Unpacking and back to New Zealand

A side note before I get started - I am writing this post from Colorado! I am very excited to be home with Tom and Emma. This will be my last blog post for this Antarctic season. I enjoyed sharing my adventures with you. I hope you enjoyed them too.

My least favorite part of every camping trip is unpacking. 

Suz, John, and I met up on the morning of Monday January 27th to get all of our gear unpacked and returned to its various departments. First we had to get the sleds forked from the Transition. We rented a truck, drove down to the Transition, and drove the snowmobiles and sleds over to the Transition. Ed, the fork truck driver, was incredibly skilled at picking the sleds up off the ice and placing them on a pallet for transportation back to McMurdo. Thanks to his skills, this process when much quicker than we had expected.

We spent most of the day, unpacking the sleds and returning our gear. I didn’t take any pictures of this – honestly, I think I was just too tired – but something tells me that you probably get the idea.

Fortunately, our gear return went much quicker than we had expected. Most of our camping gear was returned by Monday night. Tuesday morning, I returned our comms equipment. After that we just had a few loose ends to take care of. Thinking that we didn’t need until the following Monday (our original scheduled flight to Christchurch) to finish up these things and knowing that the planners were looking for people to fly north (there were too many people scheduled to fly the following week), we asked if we could get moved to an earlier flight. Lucky for us, there was room on Thursday’s flight to Christchurch. We tried not to get too excited, because things in McMurdo can change quickly. We could have easily gotten bumped off the flight or had either bad weather or mechanical issues delay the flight, but we were fortunate. By 9:45 am on the morning of Thursday January 30th we were being transported out to Pegasus airfield for a C130 flight north to Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Cress vehicle

On our way to the airfield, the Cress vehicle stopped and the door opened. The driver told us there was a group of emperor penguins on the other side of a mill van. I walked over with my camera and found fourteen emperors. Penguins are my all time favorite animal, so I was pretty excited. This was definitely a good way to leave Antarctica.

Emperor penguins on our way to Pegasus airfield

Our flight north was good. We left almost an hour late, around 1:30 pm instead of 12:30 pm, but we arrived in Christchurch around 8:40 pm, which was only 10 minutes late. Not too bad. We went through customs, returned our cold weather gear (parkas, books, etc.), grabbed a shuttle,  and got some dinner. I made it to my hotel, exhausted, at 11:30 pm.

It was a short night for me. The airport shuttle picked me up at 4:00 am the next morning. Fortunately, I didn’t care because I was on my way home to see Emma and Tom!

Overall this was a great, successful season!

Back to McMurdo

Prior to heading back to McMurdo, we had to pack up camp. This proved to be not an easy task. We started this on the morning of Saturday January 25^th. John and I did some work on the Tall Tower AWS. This included removing the data card from the data logger. Over the course of a year, the AWS records all of its measurements to the data card. This past year, the AWS was not transmitting its data in real time, so this data card is our only source of the data. After we collected the data card, we upgraded the operating system on the data logger, uploaded a new program to the data logger (so that the data would start transmitting in real time), verified with our team back home that the data was transmitting successfully, and installed the new data card. Due to some computer complications, this took most of the morning.

Tall Tower electronics

  

After lunch, John and I removed the two Snow Web stations, which were each installed about 10 km from camp. This took us a couple of hours to complete, with most of the time spent snowmobiling to the sites.

After removing the Snow Web stations, John and I started helping Suz pack up camp (Suz had started this process that morning). John and I went to work digging out the snow anchors for each tent. Due to the fact that we had a lot of snow drifts in camp, this proved to be a tough job. Some of the snow anchors were located a few feet under the snow surface. After a few hours of digging, all of the snow anchors were free and we took a break to eat dinner. After that we took down the Arctic Oven and got it packed up. Then we helped Suz pack the remainder of the sleds. We finished up around 9:00 pm and went to bed, since we knew that Sunday was going to be a long day.

 Sleds packed and ready to go

 

We got up at 6:30 am on Sunday. We started the day with breakfast and then we each packed up our personal tents. The last tent to come down was the bathroom tent. Once that was down and packed, we hit the road (around 9:00 am). For the most part, our loads seemed fairly well packed and despite the flat light (which made it almost impossible to see where we were going), we made pretty good time. We made it back to McMurdo in about 8 hours and 30 minutes, which was much faster than the 10 hours and 40 minutes it took us to get out there.

Once we arrived at the Transition, Lee was nice enough to pick us up. John, Suz, and I were pretty excited that we made it back to town in time for dinner (which runs until 7:30 pm). Although we ate pretty good food at camp, it was nice to eat dinner at a table. After dinner, I headed back to my dorm and took a shower. After two weeks of not showering, the hot shower was really appreciated.

Driving from Tall Tower to McMurdo - the flat light made it difficult to see the "road"

 The black dot in the center is an Emperor penguin was saw on our way back from Tall Tower

Overall, it was a great trip. The logistics went well, the science went great, and I had a fun time hanging out with everyone in our group.

 John and Suz on our way from the Transition to McMurdo - Lee is driving the truck

Tall Tower Guests

As you can imagine, any contact with the outside world was kind of a big deal at Tall Tower. During our two week stay, we had two such encounters. The first was when a skua (the Antarctic equivalent of a seagull) flew into camp and the second was when a Twin Otter came to pick up Ben.

The skua visited us on Friday January 17^th. John, Ben, and I were working in the Arctic Oven. All of a sudden Suz says, “Hey, there’s a skua out here.” So we all ventured out of the tent to check it out. The bird flew around camp for a bit. He tried to land on our tents a couple of times, but wasn’t able to. Eventually, he landed next to John’s tent. He hung out for a few minutes and then was off. It is rare for a skua to travel this far onto the ice sheet. My guess is that he was looking for food, since skuas are definitely the scavengers of Antarctica.

 Skua next to John's tent

The Twin Otter picked up Ben on Monday January 20^th. It was a beautiful morning with light winds and partly cloudy skies. To be honest, Ben got lucky. I think this was the only day that we had weather nice enough for an Otter to fly into camp. Once the Otter landed, we loaded up Ben’s snowmobile, sled, an empty 55 gal drum, a full 55 gal drum of premix, and a bunch of other random camp items that we did not need. The Otter was pretty full by the time Ben crawled into the back of it.

Twin Otter at Tall Tower

After Ben and the Otter departed, it was just Suz, John and I at Tall Tower until we packed up camp and headed back to McMurdo on Sunday January 26^th.

A day in the life of a Antarctic field scientist

I had a request for a day in the life of an Antarctic field scientist, so here you go.

At the Tall Tower camp, our mornings usually started around 8:00 am. Each morning, I had a tough time convincing myself to get out of my sleeping bag. I was always convinced that it was really cold in my tent. In reality, it was never as cold as I imagined. Once I was up, I would get dressed, brush my teeth, and head to the Arctic Oven. At this point we would have breakfast, which usually consisted of either instant oatmeal (cinnamon apple for me) or Suz's chocolate chip pancakes with melty peanut butter on top (my favorite!).

Our kitchen in the Arctic Oven - Suz kept this immaculate!

After breakfast, we would usually start flying the UAV. Each UAV flight took about a half an hour to complete. Depending on how quickly the boundary layer was changing, we would launch the planes either every hour and a half or every two hours. Each day, we would fly as many flights as we could. Unfortunately, at some point in the day the winds would become too calm or too windy or the clouds would lower enough such that we could no longer fly the plane safely. Our record was eleven flights in one day!

John and I flying the UAV

(Photo courtesy of Susan Detweiller)

 

Between UAV flights, we would do things such as camp chores, processing the UAV data, reading, etc. Camp chores included building snow walls (which Ben definitely gets all of the credit for), shoveling snow for drinking water, emptying the grey water bucket, tightening guy lines, organizing cargo, etc. We also installed Ben's two Snow Web stations the day after we arrived at camp and did some work on the Tall Tower AWS the day before we headed back to McMurdo. Needless to say, we kept busy.

 Ben's awesome snow walls

We usually ate lunch on our own (basically, each person ate when they were hungry). Lunch usually consisted of snack-type items. i.e. Luna bars, cheese and crackers, PB&J, candy bars, etc. Sometimes we would make cheesy bagels on the camp stove. These were definitely my favorite lunches. One afternoon, Suz made popcorn on the camp stove. We splashed a bit of soy sauce on top of the popcorn and I was in snack heaven. SO GOOD! I will definitely be eating soy sauce on my popcorn from now on.

Dinner was definitely a group affair, which usually occurred sometime between 6:00 pm and 7:00 pm. Suz was kind enough to make our dinner each night. Dinner mostly included frozen items. i.e. tortellini, spaghetti and meatballs, mac and cheese, burritos, enchiladas, etc. I think it's suffice to say that we ate well at camp.

Each night at dinner, we would take turns coming up with a "dinner conversation". This was a nice way to get to know everyone. The topics included things such as, "If you couldn't work in your current profession, what would you be?", "What types of books do you like to read?", "What adventures are on your bucket list?", "What are your thoughts and preferences on sprinkles?" Some of these discussions were pretty funny.

After dinner and the UAV flights were done for the night, we would finish up things around camp and head to bed. Each night, I would try to do some reading before going to sleep, but many nights I had trouble keeping my hands warm while I held the book. On those nights, I just went to bed and caught some extra z's.

 The Tall Tower team - Ben, Suz, John and Melissa

The Science

At this point, you might be wondering, "What does taking atmospheric measurements using UAV's mean?" Let me elaborate.

SUMO UAV infront of Tall Tower 

(Photo courtesy of John Cassano)

The UAVs measure temperature, wind speed, wind direction, pressure, and relative humidity. For this project, we are interested in how these variables change with height above the surface. In order to obtain this information, the plane launches and flies to 85 m above the surface (this is roughly the top of Tall Tower). Once the plane is at this height, it flies a complete circle (with a diameter of 300 m), sampling the atmosphere at this height. Upon completion of the circle, the plane climbs to 105 m and completes another circle. The plane continues with this pattern, completing full circles every 20 m between 85 m to 165 m and every 100 m between 165 m to 865 m. The interval is smaller near the surface because the atmospheric variables (i.e. temperature, wind speed, etc.) change quicker in this region.

With this information, we will know how the temperature and wind speeds change with height (i.e. when do they increase or decrease with height and by how much).

Me monitoring the auto pilot during a UAV flight 

(Photo courtesy of John Cassano)

Your next question might be, "Why do you need to take these measurements in Antarctica instead of somewhere closer to home?" Great question! We take these measurements over the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, because the atmosphere over an ice shelf behaves very differently than the atmosphere over the ground in the mid-latitudes.

In the mid-latitudes, the shortwave radiation from the sun is absorbed by the ground. This absorption warms the ground, which subsequently warms the air just above the ground. This causes the atmosphere near the surface to be warmer than the atmosphere farther away from the surface. In other words, the temperature decreases with height in the atmosphere. Conversely, over an ice sheet, a large majority of the incoming solar radiation is reflected, or not absorbed, by the surface. In this instance, the ground is colder than the atmosphere and air just above the ground is cooled. This causes the atmosphere near the surface to be colder than the atmosphere farther away from the surface. In other words, the temperature increases with height in the atmosphere. This is called a surface inversion.

The example given above of the Antarctic surface inversion is generally true for calm, clear conditions. Things such as strong surface winds, low-level clouds, and warm air advection (warm air moving into a region from another location) are all mechanisms in which the cold air near the surface is mixed with the warmer air aloft. This results in a well mixed boundary layer instead of a near surface inversion layer. The processes that mix out the near surface inversion layer are what we are trying to better understand with our measurements.

In order to better understand these processes, we will use the UAV data, the Tall Tower AWS data (which will give us the temperature and wind measurements for the levels below 85 m), data from two Snow Web stations (http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/atmos/research/student_projects/jack_coggins_project.shtml), and model output from the Atmospheric Mesoscale Prediction System. By combining these data sets, we are hoping to be able to fully understand the processes that are involved in the evolution of the summertime boundary layer in the region of Tall Tower.

Ben Jolly and one of the Snow Web stations

Also, if you're interested in our adventures from another perspective, you should check out John's blog at:

http://cires.colorado.edu/blogs/antarcticuavs/

And if you're interested in what the other half of our group is up to, you should check out Dave's blog at:

/http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/blog/

Alexander Tall Tower!

Our trip to Tall Tower was a big success. Both the field and science components went really well. We flew 41 UAV flights and got some great data. There are so many interesting parts to our trip that I am not sure where to start. I guess I will just start from the beginning. 

Our group met up at 8:00 am on the morning of Tuesday January 14th. We grabbed a few last minute items from McMurdo (i.e. frozen food from the freezer) and got a ride down to the Transition (the area where the Ice Shelf meets the dirt road leading to McMurdo). Our snowmobiles and packed sleds were waiting for us at the Transition. The weather was beautiful. We had a clear blue sky, warmish temps, and no wind (I mean absolutely NO wind). We couldn't have custom ordered better weather.

My snowmobile and sled at the Transition

We left the Transition at 9:40 am. We took the Pegasus snow road to the South Pole Traverse snow road. It sounds funny to say this, because those are basically the only two "roads" around. And there are definitely no street signs. 

The four snowmobiles ready to go under a clear blue sky

(Note: I was still trying to figure out how to use the GoPro at this point)

 It was pretty slow going at the beginning. We had to stop quite often to fix our loads. This involved repositioning gear and tightening the rigging. We eventually got each sled fairly well rigged and started moving a bit better.

Suz, Ben, and John on the South Pole Traverse Road

The South Pole Traverse snow road is really well marked with flags placed approximately every eighth of a mile. This was convenient, because it meant that no one needed to navigate via GPS. A few hours into our trip, we saw a 4x4 post next to one of the flags. This post marks the beginning of the Shear Zone. The Shear Zone is the region where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the McMurdo Ice Shelf. In this region, the two ice shelves move at different speeds, creating crevasses. Fortunately for us, the South Pole Traverse team had already GPR'd (ground penetrating radar) this region and filled in all of the crevasses with snow. We still took precaution through this 4 mile section, but fortunately it was pretty uneventful (just the way I like it).

After the Shear Zone we had approximately 70 miles to go. At this point, we were mostly past the topography and had a view of nothing but blue sky and white ice shelf. At around 30 mile to go, we saw something on the horizon. We had received news that the South Pole Traverse team was on their way back from the South Pole and that we might cross paths with them. Sure enough, as we got closer we saw the Traverse. This is quite an impressive system of people and heavy equipment. The team this year delivered 123,000 gallons of fuel to the South Pole. Prior to the South Pole Traverse, this fuel used to be flown into the Pole via C130's, which is more expensive and much less efficient. We stopped to say hi and then got back on the road, since we wanted to get to Tall Tower before it got too late.

Ben, John and I (on the right) with the South Pole Traverse Team

(Photo courtesy of Susan Detweiller)

We made it to Tall Tower at 8:20 pm - it took us 10 hours and 40 minutes to get from the McMurdo Transition to Tall Tower! We were all exhausted, but since we needed somewhere to eat and sleep we started putting up camp. We started by unpacking the sleds and getting the Arctic Oven (our "eating-science" tent) set up. Once this was up, Suz started making dinner and the rest of us put up our mountain tents (for sleeping) and the Scott tent (our bathroom). We eventually got to bed sometime shortly after 2:00 am. Overall, it was a long, tiring day, but definitely worth it.

 

 

Camp from left to right: 3 mountain tents, 1 Scott tent, and 1 Arctic Oven tent

Tall Tower

Our team has been busy prepping for our trip to Tall Tower. We completed all of our training and have gathered all of our camping gear (i.e. tents, sleeping bags, etc.) and food. Gathering our gear and food was a bigger task than I had anticipated and it took us almost three full days to complete.

There will be four of us traveling to Tall Tower - myself, John Cassano (my boss, an atmospheric scientist), Ben Jolly (a Kiwi atmospheric scientist), and Susan Detweiler (our mountaineer). As I mentioned in a previous post, Tall Tower is about 100 miles away from McMurdo and we will use the South Pole Traverse road to get there. We will be traveling by snow mobile, with each of us driving a snow mobile with about 1200 lbs of gear attached to the back. This seems like a lot of weight to be carrying, but almost half of this weight is fuel alone. We are estimating that we'll get about 7 mpg on this trip (as you can imagine, a 1200 lb load can really diminish the miles per gallons), so we need to haul a decent amount of fuel to get to Tall Tower and back. Additionally, each sled will average about 50 lbs of food, 150 lbs of science equipment, and 500 lbs of gear. Two of our snow mobiles and loaded sleds are shown in the picture below. It took us about 8 hours today to get all of the sleds loaded and attached to the snow mobiles.

Two of our snow mobiles with loaded sleds attached to the back

We are unsure of how long it will take for us to drive from McMurdo to Tall Tower. We were originally estimating about 6-8 hours, but after driving the snow mobiles with the sleds on the back we think it will take a bit longer. The NSF snow mobile speed limit is 25 mph and we'll need to stop often to make sure people are warm, fed, and hydrated. Once we reach Tall Tower, we'll need to setup camp. This will include setting up our tents - 4 mountain tents for sleeping, an Arctic Oven for a working-community tent, and a Scott tent for a bathroom. We will also build a snow wall to protect our camp from the almost persistent winds that occur at Tall Tower. At some point we'll start melting snow and cooking some dinner. I have a feeling that this will be a long day and that we will all sleep well in our tents, no matter how cold they may be.

Mountain tent - this is similar to the tents we will be sleeping in

 On the left is a Scott Tent - this will be our "bathroom"

Our plan is to leave fairly early on Tuesday (your Monday) morning. At that point, I will no longer have access to internet and therefore, will not post to the blog for about two weeks. Although, I will have my camera and computer with me, so I'll take plenty of pictures and post to the blog when I return. I will miss you all for a couple of weeks, but I am looking forward to sharing my adventures with you when I return.