Topics for today are:
1. Icebreaker visits...another
on its way.
2. Snow School, aka Happy Camper School...
3. Project work...
1. Icebreaker visits...another on its way.
This past few days,
we now have a new sight here at McMurdo, the US Coast Guard Icebreaker,
the Polar Sea has arrived. It has had a difficult journey to get to McMurdo,
as there has been many more miles of ice to break than usual, and in fact,
it is much thicker too. Reasons for this extra ice are likely due to the
big icebergs that are nearby, shading this part of the ocean. I'll mention
more on icebergs in future trips. Now the Icebreaker is refueling at the
ice pier here in Winter's Quarter's Bay. It took a lot of fuel to break
ice, with the turbines turned on the whole time (unusual for the breaker
to do that). Nearly 50,000 gallons of fuel was used per day. Once the
breaker refuels it will go out to the ice edge (breaking more ice on the
way out), and refuel one of the US Antarctic Program's research vessels,
the Nathaniel B. Palmer, which is doing research operations nearby. The
breaker will also refuel a fuel cache at Marble Point, where we have an
Automatic Weather Station (#8906) (see http://ice.ssec.wisc.edu/~amrc/8906.GIF
or picture below and http://ice.ssec.wisc.edu/~amrc/8906.txt)
(click to enlarge)
It will be a busy year, with two ships coming, and so much sea ice around, there is now a second icebreaker coming, the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy is now on its way from the US West Coast, and will arrive here at the end of the month to help escort in the resupply vessel and the refueling vessel.
2. Field Safety
Training: Snow School, aka Happy Camper School...
I have been away for the last two days at what is known as Happy Camper
School, or as I like to call it Snow School or more correctly, Field Safety
Training. The objectives of this class is to teach survival
here in the Antarctic. We review the medical conditions that you can suffer
from here, including hypothermia, frost bite, dehydration, trench foot,
sun burn, sun and snow blindness, etc. We review the contents of survival
bags, how to use HF and VHF radios, stoves (not the kind most folks camp
with these days...use white gas and burn paste if the temperatures are
below -44 F, and white gas won't ignite below that temperature), and more.
Then we get to go out to a place just to the North of McMurdo/Scott Base,
on the Eastern side of Hut Point Peninsula, called "Snow Mound City".
There we learn how to build snow structures, including snow walls for
wind protection, "quincy" snow mounds, "igloo" type
structures and, snow trenches. We also get to setup Scott Tents (the very
same used by Sir Robert Falcon Scott during his adventures and explorations
of Antarctica) and mountain tents. After that, the group of us who are
taking the class are left to camp out for the night. We work as a group
to cook dinner (mostly boiling down snow, and using the hot water to hydrate/heat
up ready to eat meals, have hot liquids to drink and water to drink, etc.).
We stay the night, and have breakfast the next day (I must recommend that
plain oatmeal tastes very good with crushed up cinnamon granola bars mixed
in :-) We get to use the HF (High Frequency) radios to do radio checks
with both McMurdo (which I got to do!), and also check in with South Pole
too! Its a ton of work, but a lot of fun.
Our weather was mixed during our stay. We had some winds, but also it did get calm and warm... especially as we are dressed in our Extreme ColdWeather (ECW) gear. We did get a bit of cloudiness and near blowing snow, but nothing too bad all for Antarctica. Oh, I nearly forgot, I slept in the Scott Tent - always wanted to do that. Boy, it stays nice and warm in a Scott tent. As note, even though Scott and his party didn't survive their trek back from South Pole, their Scott Tent indeed did..it stayed setup all winter long until their were found.
3. Project work...
I begin my project work here today with the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center (AMRC). We are doing several items this trip, including the upgrade of computer systems that collect, process and archive weather data. I'm also starting to gear up to learn more about fog that affects this area. Finally, in a few weeks, I hope to visit a few of our weather stations to assist in repairing them.
I'll have more e-mails each day or every other day as I can.
Best Regards,
Matthew
On Station at:
Antarctic Meteorological
Research Center
Crary Science and Engineering Center
McMurdo Station, Antarctica