Out in the Field

I have completed my first full week in Antarctica. As I've said several times before, time is a tricky thing here. It was probably a productive week with all that we had to do to be cleared to go out into the field, as well as the initial preparation of setting up the instruments. However, when I think that I am over one-fourth of the way through this year's field season it feels like more needed to be done.

One of the struggles during the first week was spent troubleshooting a communications (comms) problem. We will be able to maintain comms with the remote dataloggers and instruments throughout the year through satellite and radio methods. The two nearby sites will communicate using a UHF radio link that acts like a long (10+ miles) ethernet cable connecting into the McMurdo network. A colleague with UNAVCO has been guiding us through that process and it seems straightforward. The two distant sites will use a satellite phone (Iridium) setup with a modem at the site with the datalogger and a modem in Boulder, Colorado. Scott, my co-worker on this project, has spent numerous hours over the last week troubleshooting the failures in establishing a solid modem-to-modem connection. I've come up with some backup and alternative ideas on how we can modify the installation should we not be able to solve this problem by the end of this week. We decided that today was a day to take a break from the Iridium troubleshooting and we concentrated on unpacking and verifying the operation of the instruments.

Life operates on a six-day work week in McMurdo. That is the case for most of the town and the contractors. Scientists (grantees) set their own schedules depending on the work that needs to get done. We were able to end last week with a truck drive onto the Ross Ice Shelf on Saturday. Two of the sites to be instrumented are able to be driven to on the ice shelf by using the snow roads. The antenna riggers (trade contractors with expertise in setting up towers and communications) will be going with us later this week in our attempt to setup 10 towers between 3 feet and 11 feet above the snow surface. In preparation for working with the riggers, we went to the two sites to survey the area and decide where we want the towers to be installed. This is the key first step as we need the towers setup and anchored before we can start installing the instruments. The bottom line is that it felt great to get out of town for the afternoon and spend some time on the snow. I was a little surprised to find out that the temperatures were -9F that afternoon as it didn't feel that cold.

The green flags are indicating the location where the towers will be installed. Scott and Carol are measuring the distance between flags to verify the cords will connect.

Hero shot at Phoenix Airfield in front of Mount Erebus.

One of the fun parts of life in McMurdo is that you are intermingling with some amazing science projects ranging from seals to divers to glaciologists to meteorologists. In addition to the scientists, there are a select group of "Artists and Writers" that are selected to come to Antarctica and some media. Each Sunday evening there is a "Sunday Science Lecture" for the general community that is typically put on by one of the science groups. This past Sunday the presentation was give by a member of the team from the BBC that are in McMurdo filming footage for an upcoming BBC series titled "Seven Worlds". A team of 5(?) will be here for over six(?) weeks in an attempt to get 14 minutes of video for the "Seven Worlds" episode on Antarctica. They were able to show us some of the raw footage that has been recently filmed on the ice as well as some underwater filming. The galley (cafeteria), which is the largest meeting space on station, was packed for this Sunday Science Lecture by the BBC. We will be giving the Sunday Science Lecture in two Sundays and I'll be happy if one-fourth of the room is filled.

The filled galley for the BBC Sunday Science Lecture.

Earlier today, we were on the Twin Otter flight schedule to go to Elaine AWS to assist the University of Wisconsin automatic weather station (AWS) project with one of their AWS maintenance visits. Four of my previous trips to Antarctica were working on the AWS project so I felt it would be reasonable to assist their team for a day. We did not go this morning because of the weather and we are now on the flight schedule again for tomorrow. If we do go, it should be a great flight as the AWS is located near the Transantarctic Mountains and we'll be flying along the mountains for most of the entire flight. 

Looking over the ice shelf near Phoenix Airfield. The sun is still relatively low in the sky at this time of year.