Life at WAIS

I am at the end of my fourth day at WAIS camp. The time here thus far has been very productive and without any setbacks. The first full day, Wednesday, was spent gaining a better understanding of the ins and outs of the camp operation and being further prepared for field work. A large amount of communication is done over radio with most everybody having a radio. At times there are general announcements that are made, such as notification of an incoming flight, and other times they are more of recreational interest, such as there is a great photo opportunity outside. The high priority AWS sites had bad weather on Thursday, so we instead took care of an AWS site that is only 85 miles from WAIS, or about 40 minutes by Twin Otter. That site, Byrd AWS, was one of the sites that I also visited on my first trip to Antarctica. On Friday, we had two sites to service near the coast by Twin Otter. There was flat light at the first site making it difficult to land, so we did not. The second site was a beautiful location and we were able to fix two sensors that had stopped working on the AWS. Getting out into the field by Twin Otter on two of our first three full days at WAIS is a big success. We'll see what the next few days have in store.

Standing next to Byrd AWS after "raising" the station by adding a new tower section. The original Byrd AWS tower section is seen to the left of the current tower section.

We had a mountaineer with us for three AWS visits to ensure that the snow was safe to walk on and free of crevasses. This is Paul poking into the snow to verify the safety of our walk to the AWS located on the rocks in the distance.

Walking back to the Twin Otter after completing the repair of the Thurston Island AWS.

The WAIS Divide field camp was established around 11 years ago. The key reason for the camp was to drill an ice core to better understand the climate and structure of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The drilling was completed about two years ago. WAIS became one of the primary logistics points for West Antarctica during the time that it was fully operating. The result is that a large number of other field projects were all run through WAIS. I seem to recall at its peak, the camp population at WAIS was around 60. We currently have 32 people in the camp. The primary goals of WAIS for this year include hosting four or five science projects, including the servicing of the automatic weather stations, and working on sending large amounts of cargo back to McMurdo in an attempt to slowly work towards shutting down WAIS camp in the future. The expectation is that Byrd Camp, where I was at on Thursday, will become the hub of logistics for West Antarctica in the near future. There is also a long history of science and support done from Byrd Camp.

When the Arch was initially built at WAIS it was at the snow surface. The years of accumulation have progressively buried the Arch. On this evening we went into the arch for a quick tour of the former ice core drilling facility.

A view inside of the now vacant arch. In between the wooden railing is a trench that goes down to the ice core bore hole. The ice core reached a final depth of 3405 meters (11,171 feet; over 2 miles) in December 2011. The WAIS ice core is the longest U.S. ice core to date retrieved from the polar regions

The WAIS Divide Camp is at approximately center of the West Antarctic Plateau. As far as you can see in every direction is flat white, snow, and ice.

To no surprise, life at a camp with 32 people is considerably different than life in McMurdo with close to 1000. The hours for the meals are less than half that of McMurdo and the food has been quite good (there is a chef and souz chef for the camp). Every day after breakfast the camp manager holds a briefing updating everybody on the latest events and activities around the camp. Clearly, this can create much more of a community atmosphere. There is also a single "rec" tent where there is a computer attached to a projector to watch movies. That rec area can also be a meeting place for people to hang out during the off-hours.

After breakfast each morning there is a meeting led by the camp manager. The meeting covers a review of the activities from the previous day and any news and plans for that day. This picture shows the inside of the Galley tent with the Kitchen Mod in the background.

After the meeting there is a morning stretch session led by one of the camp staff.

I am scheduled to be at WAIS for at least another four days. In a future post I'll try to describe more of the layout of the camp and facilities that are provided. Feel free to send me (seefelma@imcs1.usap.gov) any questions that you might have.