Balloonatics

I've posted before about the advantages of wintering here-- less people, more privacy, slower pace. One of the disadvantages of wintertime is the lack of science going on. In the summer there are "beakers" (scientists) everywhere, and contract workers like myself get the opportunity to soak up a lot of cool science.

There are volcanologists from New Mexico up on Mount Erebus, studying its eruptions. There are seal people in their huts out on the sea ice, glueing video cameras to seals so they can watch 'em eat. Microbiologists counting germs, physicists counting neutrinos-- a lot of cool stuff.

The beakers like to give presentations, where they explain their work to us in layman's terms. There is usually a presentation every Sunday.

Some of the research being done on the ozone layer doesn't lend itself to summer conditions, though. A team of atmospheric scientists from the University of Wyoming comes down every year to do some experiments on the ozone hole. Jen Mercer of UW gave a science lecture a couple of Sundays ago that was very informative. (http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/printArticle.cfm?id=1532).

Turns out that ozone-depleting chemicals build up in the stratosphere in the dark polar winter, and are activated when the sun comes up. That's why the UW crew likes to get here when it's still dark. They can launch a balloon in the evening, and correlate the data they get with information gleaned from the LIDAR (which I mentioned in an old post). The LIDAR is a powerful laser, aimed straight up from the Crary Lab here at Mac Town. It bounces off particles of ice in the Polar Stratospheric Clouds; reflected light tells about particle size, temperature, and altitude. PSCs, or nacreous clouds are where the chemical reaction takes place that destroys the ozone. The reason it makes a hole over the pole is that the stratospheric wind is in the form of a vortex, centered on the pole. Wind circles the pole, and extremely cold winter temperatures make a kind of atmospheric cauldron where chlorine and bromine accumulate. Add sunlight, and a catalytic reaction occurs that turns ozone into oxygen.

I've worked a little bit with the balloonatics, getting their radios and gear set up for them. A month or so ago I had to climb a tower to install a small antenna for them. It receives telemetry data from the balloon as it travels through the stratosphere. When they've made their pass, they trigger an explosive charge that separates the payload from the balloon. A parachute opens, and the device falls to the ice. Another explosive charge cuts away the parachute, so it doesn't drag it off to infinity. The balloonatics will ride out in helicopters in a few weeks to try to find the balloon payloads and bring them back in. Interesting stuff.

Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_hole http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/news/2006/103106ozrecord.shtml

http://photolibrary.usap.gov/Portscripts/PortWeb.dll?query&field1=Filename&op1=matches&value=OZONEPREPLAUNCH.JPG&catalog=Antarctica&template=USAPgovMidThumbs

(Picture from the UW website http://www.uwyo.edu/ess/)

Irony

Well, "Springfly" is all but over. Normally the first flight after the long winter is called Winfly, as is the following period of time until "Mainbody", when the summer season is officially over.

This season is different. The winfly flight in August was cancelled, and our reinforcements came in for springfly in September instead. Winfly was supposed to end on September 30th with the arrival of the first mainbody flight. We've had a bit of weather lately, so the first flight is now four days late.

If weather is perfect, a planeload of people arrive in Christchurch, to depart on the Air Force C-17 a day or two later. When the flight is delayed, it dumps more people in NZ that can't leave. I heard today that there are 480-some folks backed up in "Cheech". Not good.

Twice, the flights have actually taken off, and "boomeranged". They get part of the way down, and the weather doesn't look promising for a landing, so they fly back to Cheech. In the days when folks flew down on C-130s, a boomerang flight could be over eight hours. A friend of mine here boomeranged for five days in a row. Yikes. And that's sitting crammed in a cargo plane with no windows.

The C-17s are actually very nice-- my ride down here was better than commercial travel. A boomerang on a C-17 is probably only 3-4 hours, because they're so much faster.

The irony is that often they call off the flight, or boomerang it, and the weather turns out to be gorgeous. Like today. It is a beautiful, sunny day with little wind. A calm day here is unusual, and very welcome. The picture above was taken out my office window, about noon. That area is called the VXE-6 transition, named after the old military support wing that operated here before us civilians took over. The transition is the shore of the sea ice. We stage equipment there, such as seal huts, fish huts, snowmachines-- things like that.

Right now the huts for the NPX traverse are out there. Pretty soon a fleet of big tractors towing sleds will head out for the pole. The trailers have big bladders full of jet fuel for pole. Before the traverse, pole station got all of their fuel by pumping it out of overfueled C-130s. Very expensive way to move fuel. The new guys from my shop have been putting radios, GPS units, and Iridium phones in the huts and heavy equipment down at the transition.

Speaking of radios, I had better get back to work...

Long Distance

I just called a screen printer in Christchurch about my order. (I'm ordering 30 shirts with my winterover T-shirt design.) There was a wicked delay on the call, and I talked to my coworker Antz (a former employee of Telecom New Zealand) about it. Here's what we figured out: my call went from my office here through three other buildings in McMurdo, then on a microwave link to our Black Island communications station, then up to a geostationary satellite, back down to Australia, then over a fiber optic cable to California, over fiber to Denver, then back out through Raytheon's switch to Qwest's network, then routed to my calling card's central switching place (probably in Omaha, or some place like that), then back out to California, then to Hawaii over trans-Pacific fiber, then down to Auckland, then over telecom NZ's fiber down to Christchurch via Wellington. Whew! Technology is wild, eh?

Visitors

Wow, McMurdo has changed a lot in the last week. We got the first "Winfly" flight in a week ago, and the population has gone from 125 to over 300. That may not sound like a huge difference, but it is. We're used to seeing the same people every day, and knowing everyone. It's like having a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, with a population of 125, and suddenly 30 people leave and 200-some strangers show up. Yikes. I've heard stories of how rough it is on winterovers when people start showing up again, but now I'm experiencing it firsthand. I now have a roommate, too, which is a big adjustment. He's a good guy, though, and we're getting along fine. I only have a month left here, and I'm sure it'll go by fast. I'll be cruising the dog park with Conan before you know it.

(Photo by Kiwi Ken Barlow)

Countdown

Well, the first flight of Winfly will be day after tomorrow. We haven't seen any new faces or imported any freshies since late April. In a way, it's exciting to have produce on the way, and looking forward to the population shifting. At the same time, there's a feeling of dread. McMurdo is a nice, comfy place with 125 people. A couple hundred people are about to decend on us, which is a little daunting.

McMurdo is like a little town in the middle of nowhere. It's amazing that we get along as well as we do, without a lot of the gossip and drama that you find in a little town. There's some of that, but I think we realize that we're stuck with each other for eight months, so we do our best to get along.

I have a theory that we are selected for this work on the basis of how well we play with others. It isn't stated anywhere in the hiring process, but we do have to pass a psychiatric test and interview before we're allowed to winter. Anybody who is really negative, or has a big chip on their shoulder would be a bad match for this work. The Antarctic program isn't for everyone.

I finally got around to putting my license plates on our van. We're not in any country here, so the vehicles don't need to have any license plates on them. Most of them have plates from around the states, donated by USAP participants. Here's mine.

Most of the vehicles here are "monster trucks". They have huge tires to keep from tearing up the ice roads going out to the runways. In order for the tires to clear, they are jacked up about a foot. I'm sure our van would feel huge on real-world roads, but it's just normal here. Part of it's not so normal, though. Free gas! No traffic! It's going to be a big adjustment coming back to the real world. Yep.

Son

I'm getting a little homesick, feeling the weight of this long, dark season. One thing that always cheers me up is to see pictures of my son, Conan. He's a 20-month-old red Pembroke Welsh Corgi. He's living with his parents, Daisy and Roper in Helena, Montana now. I can't wait to get back and roam the dog park with my buddy. He's the greatest dog of all time.

Sun

Well, the sun is officially back. I haven't seen it yet, but I know a few people who have. There's a great big mountain (Mt Erebus, a 12,000 foot active volcano) north of us, which blocks our view of the first sunrises. By going out to Pegasus airfield, or up to the top of some hills around town, it is possible to see the sun.

It is getting remarkably lighter every day-- it's a welcome sight. It has been a long, dark winter. The last time I actually saw the sun was April 24th-- 123 days ago! Light is good.

I'm starting to look forward to redeploying, and making some preliminary travel plans. New Zealand is a given, but I'm thinking Australia and Thailand, if it's not too hot. It has been really cold here lately, and I don't think I'm going to adapt to hot weather right away. We had -80F wind chill yesterday. It is just nasty to work outside in that kind of weather, but I sometimes have to do it.