involved in all of this fancy astro-physics and astronomy stuff.

McMurdo Station...

Well, not a whole lot has changed here. We are still on schedule and anticipating our first launch will probably be in the second week of December (weather permitting of course). We had a fairly significant problem arise earlier this week when one of our hoists broke down. It had the potential to delay us for up to 2 weeks while we were waiting for another to be shipped down, but luckily, it was able to be fixed. So, today, thought I would write a little about McMurdo Station.

There are about 1200 people living and working in McMurdo now with still more in various stages of transition to other stations on the continent. It is a very busy place - there are always people coming and going. Generally, though, it is seems to be a fairly well coordinated operation(with a few snags). For as beautiful as Antarctica is, McMurdo is definitely not beautiful. Of course the view from town is great, but the actual town consists of an odd assortment of metal, drab and dismal buildings (many left over when the Navy used to run the town). All of the buildings are very functional and suffice, but aesthetics were definitely not considered in their design.

The town has several nicknames, one of which is Mud Town. This is because on warmer days when the sun is out, the snow and ice melt in the town, and everything turns to mud. The whole town is on a hill, so at times, there are small streams of mud that flow through the middle of everything. I have been told, that later on in the Summer, these streams can in fact become quite large and actually do damage. There isn't really any dirt here, it is all volcanic rock and fine volcanic dust, so this makes it very difficult to get the mud off of your clothes and shoes.

Not all is bad, though. There are many things in town that are designed to make the people that live here fell more like they are at home. There is a library, a video store/convenience store/liquor store/gift shop (yes that's all one place), a bowling alley, a gymnasium, a barber shop, workout facilities, 2 bars (1 smoking, 1 non), a coffee house, a church, and most of the dorms have either a ping pong table or a pool table in them. Then there are several outdoor things you can do as well. There are hiking trails around town, shuttles that go to the nearby New Zealand base (where there is a better gift shop and you can see seals and the occasional penguin), and also there are weekly tours to the nearby glacial ice caves (I really hope to do this one soon).

Anyway, below are some pictures of McMurdo in all of its glory (or lack there of)!

This is Building 155. This is kind of the main hub of the station, where the mess hall is and a lot of the offices. Notice all of the mud in the foreground (and this is not much compared to warmer days)

One of the more aesthetically pleasing buildings, this is appropriately enough called The Chapel of the Snows. It is a non-denominational chapel, and they have service for many different religions in here. The anchors in the front remain from the Navy days.

This is my dorm. Definitely nothing fancy, but I guess it has everything you need.

Just Another Day...

Well, I've kind of gotten into a daily routine down here and it varies very little from day to day (so much so that it is actually hard to remember what day of the week it is). I am purposely trying not to do everything there is to do down her all at the beginning so I will still have new and exciting things to do the remainder of the time I am down here. There are still hikes to do, there are several site-seeing tours that you can do and there are other things as well. So I don't really have much exciting to talk about.

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Everything at work is progressing along according to schedule. We have three balloons to launch this year, and right now it doesn't look like we will launch the first until the second week of December at the earliest. The payloads are still being assembled and there are a lot of tests that have to be done before they are considered ready to fly. Hopefully they will be ready around the first of December and then it is just a matter of waiting for the weather to cooperate. It is still looking like it will be around the first of the year before I get to come home.

Here are just a few random pictures that I have taken...

Picture of the sea ice from the plane on the flight to Antarctica. Nothing spectacular, I just thought the pattern in the ice was really neat.

C-17 that I flew from New Zealand to Antarctica on

This is "Ivan the Terra Bus". This is how I get to work every morning. It is definitely not designed for speed and agility.

Very cool lenticular clouds over Ross Island near work

This is the solar panel array of one of our payloads. This is just the beginning of this payload, and when done it will weigh nearly 6000lbs and will barely fit out of the doors of that building.

This is the Boss, our launch vehicle in Antarctica

Christchurch New Zealand...

Well, last night it snowed here for the first time since I've been here (not much) and it got cold again today. Yesterday it got up to a balmy 17 degrees, sunny, and there was very little wind. I actually didn't wear a jacket outside for most of the day. Today it is back to being cold (1 degree with a -15 wind chill). So today, I thought I would write about and share some pictures of somewhere a little warmer - Christchurch, New Zealand.

Everyone who comes into Antarctica via McMurdo Station has to travel through Christchurch. This is where the United States Antarctic Program offices are and from where we leave to get to Antartcia. Luckily, I got to spend a day in Christchurch touring the city. It is an amazingly clean and picturesque town and a great place to visit. The people there are extremely nice and friendly, and everyone is very willing to help a confused tourist.

Below are some pictures of Christchurch.

ChristChurch Cathedral downtown on Cathedral Square

The Chalice art sculpture with the cathedral in the background

The Avon River in downtown

The Avon River again, near the Botanical Gardens

A tree in the Botanical Gardens (the Botanical Gardens is amazing, and is a totally free and public park)

The Pacific Ocean and cliffs just outside of town. The sand is a very dark brown muddy color.

Flowers in the sand dunes near the beach. The cliffs in the background are kind of the suburbs of Christchurch.

Volcanic Eruption...

By far the most dominating feature in the Antarctic landscape around McMurdo is Mt Erebus. Erebus is nearly 12500 ft tall and only about 15 miles away from town (which very near sea level). It is an active volcano and has been continuously erupting since 1972. It actually has a crater and pool of lava inside like volcanos you see in the movies. On a normal day (picture above), the only evidence you see of activity is a small plume of steam and gas coming from the top.

Well, today, activity picked up on Erebus and the eruption intensified somewhat. Much more gas and steam was visible from the crater on the way to work this morning, and by this afternoon it was quite impressive with the whole crater ejecting gas. Rocks were also thrown from the crater according to the Erebus observatory, but none made it to work. One of the guys who has been coming here for 17 years said it was one the best eruptions he has seen. Below are a few pictures. The pictures are very cool, but being that close to something that powerful is definitely a very humbling experience.

The Hole in the Ice (a.k.a. The Bathroom)...

Well, working out in the middle of an ice shelf definitely has its drawbacks. Besides being very cold and windy, by far the worst thing is the bathroom situation. There is no running water out here, so it goes without saying that there are no toilets. To solve this problem, there are basically just holes drilled very deeply into the ice, and there is an outhouse sitting on top. Basically, when they get full, the hole is filled in, and the outhouse is moved over a new hole. If that doesn't sound pleasant enough, they are not heated and for obvious reasons are located about 200ft away from the buildings we work in. All of this makes for an extremely unpleasant and cold trip to the bathroom.

This year coming down, we were told that we were going to have inside bathrooms that actually flushed. For the guys that have been coming down here for a while, you would have thought that they were going to work at a 5 star hotel compared to what they have experienced in the years past - an actual warm flushing toilet. You have to understand that things take place very slowly down here. Most things are government run (or at least run like the government), so something that would seem very simple such as installing a bathroom, involves a mound of paperwork and a lot of time. This bathroom has been in the works for the better part of 4 years, so there was a lot of anticipation about it opening and everyone was already trying to figure out who was going to be the first to use it (pretty sad, huh).

Anyway, finally this year, all of the construction was complete, the plumbing installed, and basically all that had to be done was to put the digestive chemicals in the system and test it out and we would have a fully functioning restroom in just a few days. The plumber came in to start the job of adding the chemicals to the system and left for the day. Overnight that night, there was some sort of chemical reaction and a fire started in the bathroom. Although it did not burn down, it did enough damage that they will have to start from scratch to install a new bathroom, so it might be another 2-3 years. The building still stands, now with yellow caution tape surrounding it (it is now a biohazard becasue of all the chemicals inside), and it stands as a constant reminder to the bathrooms that could have been and almost were.

Where I work...

I work at Williams Field Antarctica (aka Willie Field). Willie Field is an airfield about 7 miles outside of McMurdo Station. It is actually just 2 landing strips that are groomed into the packed snow. All aircraft landing at Willie must be equipped with skis. Willie Field is the busiest airfield on the continent as it is the primary point where supplies come into Antarctica and then are distributed to outlying camps including the South Pole.

The whole area around Willie Field is located on the Ross Ice Shelf. The Ross Ice Shelf is basically just a premanent layer of ice that floats on top of the ocean. Actually, Willy Field sits on about 25 feet of compacted snow, that is sitting on top of 260 feet of solid ice. All of that is floating on about 1800 feet of water. It is slanted slightly downward from south to north and actually flows toward the ocean. The area of the ice shelf where I work actually moves generally north at a rate of about 300 feet a year. This movement along with giant snow drifts that form each year means that most buildings are actually on giant skis so that they can easily be moved if needed. Buildings that are not on skis eventually get buried in the snow and can no longer be used, or have to be dug out.

Areas of the ice shelf that are safe to travel on are marked with flags. It is not safe to venture outside of these flagged areas as you run the risk of falling into a crevasse in the ice, and you definitely don't want that to happen.

Enough boring stuff, here are some pictures...

View of the Ross Ice Shelf. The line towards the top going up and to the right is the road to Willy Field. At the end of this road is Willy Field. It is really in the middle of nowhere.

C-130s parked at Willy Field, with My Discovery in the background.

C-130 taking off from Willy Field heading to the South Pole. White Island is in the background.

The area of Willie Field where I work. I work in the 3rd building from the left.

The Weather

A couple people have asked what the weather is like down here. Simple answer - it's cold... but it's not as bad as you might think. The first three days I have been here have been really good weather days (relatively speaking). High temps have been around 10 and lows around -10, but with the wind chill it has felt about 5-10 degrees colder than that. That sounds pretty cold, but after you've been here for a bit, it really doesn't seem that bad, as long as the sun is shining (which it has been). This is actually considered warm weather, and some people (nutcases if you ask me) walk around in shorts.

Today however, the weather looks like it is going to take a turn for the worse. Winds are going to pick up and its going to cloud up. Winds will probably be 35-40mph tonight and tomorrow, with wind chills tomorrow morning probably around -40 (now that's cold). I think the shorts will disappear tomorrow.

Here are few more pictures...

Mt Erebus with steam coming out the top. It is over 12000ft tall, and is the world's southern most active volcano.

Close up view of Mt Erebus

From the top of Ob Hill. Appropriately named White Island (left) and Black Island (right) in the distance with the Ross Ice Shelf in between it all.

Life in Antartica

Well, I've had few days in Antarctica now to adjust, and really it's not as bad as I expected. I get up early in the morning at about 5:15am, go to the computer lab and start looking at the weather, eat breakfast and then go to work. We work at Willy Field, one of the airfields near McMurdo Station. It is about a 20 minute drive to work, but the scenery is awesome. We work from 8am to about 5:45pm, then head back into town. Since we work so far out of town, we have our own chef to cook us lunch - he is fantastic, and the food is great. By the time I get back to town, it is time to eat dinner. After dinner, it is almost 7:00, so really there is only about 3 hours until I am ready to go to sleep. Below are a couple of pictures I took out at work.

Mt Discovery in the distant, with the Willy Field tower in the foreground

Our "bathroom" out at work (actually a hole in the ice with an out house on top). Mt Erebus, an active volcano, is in the background.

So far, I think the strangest thing about being down here is the 24hrs of daylight. It just is a very weird feeling to wake up at 5:15 in the morning and go to bed at 10pm and have to wear sunglasses outside at both times. I really don't know how to describe it. It's just a weird feeling, kind of unsettling in a way.

To pass the time, I have been trying to get out as much as possible. There are several hiking trails around town that you can take at any time (weather permitting). I am going to try and hike all of these, and at least walk somewhere everyday, both to get excercise and just to have something to do. Also, there is a bar here with a pool table, and there is a basketball league that I am going to try and get into. There really is a lot to do. If I want to just stay in my room, there is a library where I can get books, and also you can rent movies.

Yesterday, I hiked up to the top of Observation Hill (or just Ob Hill down here). This "hill" is actually more like a small mountain, at least it felt like it when I was climbing it. It is only 750ft tall, but the hike is very steep, and the hill is covered with snow, ice and very loose volcanic rock, so it is a little tricky. Below are some pictures from the top. It was a very tough trip up, but it was well worth it.

Self-portrait of me at the top of Ob Hill, with Mt Erebus in the background

View of McMurdo Station from the top of Ob Hill

Cross at the top of Ob Hill, was put here in 1912

On my way to the ice...

Well, I left home in Athens at about noon on Monday Nov 3. Had to get a ride to Dallas, then fly to Los Angeles, then to Sydney Australia then to Christchurch New Zealand then to Antarctica. It makes me tired thinking about all of that now. All in all, it took me 80 hours to make the journey.The trip was actually pretty uneventful, fortunately.

The only kink was my trip from Los Angeles to Sydney. I was only scheduled a 1 hour layover in Sydney, and my flight was delayed out of LAX for about 50 minutes. They couldn't pull the skybridge away from the airplane due to an electronic malfunction so they couldn't pull the plane away from the gate. When we finally took off, I had already told myself that I would not make my flight in Sydney. The next scheduled flight from Sydney to Christchurch was nearly 6 hours after I was to get there. I had already planned in my head that I was going to take the subway from the airport to Sydney Harbor and do a short tour on my layover. We pulled up to the gate in Sydney about 3 minutes before my flight to Christchurch was to leave. I thought I had missed my flight at that point (which I was hoping for at that point because I wanted to see Sydney), but as it turns out there were about 15 others on my flight making the same connection, so they were holding the plane. We were wisked from one gate to the other, and when all was said and done, my tour of Sydney ended up being a 5 minute walk through the International Terminal at the airport. I did have time to grab a travel brochure of Sydney to prove that I had actually been there.

I ended up getting to Christchurch at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I was so tired by that point that I just layed in my room for a while, ate dinner and went to bed. The next morning I had to go to the Antarctic Center in Christchurch for my Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) clothing fitting. This is the clothing that the government supplies you (and that you have to carry at all times in Antarctica) in case you get stranded out in the open. Also, you have to wear it on the plane ride to Antarctica in case your plane crashes. After that, I finally got to see the sights in Christchurch. The city is absolutely amazing - very pretty and extremely clean. I was able to take the bus (also VERY clean) downtown and also to the beach. It was very cold that day (in fact it set a record for the coldest day ever in Novemeber for the city, about 40 degrees) and it was raining off and on, so that made it slightly less enjoyable, but it was still a lot of fun. I probably walked about 10 miles that day so I was very tired.

The next morning I had to report to the Antarctic Center at 6AM for my flight to McMurdo Station Antarctica. The flight was scheduled to leave at 9AM. I changed into my ECW clothing, got breakfast, then we were bussed to our plane. The plane was a US Air Force C-17 transport plane. It was very big, but was surprisingly comfortable. The flight was 5 and a half hours long, but didn't seem long at all. They let us walk around the plane, go up to the cockpit and go throught the cargo area. Before long we could see the ocean start to ice up, and about 3 hours into the flight you could begin to see the continent. The ice and mountans were amazing from the air.

Finally landed in McMurdo at about 3PM, then had to take a 30 minute shuttle ride into town. Had several orientation type meeting, got my room keys, ate dinner and finally got to bed at about 10PM (still very much daylight at this time). It was a very long day, and a very long trip, and I was exhausted by the time I got here.

I will update more later, and will add more pictures.

P.S. Saw a penguin today!!!