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Week 8 - December 16, 2001 to December 22, 2001
Date: 12/22/01
Latitude: 76.15 degrees South
Longitude: 88.59 degrees West
Temperature: –12°C( 10°F)
Wind speed: 25 knots gusting to 40 knots
Wind Chill: –24°C( –11°F)
Wind direction: West
Meters of ice collected: 753
Notes on daily life:
We had a little lull in the storm. The forecast from McMurdo indicates that the next low pressure system and storm will be coming our way in tne next few hours.
We took advantage of the lull to do a little bit of digging out. The crevasse detector system in front of the lead Challenger was buried about 1m down in the snow. We also pulled the 3" Eclipse drill sled out of the traverse line and put it in a position where it would not be subject to drifting snow so that it is ready for work once the storm ends. We also set up the atmospheric sampling tent, but the generators to run the equipment clogged with snow hampering the voltage output. We shut the system down rather than damage the atmospheric sampling equipment.
Spent the rest of the day working on reports, eating, talking, and watched a movie before getting a nice long sleep.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Date: 12/21/01
Latitude: 76.15 degrees South
Longitude: 88.59 degrees West
Temperature: –14°C( 7°F)
Wind speed: 25 knots gusting to 50 knots
Wind Chill: –27°C( –16°F)
Wind direction: West
Meters of ice collected: 753
Notes on daily life:
We still have not moved. The storm continues.
Today we called McMurdo Station for a forecast and found out that the storm could last for a few more days. It is expected to lessen by tomorrow but then another series of lows will be coming our way from the Amundsen Sea. Most of the rest of West Antarctica appears to be clear.
Storm days can be fun. We caught up on alot of sleep, wrote up field season reports, looked over data collected on the traverse, read, and watched movies. Mark made a great Thai dish for dinner. All in all a good day.
We hope to be able to get to do some work tomorrow if the storm calms down, but right now visibility is down to 2–3 meters and everyone is confined to the shelters. Flag lines are set up betwen shelters to allow people to walk to the kitchen or the polar pooper. When people leave one shelter for another we make sure they have arrived by keeping radio contact between shelters.
All storms end and when this one does we will be rested and ready to work.
Date: 12/20/01
Latitude: 76.15 degrees South
Longitude: 88.59 degrees West
Temperature: –5°C( 23°F)
Wind speed: 25 knots gusting to 50 knots
Wind Chill: –15°C( 6°F)
Wind direction: West
Meters of ice collected: 753
Notes on daily life:
We are now 50 km from site 6. The day was spent moving very slowly through sastrugi fields. Sastrugi are snow ridges formed by blowing snow. In parts of Antartica they can be several meters in height. Along today's route they got as high as 1 meter, more typically 30–50 cm – enough relief however to slow our progress from 10–12 km per hour to 5–7 km. Even relatively small features make the ride extremely rough. So in order to give the team members who are not driving or doing radar experiments a rest and to avoid damaging sleds we moved slowly. By evening flat light conditions made it harder and harder to see the larger sastrugi and we could see a storm moving toward us. The storm found us in a few minutes, but we were warm and safe in our shelters. Visibility went down to a few meters last night and winds gusted to at least 50 knots.
Before going to sleep we decided to relax a bit. We opened a couple of Christmas presents a little early – games and Christmas decorations. We also watched a DVD movie. Relaxed and safe we fell asleep to the sounds of flags flapping in the wind and the flop flop of the propellor on the wind generator.
It will be interesting to see how long the storm lasts and what tomorrow brings for us.
Date: 12/19/01
Latitude: 76.15 degrees South
Longitude: 88.59 degrees West
Temperature: –9°C( 16°F)
Wind speed: 5 knots
Wind Chill: –25°C( –13°F)
Wind direction: West
Meters of ice collected: 753
Notes on daily life:
Today was certainly a unique day for us. We had our resupply flight. We had already begun our traverse when we were greeted by a Twin Otter aircraft overhead. We stopped and the the bright red and white, twin engine, ski– equipped aircraft landed next to us. Off came our newest team member Tom Neuman. Tom has been patiently waiting in McMurdo for the weather to clear so that he could join us. We also got mail and packages from home, plus several resupply items such as spare Challenger parts, radio batteries, toilet paper, and FRESHIES. The freshies included apples, oranges, kiwi fruits and vegetables. Within moments several of the juicy apples were devoured. We look forward to the other freshies over the next few days.
The Twin Otter took on two 55 gallon drums of fuel from the traverse and three of our team members who are returning home – Allen Delaney, Gordon Hamilton, and Dave Schneider. Gordon will resurvey several of the sites he established over the last two seasons, before leaving for home, in order to check glacier movement at these sites.
By midnight we had covered about 50 km. Enough distance to lose sight of the Ellsworth Mountains and back into the vast white expanse of West Antarctica. However we were greeted by a new sight – ground fog. Sunlight shining through the fog produces beautiful rainbow effects. With this much moisture in the air we are surely getting close to the coast and Pine Island Bay.
Date: 12/18/01
Latitude: 77.05 degrees South
Longitude: 89.12 degrees West
Temperature: –9°C( 16°F)
Wind speed: 5 knots
Wind Chill: –25°C( –13°F)
Wind direction: West
Meters of ice collected: 753
Notes on daily life:
The weather remained good today. The day's three major science activities were to complete the deep drilling, launch a high–altitude balloon and conduct Mary Albert's snow permeability sampling. The 3" drilling (Mark, Susan, Lynn, Cobi) progressed slowly but steadily. At depths above 40 m, samples are brought to the surface about every 5 minutes but down at depths around 100 m each run takes about 15–20 minutes. By the end of the day, they had reached a depth of 115 m, the deepest core yet collected on ITASE.
Paul and Dan carried out the sampling on behalf of Mary Albert. The work involved collecting snow samples from a snowpit wall and sucking air through them to determine permeabilities. The last time they did this experiment was 10 days ago at Site 3, during a storm. This time, the weather conditions were much more favorable.
Markus chose today to launch his high–altitude balloon to study stratospheric ozone. The balloon soared to a height of 23 km (about 15 miles), measuring ozone concentrations as it climbed. Data were transmitted back the ground, so Markus was able to plot concentrations almost in real time. At this latitude, he found that the ozone layer extended from 15.5 km to 22 km. The balloon burst at 23 km and the small sampling instrument returned to Earth (at times reaching speeds of 24 m per second) and it appeared to land about 10 km away from our current location.
Our work at this site is now complete, so tomorrow we will pack and begin the 150 km journey to our next site.
Date: 12/17/01
Latitude: 77.05 degrees South
Longitude: 89.12 degrees West
Temperature: –11°C( 12°F)
Wind speed: 8 knots
Wind Chill: –16°C( 3°F)
Wind direction: Southwest
Meters of ice collected: 732
Notes on daily life:
The good weather continues. Although not quite as warm as yesterday, the skies remained clear and the winds calm. Drilling continued at two sites today. Mark, Susan, Allan, Steve N. and Cobi used the 3" drill to extend the amount of core collected in the 200 year hole to 92 m. The deeper the depth of recovery, the longer each run takes. Tomorrow they will try to reach 120 m. Blue, Lynn and Gordon worked with the 2" drill at the coffee can site and collected a 20 m core. With that core, a total of 200 m of core has been collected with this new 2" drill this season.
The conditions were perfect for Markus to make multiple launches of his atmospheric sampling balloon. Later in the day with Steve A.'s help, he ran his short 3 m cores through a continuous melting system and analyzed the melt water for hydrogen peroxide and formaldehyde. The beauty of this system is that he obtains results in the field and does not need to transport frozen samples back to the laboratory for later analyses.
Dan and Paul spent the day conducting an experiment for Mary Albert. The work involved taking samples from a 2 m snow pit wall, some of which are preserved and returned to Mary's lab in New Hampshire and some of which are measured in the field. The purpose of the experiment is to study the permeability of the snowpack (the ability of air to pass through the snow). Results from her work will be useful for interpreting the chemical record contained in the ice cores (because the passage of air through deposited snow might alter its chemical composition).
For the past week, we have been awaiting a plane to bring Tom from McMurdo (Dave's 'midseason' replacement), take Gordon to remeasure sites from the first two seasons of ITASE, and then return Gordon, Allan and Dave back to McMurdo. Because of continuing severe weather in the McMurdo area, the plane has been unable to leave town. The storm is forecast to move out of the area today and flights should resume as soon as the roads and runways are cleared of snow.
Date: 12/16/01
Latitude: 77.05 degrees South
Longitude: 89.12 degrees West
Temperature: –4°C( 25°F)
Wind speed: 1 knot
Wind Chill: –4°C( 25°F)
Wind direction: Vairiable
Meters of ice collected: 720
Notes on daily life:
Just another Sunday in West Antarctica. This has to have been our best day of weather so far, there were no clouds and no wind, and the temperature reached a high of –2° C (28° F) in the afternoon.
A great deal was accomplished today. Steve A., Allan, Brian and Steve N. went on a 35 km radar traverse in the direction of the Ellsworth Range. Several different radar systems were operating. They returned in the evening with lots of data and stories of spectacular views of the mountains. It was also a productive day for the drillers. The 3" team (Mark, Paul, Susan, Dan and Cobi) recovered another 52 m of the 200 year core, reaching a depth of 60 m by dinner. Blue, Dave and Gordon collected a 20 m 2" core adjacent to the 200 year site. In the afternoon they moved the drill 1 km uphill to the coffee can site, but during the transport, the drill barrel warmed up enough to melt drilling chips. As soon as they started drilling, the inner and outer barrels froze together. They managed to get the two barrels apart and left them to cool for drilling tomorrow.
Lynn opted out of his normal spot in the 2" drill team to do maintenance around camp. He worked on one of the Challenger tractors and most of the generators, keeping them in top working order. Then in the evening, he displayed his cooking skills by producing a spicy shrimp pasta and egg rolls with Blue.