Willie Field

Yesterday, Lee and I went out to our site at Willie Field. This is about a 45 minute drive out the Ice Road on the Ross Ice Shelf. We did this drive in a track pickup truck. See photo below.

Track Pickup Truck

On the way, we saw three tractors hauling cargo and realized that it was our cargo for the traverse out to the Tall Tower site. Therefore, the Tall Tower project is in motion. The traverse should have reached the site early this morning and the riggers will work to get the tower and booms installed over the next couple of days. Lee, Jonathan and I are set to be in the field for the next couple of weeks, so we'll start attempting to fly out to the Tall Tower site to install the instrumentation sometime after that.

Traverse out to Tall Tower Site

We also saw the launching of a long duration balloon while we were out at the site. These balloons take ozone measurements in the stratosphere. We had to clear out of the area during the launch due to safety reasons. If the balloon has trouble launching, it is important that no one is in the area where it may come crashing down.

Launching of a long duration balloon

After being allowed back into our site, Lee and I removed the instrumentation of the Willie Field site. The station stopped transmitting data (we send our data to satellites through the Argos system) in September. We also removed an old experimental tower that was next to the official site. This involves a lot of digging. We found that the tower base was about 6 feet below the snow surface. Here is a picture of me in the hole that we dug. As you can see, the surface of the snow is well above my head.

Hole to remove experimental tower at Willie Field

Jonathan and I have been delayed on our flight out to CTAM. We were suppose to fly out this morning, but are now scheduled for tomorrow. This isn't a very big deal, since our original fly out date was for tomorrow.

It looks like CTAM was featured on a NY Time blog.

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/airplanes-and-helicopters-on-an-icy-runway/

This should give you an idea of where we are heading. We are scheduled to be there until about the 23rd.

Lee is suppose to fly out to Byrd field camp today. Although, I have been checking the flight schedule and it seems that he is currently on mechanical delay.

In other Antarctic news, it seems that the Russians have gotten approval to drill through the Ice, into Lake Vostok. This is up on the Plateau and holds the record for coldest recorded temperature (-129 F). It will be interesting to see what they find.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/scientists-prepare-penetrate-subglacial-lake-hunt-weird-life-forms