Life in McMurdo

Life at McMurdo Station has started to slow down a fair amount over the last few days. We have finished most, but not quite all, of the settling into working in the lab and the required training. We have also not returned to the field since the flight to Cape Hallett on Monday. We are currently listed as a backup flight to return to Cape Hallett and we have also submitted our first request for helicopter time. Overall, it is a good feeling to be getting into somewhat of a routine, as well as finding time to get some research work done, and find a little fun on the side. Wednesday night there was a "MinneSconsin" party for people who have or have had some form of a connection to Minnesota and/or Wisconsin. We celebrated with brats on the grill.

With things slowing down, I can provide a little more information what life in like in McMurdo. The best description that I have been provided for McMurdo is that it is more like a small mining town than an Antarctic base. There are currently about 800 people living in McMurdo. That is up by over a hundred since when we first arrived a week ago. The population will be around 1000 during the peak times from late November to late January. The estimates that I have heard in the past are that only about 20% of the population are scientists. The rest are military or contract workers doing jobs in support of the science and overall infrastructure. I'll try to share more tidbits of life in McMurdo in future posts. Feel free to email me questions.

Aerial photo of McMurdo Station from the Twin Otter during the flight to Cape Hallett earlier this week. Most of the activities and life in the town occurs below the road that is running roughly left to right across the photo.

We are now experiencing 24 hours of sunlight at McMurdo Station. This is somewhat new as we did have some brief sunsets over my first couple days in McMurdo. The last sunset was late the night of October 22nd at 12:47 AM. The sunrise on the 23rd was at 2:26 AM. Keep in mind that even though the sun was dipping below the horizon it was still continually light out in McMurdo during those initial couple days. The next sunset will not occur until February 21 at 1:15 AM, long after I am gone.

A series of photos of the sun setting late on October 22nd. One thing to notice is that the sun is traveling almost parallel to the horizon as it sets. This is due to being a such a high latitude (~78S). In the tropical regions the sun sets nearly perpendicular to the horizon. At the poles (90N, 90S) the sun travels basically parallel to the horizon when the sun is up for six months a year.

The sun is set and below the horizon late on October 22nd. The sun will not set again until February 21st.