Our first day at CTAM turned out to be quite productive. We were on the schedule to fly to Sabrina in the afternoon, but the weather for the primary flight was bad and we ended up having use of the Twin Otter for the entire day. Our plan was to visit Sabrina and then attempt to install at least one, if not both, of the two new sites.
Just to give you a little background, the area near Sabrina and the two new installations is extremely important to me. My PhD research is focused on the wind jet that forms at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains in this region. Specifically, within the jet there is an area of maximum wind speed near the location of the Sabrina AWS (the site that Shelley and I installed in February 2009). Individual forcing mechanisms for the dynamics of this jet have been studied in the past, but until the Sabrina AWS was installed we had no observations in this area. I have used the observations from Sabrina to study the dynamics of the jet and to understand the mechanisms that are needed to create wind speeds in excess of 20 m/s for a duration of approximately 48 hours.
Jonathan and I serviced Sabrina. We raised the tower (added a 7' tower section on top of the existing site) and installed a set of new instruments at the site. Here is a before and after picture (you can see some of the mountains in the background, although the Twin Otter was in the way of a direct view of the mountains from this site).
Before
After
The goal of the two new installations is to give us observations through a cross section of the jet. Therefore, we installed a new AWS at a location farther away from the mountains than Sabrina and at a location closer to the mountains than Sabrina. Here is a series of pictures that gives you an idea of the distance from the mountains for each of these sites (this jet is quite large).
View from farthest site (Marlene)
View from Sabrina
View from the closest site (Tom)
We were fortunate enough to get both of these installations completed in the same day. Here are pictures of the final products.
Marlene
Tom
Just to give you a little background, the area near Sabrina and the two new installations is extremely important to me. My PhD research is focused on the wind jet that forms at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains in this region. Specifically, within the jet there is an area of maximum wind speed near the location of the Sabrina AWS (the site that Shelley and I installed in February 2009). Individual forcing mechanisms for the dynamics of this jet have been studied in the past, but until the Sabrina AWS was installed we had no observations in this area. I have used the observations from Sabrina to study the dynamics of the jet and to understand the mechanisms that are needed to create wind speeds in excess of 20 m/s for a duration of approximately 48 hours.
Jonathan and I serviced Sabrina. We raised the tower (added a 7' tower section on top of the existing site) and installed a set of new instruments at the site. Here is a before and after picture (you can see some of the mountains in the background, although the Twin Otter was in the way of a direct view of the mountains from this site).
Before
AfterThe goal of the two new installations is to give us observations through a cross section of the jet. Therefore, we installed a new AWS at a location farther away from the mountains than Sabrina and at a location closer to the mountains than Sabrina. Here is a series of pictures that gives you an idea of the distance from the mountains for each of these sites (this jet is quite large).
View from farthest site (Marlene)
View from Sabrina
View from the closest site (Tom)We were fortunate enough to get both of these installations completed in the same day. Here are pictures of the final products.
Marlene
Tom
Wow! You have been productive! Did you get to name the last tower yourself? :) Tom and Dave had a powder day yesterday at Breck, but I'm sure we'd all prefer a nice hike in Antarctica! Neat!!!
ReplyDeleteCool melis! And is Tom a namesake? ;o)
ReplyDeleteYes, Tom has been named after my amazing husband. :o)
ReplyDelete