kawelch in Antarctica

Ships are here

2009-01-24T00:25:00.000-08:00

It has been over a month since I have added anything to my blog. Life has been very busy in the lab, but otherwise pretty uneventful. We have had some beautiful weather and a few storms. It has been slightly warmer and sunnier than average so there is more stream flow out in the dry valleys. My research team added a few special sampling events to take advantage of the unusually high flow, so this means more samples for me to analyze.
I still have a few weeks left of my field season. Several milestones have past. We celebrated Christmas and New years and both were fun. New field team members arrived after the new year and others are leaving already. This is the beginning of the real exodus at the end of summer. There is always a flux of people coming and going for various research projects and other events. Now there are more people leaving than coming south. It's also the start of ship season. The Swedish ice breaker Odin arrived and created a channel through the sea ice to McMurdo Station for the fuel tanker and the cargo vessel. The fuel ship arrived two days ago to refresh the station with another full year supply of fuel for McMurdo Station, South Pole station and all the field camps. The photo shows the fuel tanker and the Odin docked by the ice pier.

Deprivation

2008-12-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

Life is pretty comfortable in Antarctica, especially in McMurdo. There are things we learn to live without. Fresh food of any kind is a limited commodity. I recently purchased crackers from the station store that expired in 2006, but they tasted OK. This fresh fruit showed up in the office about a week ago and whoever brought it back from the galley is out in the field for the next few weeks. There is a hoarding instinct that kicks in here. Fresh foods of any kind are limited, so there is a tendency to hoard just a little bit of it. But then, people watch it shrivel up because they couldn't bring themselves to actually eat it since it may be the last real fruit they see for a long long time. It's understandable.
When we are in Antarctica, we surround ourselves with a few comforts of home or things that remind us of home. I personally think that the barren brown and white landscape of Antarctica can be quite beautiful, but we do enjoying surrounding ourselves with pictures of warmer places, happy times away from here, photos of family and friends, fresh food and fake flowers.

Lake Brownworth

2008-12-10T22:06:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more pictures from the trip the the Wright Valley yesterday. We hiked to Lake Brownworth, a pro-glacial lake on the margin of the Wright Lower Glacier. Most of the lakes in the dry valleys are closed-basin lakes, meaning that water flows in, but it doesn't flow out. Lake Brownworth is different because meltwater from the glacier flows in, but the lake is drained by the Onyx River, the longest river in Antarctica. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Onyx flows away from the coast inland to Lake Vanda, which is a closed-basin lake. Lake Brownworth has a permanent ice cover like most of the lakes in the dry valleys. It also appears to have a significant amount of algal mat. You can see dark chunks of this mat material that worked its way up through the ice over many years and is still frozen to the surface. We were optimistic as we walked closer that the dark material might be wind-blown sediment, but as we got to the shore we could see that it was all algae. Because Lake Brownworth has a river draining it, the lake level must stay fairly constant. I mean, the lake level could drop, but it can't get any higher because of the river. There is a bathtub ring of algal mat marking the perimeter of the lake.

Wright Valley

2008-12-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

I had a great day in the field with Kelly. We went to the lower Wright Valley and I was her field assistant for the day. Now that Kelly is looking for wind deposited sediments around the dry valleys, I am training my eye to look for these features. We spent a couple of hours hiking around to look for good sample locations. We saw this hillside covered with sand and hiked over to it. The grains were pretty big sand size particles, but they seemed to be rounded like little ball bearings. Kelly walked up the slope to sample and I waited at the bottom of the hill so that I would not disturb the slope any more than necessary. Kelly looks like just a speck in the picture.

Looking back down the hill, the sand looked like snakes moving across the surface. It was only blowing about 10 knots while we were there, so there was not much movement of material.

We also came across a large ventifact that had collected sand inside, so Kelly sampled the sand there too.
The dry valleys are windy and there are signs of wind everywhere. This box belongs to the LTER stream team and it houses the equipment used to measure flow at the stream gauge on the Onyx River. I noticed that all of the paint on the west side of the box had been sand-blasted away. The other sides of the box looked almost freshly painted. The biggest wind storms in the dry valleys come from the west, although most of the sand features that we found appear to be deposited from the east.

When we arrived, we landed near the Onyx River at the helicopter landing site that the stream team uses when they visit the site. So after we finished our work, we waited by the river for the helicopter to come and pick us up. The Onyx River is the longest river in Antarctica and it flows away from the coast and drains into Lake Vanda. It is not very big compared to rivers at home, but it was flowing pretty well that day. It was still a few degrees below freezing, so I'm sure the flow will pick up as the sun gets higher in the sky and it warms up over the next couple of weeks. The water looked fresh and clear, but I didn't have a chance to drink it.

Dunes and pies

2008-11-29T19:32:00.001-08:00

I've been in Antarctica for almost three weeks, and this past week I went out to the field for the first time. I met up with Kelly at Lake Hoare so we could go to Victoria Valley and sample the dunes. Neither of us had been there before and I didn't have much of an idea of what the place would be like. It certainly is windy in the dry valleys, but there aren't many sand dunes there. Kelly is trying to sample sediments that have been deposited by wind for her thesis research, so the dunes were an obvious place to look.

We had a great flight over the Asgard Range and Wright Valley and then flew into Victoria Valley. It seems like a strange combination to see sand dunes and glaciers in the same place. The dry valleys are a strange place though. We had a couple of hours there to collect Kelly's sand and take some photos to document what it looked like. We were a little confused by what we saw. The shapes of the dunes and the surface ripples indicated that the dominant wind direction was easterly. Throughout the dry valleys, the strongest winds are usually those coming from the west, draining off the polar plateau. We need to do more investigation to understand what we saw there. At least it was a warm and calm day when we were there.

After our trip to Victoria Valley we went back to Lake Hoare and I stayed there for a couple more days. We were preparing Thanksgiving diner for our field team, so I helped with making pies and the other holiday foods. At least this year I remembered to take a "before" picture of the pies and not just the "after". It was a good time and we had some great food.

We had some bad weather in McMurdo and it was mostly overcast and snowy while I was in the field. After Thanksgiving diner I walked around the camp to take a few photos and it did clear up a bit that night.

I was supposed to return to McMurdo on Friday morning, but the helicopters couldn't fly due to bad weather over the sea-ice. It was condition 1 out on the ice. We waited around by the phone and radio waiting for news and then we decided to pass the time by going on a run to collect "ice berries" for camp drinking water. The best drinking water comes from chunks of ice that calve off the front of the glacier and we collect these and melt them. We did finally hear that there was a little break in the weather and they would attempt to fly out to get me and some other people who were hoping to get back to McMurdo that day. It was a bumpy and crowded flight back, but it's good to be here!

When I'm in McMurdo, I do miss Lake Hoare camp and the people there and living next to the Canada Glacier. Although here in McMurdo, the water plant "makes" water for us by de-salinating seawater and we just have to turn on the tap. Collecting ice berries is alot more fun.

Getting ready (again)

2008-09-24T15:32:00.001-07:00

I'm getting ready for my 16th field season in Antarctica. I have been preparing for the trip (aka shopping for coffee and anything else I might want) to make sure I don't have a mad rush of things to do right at the end. Some of my friends are already in McMurdo and others will be headed south in the next few weeks. I have a bit longer as I am not scheduled to leave Columbus until Nov 6 and optimistically will arrive in Antarctica on the 10th. That's if everything goes smoothly, which it might. I get to vote in the presidential election in person this year!
We have three students on our LTER team from OSU who have not been to McMurdo or the dry valleys before, so there is a general excitement in the office. It should be another great season.

Where is the water?

2008-01-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of me in the field. Gregg and I went to sample the upland ponds last week. Chris was supposed to come with us, but he was too sick. It turns out that he had the flu and spent two days in his room under quarantine while we were out enjoying two days in the field. I had not been in the field since November for my annual Thankgiving trip, so it was great to get out to do some field work.
On the first day we flew over a some ponds that we had not sampled before. I thought we were in the right spot, but everything goes by so fast in a helicopter compared to when you are walking. I asked the pilot to set down near the ponds. After spending half an hour there, thinking "this does not seem right" I decided we were really not in the spot we intended to visit that day. Gregg and I proceeded with the sampling and mapping of the ponds in the area and expanded our data set in the process. When we finished the sampling, we sat down to take a break and sample our flight lunches. I don't recommend the swiss steak sandwiches.
We decided to return the next day because we had requested another day of helicopter support to get to another set of ponds. We went back to the ponds at the terminus of the Marr Glacier that we had intended to sample the first day. These ponds are at 800m elevation (or 2600 ft). It has been a season of stormy weather and somewhat unusual amounts of snow fall. Our ponds were mostly covered with snow. One of our projects was to map the perimeter of the ponds to estimate the current size. It was complicated, we could not see the ponds because of all the snow. We were able to walk around the flat area, occasionally kicking through the snow with our bunny boots to confirm that we were still on ice and not soil. I think we did fairly well.

We did find some liquid water to sample in the ponds that were at a lower elevation. We also found some liquid water where streams were flowing into or out of the ponds. Some of these ponds seem to be fed only by local snow melt and others have glacier streams feeding them. This little pond fills a small depression and seems to only have snow as a source for water. The water was also tea colored because of all the algae growing there.

Ponds

2008-01-06T23:42:00.001-08:00

I have been a blah blogger this year. The internet had a recent "upgrade" so it's no longer painfully slow. I have a couple of pictures from the upland ponds that (I think) deserve a chance to be seen. I took these photos on my last trip to Taylor Valley when I fearlessly crossed Lake Hoare following in Rae's footsteps. (It was scarier on the way back.) It was worth the scary part though, to hike up onto Andrews Ridge and see this lovely pond.

Hopefully my team will make a day trip to the ponds near the Marr Glacier soon. These ponds behave very much like the lakes in the valley bottom. They wax and wane, depending on the summer temperatures and the glacial melt that feeds them. They accumulate salts over time. As you can imagine, this pond fills a depressions in the landscape, so water flows in, but it does not flow out. Water leaves by evaporating and sublimating off the surface. Some of the ponds do have small streams flowing out to other ponds. We have been studying these ponds recently to better understand their hydrology and chemistry.

Sketchy weather

2008-01-06T23:08:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from a few days ago. No matter, it looks about the same today, minus the snow on the ground. There was a bit of snow flying earlier today. It's one of those summers. I'm very curious to know what is controlling our weather this season, if it's some kind of shift in the SAM (southern annular mode) or just normal sketchy antarctic weather. It has not been a warm and sunny summer. It's not a "Big Melt Year". There has been no "flood". Today we learned that the road onto the sea-ice has re-opened to large wheeled trucks, not just track vehicles. It has been cold and cloudy so the road is firming up and the wheels don't sink in. Tomorrow the forecast is not looking good. Three of our co-PI's are due to head south, so hopefully the storm does not develop as promised.

I think I should go for more walks, but then when it's grey and snowing and blowing, a trip to the Coffee House is more appealing. The coffee house does not look like much from the outside, but inside the atmosphere is cozy. They serve coffee and wine, so the coffee house is also known as the "wine bar". It's a relaxing place to go in the evening for a glass of wine or two and a chat with friends and co-workers. As my friend Rhoda says "It's always condition 3 in the office." And that sentiment applies to the Coffee House too.

Coffee is an important part of life for many people here. Besides the fact that many of us are caffeine addicts in our regular lives anyway, we work hard here and coffee is a nice way to take a break and feel recharged. It's also a social thing. For me it's nice to make and drink coffee as part of my normal routine here. Because we all eat in a cafeteria, and therefore do not cook our own food, it's nice to prepare the coffee in the morning and then to drink it!

Sonic Antarctica

2007-12-27T12:40:00.000-08:00

Last night there was a sonic tour around McMurdo Station. Andrea Polli, a sound artist who is visiting McMurdo Station on an NSF artists grant, led a group of people around the station to make recordings of different sounds. The tour ended at the NASA antenna where they track the polar orbiting scientific satellites. This is where Nik and I met up with the group. The dome can be seen easily from the station, but I had never been inside it until last night. The antenna was tracking a satellite while we were there, so first it moved into position and then slowly rotated to track the satellite as it moved across the sky.

The antenna made some interesting sounds, but the dome itself sounded like a drum. Each panel in the dome is made of a flexible material and as the wind blew, it sounded like a percussion instrument. I would like to go back when it is very windy to get the full experience of the drumming sounds.
The dome and antenna are on a hill above McMurdo Station so there is a less obstructed view of the sky. Sometimes the satellites are low on the horizon, so a little elevation helps with tracking. Being up high also gave us a nice perspective looking back on station. It looked expansive, but the buildings were small and looked like miniature versions of the station I know. I spend most of my time going between three buildings, the Crary Lab, my dorm, and Building 155, which is where the dining hall is located. It's always surprising to me to see how much stuff we have here. The footprint of town is fairly small, but then there are many shipping containers used for storage of supplies. There are also many containers for waste that are waiting to make there way back to the US for disposal.

It's tropical blue

2007-12-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

Officially, we had a two day break over Christmas. It was up to me to decide how much work to do versus just enjoy the holiday. There were many social events to break up the days including the town holiday party on Sunday, the Christmas Eve fancy dinner on Monday, the Christmas morning brunch on Tuesday, the Christmas evening knitting and other social events taking place in the course of two days. Somehow I ended up with a pile of presents to open too. (Thank you everyone.) It takes time to sort the bubble wrap, the tissue paper, the ribbons, the boxes, the plastic packaging, etc. and dispose of them in the proper waste disposal categories. The two days were over before I knew it.
In between opening all those presents and eating Christmas Eve dinner, I manged to take a walk to Hut Point. The sea ice is melting a little more. The melt pools are turning a tropical blue color. I think the color is from algae growing there lending a greenish tinge to the usual "glacial blue". Of course there were seals hauled out into the ice. Another one made an appearance popping up through a hole in the ice. If you use your imagination, you can see the seal swimming in the melt pool. Maybe I will get a better telephoto lens some day, but for now you can just accept that the dark blob in the pool is a Weddel seal. It was a beautiful sunny day, but the winds were howling at Hut Point (as usual), so I did not stay for long. It was so nice during the day, but then later the fog came in and since then it has been windy and overcast. It makes it easier to stay inside and work in the lab. The holiday is over, so it's back to work.
Samples have been coming back from the field and we are making lots of progress on all the lab work and analyses. Here is a picture of my lab bench. This is were I work to set up my samples for the ion chromatography instrument. In this picture, I am setting up a run of lake samples to analyze for cations. I always line up my samples by increasing depth because they get saltier with depth and I prefer to run them in order.

Transitions

2007-12-13T20:44:00.001-08:00

We are a week away from the summer solstice. The sun is high in the sky and we have had a series of warm sunny weather days. The temperature is just above freezing, just about 1 to 3 degrees C (or 33 to 38 degrees F). This is the start of the melt season. Streams are flowing around the station as the snow pack continues to melt. Streams are flowing in the dry valleys too. It’s time to transition from puffy down jackets to our windbreakers. At this time of year the sea-ice starts to melt a bit. The ice is still mostly solid, but the transition areas from land to ice are messy. It's prudent to move the fish huts back onto land while they still can, otherwise they risk getting stuck and eventually floating out to sea on an a sea-ice raft later this season. Today we learned that the sea-ice will be off limits in a couple more days, as soon as they can finish moving the remaining huts and equipment back onto land. The huts look like a row of vacation cottages lined up on the road to Hut Point.
There were a few seals hauled out onto the sea-ice near Hut Point. It is not very obvious from my picture, but the small brown blobs are Weddell seals. A few days ago, this blue ice pool was still solid, but now it is turning slushy. This makes it easier for the seals to find places to come up for air and to haul out onto the ice for sunbathing. While I was there, a seal was swimming just under the ice skin on this melt pool. He poked his head up for air a few times, just breaking through the thin ice layer. Away from land, the ice is still solid, but that will probably change over the next few weeks.

The other big transition is that research groups that were working on sea-ice to study the seals, the fish or the sea-ice itself, will now have to call and end to the field season. Groups that study hydrology and stream flow are getting busy. The nice sunny weather also makes it more fun to get out and do some sight seeing around the station.
The weather has been nice, so Nik agreed to go for a walk with me. He is wearing a fuzzy hat to keep his ears warm because the breeze is almost always blowing at Hut Point.

Yes, I'm still here

2007-12-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

I seem to be in the doldrums a bit. Not much is happening. Work is going fine and I am keeping up with everything. It’s just that, as I explained last year, it’s more of the same old thing. Water samples in bottles are not very exciting in themselves, not until you get the data! I’m approaching the mid-season mark with about 2 months to go. The days are all fairly similar. The internet is also painfully slow, so when I attempt to post to my blog, I seem to get blogged down. OK, I’m writing this in word, in case blogger actually opens and I can make a posting. Ah there it is. I have been waiting for 10 minutes for the window to open so I can upload pictures. I think I should try again later. So, for anyone who was wondering if I was still here, yes! I promise to write more soon.

After Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T12:49:00.001-08:00

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I am at our field camp at Lake Hoare. It's a tradition that we host Thanksgiving dinner here for our LTER team and any other science groups in Taylor Valley. This year the whole LTER team got together on Thursday for a turkey dinner and we invited two other research groups who are out in Taylor Valley in tent camps. Lake Hoare camp is a fixed field camp with some buildings including small labs, a generator shed, tool shed, out houses. We have the main hut where we cook, eat, relax and work on our computers. We also have internet access (which is how I manage to post to my blog even while doing field work.) We have a full size oven, so we can cook a whole turkey. It's a regular size propane oven, similar to what you might have at home, so the day before Thanksgiving is reserved for all the baking of pies and side dishes to go along with the turkey.
One of my jobs is to help with pies. We made seven pies this year. It's was more than enough for the 22 people we had here for dinner, but isn't the best part of Thanksgiving the leftovers? Our guests could take pie home with them and there is still some left for us. (Sorry I did not take a "before" picture.) I made a mistake and grabbed the bag of chopped walnuts instead of pecans for the pecan pie. I did not realize my error until right before I poured the filling into the crust. I decided it would still be good, especially if I added some orange extract and cinnamon to make it extra special. It was a hit. I made a regular pecan pie for the traditionalists too.
This is the 15th year of the LTER project in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. When our project first started we did not have the nice camp that we have now. The new camp was built starting at the end of our first field season in 1994. Before that we had a simple camp with a Jamesway, generator hut, outhouse, and a small lab. The old camp is still here, by the shore, and the building are still used. The Jamesway, which used to be the main hut, is mostly used for storing boxes and for sleeping quarters in case people are stuck here without tents. It's hard to imagine having 10 people in there sitting around the table, working and eating together. The old lab is now used on Sundays for taking showers. Eventually these buildings will probably be moved as the lake level rises. For now, they are not too close to the shore and are in no immediate danger. Although, we have seen that one warm summer could change that. For now, they serve as a reminder of more simple times, before we had phones and email in Antarctica.

Minus 5

2007-11-23T11:37:00.001-08:00

It has been getting warmer as the sun moves higher in the sky every day. This morning it is -5 degrees C here at Lake Hoare, still below the freezing point of water. In spite of that, there are signs of melting. I took advantage of the midnight sun and walked around our camp to take a few pictures last night. The glacier calved over this winter. A sliver of ice from the cliff face peeled off and came crashing to the ground. This is good news for us because it provides a source of drinking water. We collect these ice chunks and melt them in a large stock pot for drinking, cooking, washing up. It's also nice because as we stand at the east window of our hut to wash dishes, we have a slightly newer view of the glacier cliff.
Standing near the cliff face last night I could hear water dripping from everywhere. The sun warms the face of the glacier, so even though the air temperature is below freezing, the solar radiation can cause the glacier to melt. Water is trickling down the face of the glacier and starting to accumulate in the stream channel. The stream is not really flowing yet, but there is liquid water. The stream team will be happy to have more work to do. Liz from the glacier team is hoping to sample the cryoconite holes on the glacier before they melt. Everyone is watching the weather.

Lake Hoare

2007-11-20T00:08:00.001-08:00

I'm at Lake Hoare. We had weather in McMurdo this morning. Nothing serious, but lots of snow and low clouds. The helicopters were on a weather delay, but we finally made it here! The internet is slow right now and I'm here at Lake Hoare for a week, so I will keep this short. I hope to get lots of fresh pictures and write more about my trip soon. In this picture taken from a helicopter, ice-covered Lake Hoare is in the foreground, the camp is situated on the shore near the Canada Glacier. It's a lovely spot for a field camp.

Condition 1

2007-11-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

I'm still in McMurdo. I feel fortunate that I got here when I did because the weather has been bad and no flights have come in from New Zealand yet this week. They are going to try to get a flight in late today because there is a small window of decent weather before the next storm.
Antarctica is known for extreme weather. The normal weather condition is Condition 3. Condition 2 weather means that people have to travel in pairs between buildings and cannot leave the station on foot. During Condition 1, which is defined as less than 100 feet of visibility or more than 55 knot winds, or wind chill less than -100 degrees F, people are not allowed to leave the building that they are in. Last night it was Condition 2 in McMurdo and then it went to Condition 1 around 11:30 PM. The "herbie lights" were on to warn people of the dangerous situation. Snow was flying. Visibility was poor. As you can see from this picture of the NSF Chalet, the snow was not falling down, but flying up. It's Condition 3 again this morning, so life returns to normal.

I'm still waiting for "Condition 4" which is the unofficial term for weather that is too nice to be inside, time to go out and play.

Springtime in McMurdo

2007-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Antarctica, working at McMurdo Station. I've been back for almost a week. It's good to be here although I was a little surprised by how many people greeted me by saying "welcome home". Considering that this is my 15th summer here in McMurdo, working in Crary Lab, I guess it feels like home.
It's spring, which means the weather is very changeable. This morning started off like a typical early November morning in McMurdo, but the weather has gone downhill. This picture of the flags at the Chalet shows how windy it is now. At least it's warmer than it has been. Now it's about 10 degrees F, but it has been about -20F for the past few days. I just checked the weather and it's Condition 1 out on the sea-ice. In the picture we are looking out over the sea-ice and visibility is "poor". The flight from NZ was canceled and people are stuck where they are for the moment. It sure is nice in the lab though!

Three months to go

2007-07-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have not been updating my blog during the summer while I am in Columbus. Nevertheless, it seems like my life revolves around working up data from last season or preparing for next season. I'm making shopping lists, trying to get in shape, lining up a house sitter, etc. Today I went for my pre-deployment physical, which is the first step in getting PQ'ed for the ice. Every year we have to get a complete physical to make sure we don't have any medical or dental conditions that would be difficult to manage or treat in Antarctica. So far so good, but I have a few more things to do before I will be considered Physically Qualified. I have about three months in the northern hemisphere before I head south again. For inspiration, here is one of my favorite pictures from Antarctica that I took on a walk to Castle Rock.

On my way

2007-02-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

I am leaving Antarctica. My plane is on its way here from Christchurch. My transport to the ice runway is in about an hour. I bag dragged last night, so I am living out of one bag until I leave. It is snowing now and it looks foggy on the sea ice. They don't usually fly the planes south to pick us up if they don't think they can land when the get here. PSR is designated as the same time that the plane is due to land, so they can come all the way here and decide to turn around if they think it is unsafe to land. That might happen and I might spend another day here, but probably not. My work is finished, the lab is clean, my knitting is packed, so it's time to go!
It has been a great summer here. I am headed to a warmer version of summer in New Zealand for a little while. I will be in the land of tree ferns. It will be the first time I have experienced darkness (outside) since October. I look forward to star gazing and seeing Orion upside down. I heard that the Ohio State University closed down for a couple of days due to snow. I'm not sorry I missed that. I hope it will be turning to spring in Columbus soon after I arrive. I have become so spoiled over these last 14 years living in perpetual summer. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends at home. I have missed you all and I'm eagerly anticipating to my return to my northern hemisphere life.

Freeze

2007-02-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

I am giving up my computer today. I will be packing my computer, lab and field notes and papers to get them into the cargo system so they can be waiting for me in Columbus when I return. The water in the turning basin has started to refreeze. The whales have left and although the emperor penguins were here over the weekend, I think they finally swam home yesterday too after exploring the sea-ice near station for a while. I took this picture from the Crary Lab window. The turning basin is filled with grease ice, which is one of the early stages of sea-ice formation.
It would be unfair to say that it is starting to get dark here. However, the sun is lower in the sky and the first sunset will happen next week. The "sunset" picture was taken Saturday night around 11PM. Some people who are staying for the winter are anxious for the summer people to leave. I understand this sentiment having grown up in a beach town that was a summer tourist resort. It was always a little relief on Labor Day to get our town back from the visitors. Some of my friends who are wintering can't believe that we are leaving so soon and they are sad to say goodbye. In any case, it's just a matter of time before the summer residents and visitors to McMurdo pack up their things and say goodbye.

My last week

2007-02-10T16:31:00.000-08:00

The resupply ship left last night about 10PM. It was loaded up with containers of our waste, which has been sorted and packaged for future recycling or disposal in the US. The ship also contains our scientific samples. Now that the ship has gone, the schedule here is getting back to normal. It's Sunday here so they served brunch as they usually do on Sundays. The road to Hut Point is open to pedestrian traffic again now that vessel operations are completed, so I decided to go for a walk after brunch.
I keep going on about water and wildlife. It has been a good year for both of those things. There were emperor penguins around last night, which I saw from a distance, but did not get close enough to photograph them. They were gone by the time I walked to Hut Point today.
It's a little cold today, but the water almost has a tropical blue color against the sea ice. It is about +15F today and 15 mph winds.
Did you notice the seal at the bottom of the picture above? I actually did not even realize that the seal was there when I took the picture. I saw it when I walked back again and then I zoomed in so you can see better. This is one of the Weddell seals that live around here. They are really pretty, even though they don't look like much when they are just lying around on the ice. Their backs are dark and their bellies are lighter and mottled looking, probably so they can hide from their prey.
Here is the Coast Guard ice breaker docked at the ice pier. I'm not sure how much longer they will be here now that the ships are all finished. They will probably be finishing here soon too. The season is really winding down. There will be a flight every other day for the next two weeks. There are only 7 more scheduled flights for the season and all of the people who do not plan to stay for the winter will be leaving on one of them.

The boring parts of my job

2007-02-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

I know, it must seem glamorous. According to my blog I lead a very exciting life of meeting distinguished visitors, flying out to the dry valleys by helicopter, whale watching from the Crary lab and cruising on ice breakers. Well it's true. However, it's not all about hobnobbing with Admirals, Generals, Prime Ministers and penguins. Today I faced the job I dread the most for the whole season. I inventoried all of the chemicals that we will store here over the winter. I'm the last one left in McMurdo from the LTER team. I think we had another great season. I have a week left now and I am cleaning up and getting ready to go, making lists, returning things, packing, and so on. At least now that everyone else is gone, I can see what is left to do.
I just wanted to point out for careful readers of my blog that if you look back at the pictures from early January compared to now, things have changed. The day of the penguin invasion, Jan 7, the sea ice was still solid almost everywhere. Where those penguins were running, they would have to swim. We have lots of open water in Winter Quarters Bay and around Hut Point. It changed quite a bit this month. I promise I will take some more pictures of McMurdo before I leave. The sun has not set yet, but it is lower in the sky. The first sunset will happen in about a week, of course it will rise again a few minutes later. It has been getting colder and windier, which makes it feel like it's time to head to New Zealand. Many people are leaving. My turn is coming soon.

Water and ice

2007-02-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since residents of McMurdo have been able to look out their windows and see this much open water. In the 1990s, every few years we would have extensive open water and eventually, in late February or March, the sea ice would blow out, leaving the whole area open until the sea ice started to form again in April, as winter started to set in. For the last few years, I would tales of whale watching from Hut Point and the new folks would look at me as if I were dreaming. Since the large iceberg, B-15, broke off the Ross Ice Shelf and blocked McMurdo Sound, the sea ice around McMurdo has not broken up. The sea ice has beeen getting thicker every year, creating quite a challenge for the ice breakers. It's also hard to create a runway for planes on crudy old ice, so as far as logistics are concerned, it's a great year when the sea ice goes out and we get to start "fresh". Many people are optimistic about the eventual departure of this ice that is still hanging around McMurdo Sound. For now the ice breaker has created a notch to extend the ship channel so that they can use this as a runway next year, just in case the sea ice sticks around for yet another year. It's hard to imagine that next summer planes will be landing where it's water now...

They are starting to load the scientific samples onto the resupply ship. I just heard that one of the boxes contains a seal carcass! There is always something interesting happening here!

Shipping season

2007-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Late summer is the season for ships. I have mentioned the ice breakers several times. This year the Swedish icebreaker, Oden, was here as well as the US Coast Guard ice breaker, Polar Sea. The ice breakers clear a channel through the sea ice for the various ships that need to come to McMurdo every summer to resupply the station. The US Antarctic Program runs on fuel and one of the most important activities that happens here has nothing to do with science. It is the arrival of the fuel tanker to deliver fuel for the next year's operations. Here is a picture of the Polar Sea and the fuel tanker parked at the ice pier. The cargo resupply ship, American Tern, is here now and during this time, "ship offload" is a 24-hour operation. There are about 70 Navy Cargo Handing Personnel ( Nav-chaps) here to help with this proceedure. Mostly, cranes on the ship lift shipping containers onto flat bed trucks that drive up the hill. The cargo is unpacked, sorted and delivered to various work stations and warehouses. Much of this work takes place outside and the weather during offload is notorious for being cold, windy and harsh. When the ship leaves it will be loaded with a year's worth of garbage as well as a few containers with scientific gear and our precious samples.
There are also research ships that come to McMurdo and occasionally tourist ships. Here is a picture of the Palmer which is one of the research vessels opperated by the US Antarctic Program. Sometimes the Palmer comes to McMurdo to offload a crew of scientists and staff and onload a new group for the next science cruise. Research on the Palmer includes biology, geology, and oceanography, so the ship travels all around the continent during the year in support of different projects.