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.

A day in the life of a McMurdo scientist

A lot of people have been asking me what I've been doing since I got to McMurdo, so I thought I would try to describe our typical work day. After arriving on the Ice, the first week or so is filled with training, collecting gear, and prepping equipment. This is usually a very busy time, but it is one that is tough to describe. So here is a "typical" day in the life of a McMurdo scientist.

My alarm usually goes off pretty early - sometime between 5:15 am and 6:30 am. I usually start the day by giving my email a quick check. Depending on the day, I might give Tom and Emma a quick call (5:30 am for me is 11:30 am for them, so this is convenient) or take a shower (we are asked to limit our showers to 4 times per week, so I do not take a shower every morning). After this, I head over to breakfast. Breakfast is served until 7:30, so I usually try to get there by 7:00.

 My corner of the dorm room

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals (this is true whether I am in McMurdo or at home). In McMurdo, I usually get in line to get a fried egg. In McMurdo, fried eggs are made with fresh eggs instead of "liquid" egg (I'm still not sure what that means). In a place where most of our food has been frozen, canned, or dehydrated, a fresh egg is really exciting. Depending on what is available, I'll add either fruit (canned or, if we're lucky, fresh), hash browns, or bacon. And of course, I can't make it through the day without a cup or two of coffee.

 My typical McMurdo breakfast

After eating breakfast, I head over to the lab. Our lab is located in Crary, which is the science building in McMurdo. In the lab, I check my email and then start on the tasks for the day.

Crary - the science building in McMurdo

Today's morning task was to test all of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that we will fly at Tall Tower. I have not done this before, so John walked me through the process. I must say, the UAV and software seem pretty slick. I am excited to see these planes in action.

Me in the lab with the UAV

I am still amazed that a plane so small can give us so much information about the atmosphere. This plane will measure the temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and pressure. Surprisingly, with this information we can learn quite a bit about the lowest layer of the atmosphere (the layer that we live in and that most of our weather occurs in).

Once the UAVs were tested, we went to lunch. The galley has implemented a new system this season - 24 hour pizza. This is useful for two reasons. The first reason being that if you miss a meal, you don't need to go hungry. In the past, if you got in late from the field, you had to wait until breakfast to eat. The second reason 24 hour pizza is great is that sometimes you just don't like what is being served. Let's just say, I had pizza at lunch today.

After lunch, we had snow mobile training. See my previous post about this (we saw a penguin!).

Snow mobiles on the Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Once we got back from snow mobile training, it was time for dinner. I chose the vegetarian option for dinner tonight. It was a garbanzo bean patty with garlic mashed potatoes and veggies. I washed this down with a nice cup of hot cocoa for dessert.

After dinner, we usually head back to the lab. If we are really busy with work, we'll work for a few more hours. On more chill nights, I'll blog, catch up on email, go for a hike around McMurdo, read a book, etc. After which, it is time for bed. So there you have it, a day in the life of a McMurdo scientist.

First Penguin of the Season

It happened, I saw my first penguin of the season!

 

 A molting emperor penguin

This afternoon, our group (myself, John, Dave and Lee) had snowmobile training. This consisted of two sessions. The first session was held indoors. The instructor covered basic maintenance and repair of the snow mobile. This is important for field work. If something on the snow mobile breaks while we are in the field, we are the only mechanics available to do the repairs. Following the indoor session, we went outside for a hands on session. We started by doing a walk around of the machine. This includes checking that all of the bolts are tight, the springs are in working condition, nothing is leaking under the hood, and making sure the skis are not frozen to the ground. After the walk around was complete, I started up my machine and we went for a ride. We were on the snow road for most of the riding, but also did a little off-roading at the Long Term Balloon launching facility. At the launching facility there were a lot of snow drifts, which were great obstacles and made for some fun riding. On the ride back, we spotted an emperor penguin on the side of the snow road. We stopped to check it out and get some photos. This was definitely the highlight of my day.

Emperor penguin on the Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Me with an emperor penguin

 

McMurdo

We made it out of Christchurch on our next try - Saturday January 4th! The shuttle picked us up from the hotel at 6:30 am and we traveled to the CDC. At the CDC I repacked my gear, merging the gear I brought from home with the gear that was issued to me. Then I traveled next door to check in for the flight.

Even though this flight is run through the US Air Guard, the check in process is fairly similar to the process at a regular airport. I had to show my passport and get a boarding pass. The boarding pass is not a typical boarding pass. Instead, it is a laminated number attached to a chain that is worn around your neck until you board the plane. The luggage process includes verifying that your carry on bag meets the dimension restrictions (a testing box is provided for this), that your checked luggage is below the weight restrictions (a total of 150 lbs), and that you have not packed anything hazardous in your checked baggage. The main difference is that you do not need to remove your shoes when you walk through the metal detector.

After we were checked in, we watched a safety video and took a shuttle bus to the tarmac. The LC130 was awaiting our arrival. 

LC130 on the tarmac in New Zealand

I think this plane is cool because it has a combination of wheels and skis. Obviously, the wheels are used while the plane is in New Zealand and the skis are used while the plane is in Antarctica.

When we boarded the flight, I was the second to last person to board the plane. Somehow, I was still lucky enough to score a seat directly in front of a window. Being located near a window is key to looking at the beautiful Antarctic scenery during the flight.

Me on the LC130 on my way to Antarctica - check out the window behind me

Our flight was pretty uneventful (just the way I like my flights). We left around 9:30 am and arrived around 5:30 pm. Here are a few pictures from along the way.

You can see a chain of mountains in the background. I assume this must be an island, since we saw it long before the mainland.

 

Open ocean water in the foreground, sea ice in the middle, and our first glimpse of Antarctica in the upper left corner.

The scenery over the continent is just incredible.

The picture below was taken just prior to landing. The black dots in the center, right of the picture are the Pegasus airfield, or the airport. The "stripe" through the center of the picture is the runway. The landing for this flight was incredibly smooth and I'm guessing it should be credited to a combination of a great pilot, the LC130 skis, and a nicely groomed runway.

 

 It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 40's (about 60 degrees warmer than Maine, where Tom and Emma were located).

Mt. Erebus is in the background. It is the southernmost active volcano.

LC130 on the Ice

 Me on the Ice

Due to the warm temperatures, the snow road was quite bumpy, which made for an interesting ride into town. A bunch of us loaded up in a 15 passenger van and I'll just say that it was quite a wild ride. 

We made it to town, went through welcome training, got our room assignments, picked up our luggage, and grabbed dinner. I feel very fortunate to call that a good day at work. I hope you're all doing well back home.

Traveling to Antarctica

I commonly get asked, "how long does it take to get to Antarctica?" This is a difficult question to answer, because we do not travel directly from the US to Antarctica. Instead, we fly commercial from the US to Christchurch, NZ and then we fly with the US Air Guard from Christchurch, NZ to McMurdo, Antarctica. To give you a better idea of what this involves, let's take a look at my travels for this trip.

Tom (my husband), Emma (my daughter), and I were fortunate enough to spend some quality time with our families during the holiday season. Therefore, my trip started in Portland, ME on December 30, 2013. I woke up at 6:00 am to get a shower, eat breakfast, put my bags in the car, and get Emma ready for the trip to the airport. There was about a foot of fresh snow on the ground, which was really pretty. Although, it made for an interesting trip out of my in-laws long dirt driveway. Let's just say, it involved Tom digging a path through the snow-plowed bank. Fortunately, Tom is a fast shoveler, so by 8:00 am we were on the road.

We made it to the airport by 9:30 am. I checked in and said goodby to Tom and Emma (which was the hardest thing I've ever had to do). Fortunately, I didn't have too much time to think about the fact that I wouldn't see them for 5 to 6 weeks because my flight from Portland, which was suppose to leave at 11:30 am, had been delayed until 5:02. My original flight itinerary was from Portland, ME to Philadelphia, PA to Los Angeles, CA to Sydney, Australia to Christchurch, NZ. Therefore, this delay would cause me to miss my connection in Philadelphia and the remainder of my flights to NZ.

At this point, I got in line to rebook my flight. Unfortunately, the gate agent had a difficult time rebooking my flight. At one point, the agent told me that she couldn't help me and it was more important for her to help the other passengers who were in line behind me (for your sake, I'll refrain from stating my reaction to this). Eventually, a very nice gate agent was able to get me on a direct flight from Boston, MA to Los Angeles that would allow me to catch my original flight from LA to Sydney. The airline paid for a taxi from Portland to Boston and I eventually left the east coast around 4:40 pm. 

My flights from Boston to LA to Sydney to Christchurch were all pretty straight forward. They mostly involved reading a book, watching movies, and trying to get some sleep. I eventually made it to Christchurch around 3:00 pm on January 1, 2014 (we crossed the dateline on the flight to Sydney). By the time I caught a shuttle and made it to the hotel, I had been traveling for a total of 38.5 hours. As you can imagine, I was in desperate need of a shower and a new set of clothes.

The following day, January 2nd, we went to the CDC to get our clothing for Antarctica. This includes large parkas, snow pants, large boots, etc. I spent the rest of the day picking up a few things for the trip and taking in the warmth and greenery around Christchurch.

We were scheduled to fly to Antarctica this morning (January 3rd). The shuttle was suppose to pick us up at 6:30 am, so I woke up at 5:00 am to get one more FaceTime session in with Tom and Emma. I got a call around 5:30 am that said our fight was delayed and our new shuttle time was 12:00 pm. About a half an hour later, I got another call that said our new shuttle time was 9:00 am. Therefore, I took a shower and got packed up. I check out of my room and grabbed a cup of coffee. Within 10 minutes, the front desk has received a call saying that our flight for today had been cancelled. I am not sure why our flight was cancelled, but my guess is that it has something to do with the strong, gusty winds in Christchurch. 

As you can see, it is very difficult to answer the question, "how long does it take to get to Antarctica?" We have been rescheduled for a 6:30 am shuttle pick up for tomorrow morning (January 4th). If all goes well, our plane (an LC130 - see pictures below) will leave Christchurch at 9:30 am and we will land in McMurdo sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 pm.

Since I promised you all a cool picture, I have attached two from my last trip. Hopefully, we'll make it to McMurdo tomorrow and I'll have some news ones to share with you all.

 LC130

Camping at the Central Transantarctic Mountain Field Camp

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! It's 2014 and time for me to head back to Antarctica.

I am heading down with the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) project that is run out of the University of Wisconsin - Madison and the University of Colorado - Boulder. This is the same project that I worked on for both of my previous Antarctic trips. Our activities usually involve installing new stations and repairing existing stations. Although, this year, John (my boss) and I will be working on something a little different. We are planning to take atmospheric measurements using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at the Tall Tower AWS. The Tall Tower AWS was installed during my last trip to Antarctica (http://melissaontheice.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/tall-tower.html) and is a 30 m tower with 6 levels of instruments. Tall Tower is located about 100 miles from McMurdo and is located along the South Pole traverse road (a snow "road" that is used to transport fuel from McMurdo to the South Pole). The plan is for John and I, along with a mountaineer and a scientist from New Zealand, to snow mobile out the South Pole traverse road to the Tall Tower AWS. We will camp there for two weeks, flying the UAVs to sample the evolution of the boundary layer. I am pretty excited for this trip. It will be my first time camping at a remote field camp in Antarctica and it should be an exiting adventure.