This flight marks the end of my field season. We have a few tasks to do in McMurdo: returning keys and equipment to various suppliers; and a formal out-brief where we express our opinions about the support we've received. However, the steps are very routine. I will be rushing through them because if I complete them quickly enough, I will be able to get a seat on the flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, tomorrow evening. It's a flight I'm GOING to make. If airline connections area good, I should be home to see my wife about 30 hours after leaving Antarctica. I leave you with a final picture, now that I'm able to send them again. It is me standing on the PIG ice shelf. This was one of our objectives we met. Unfortunately, we were not able to set up our camp there, but we placed our instruments in valuable locations and have learned a great deal about the area that will feed directly into our planning for next season's work.

I've written about the challenges we've faced (and overcome), the frustrations of weather and logistics (and dealt with) the science we've done (and why), and even some of the emotions of working together here. What my mind turns to now, as it often does at the end of a field season (even this short one), is the privilege I feel to have the opportunity to work here.

I can't think of a better place to do earth science research. Each season I have engaged in has instilled in me a sense of wonder for the natural world, an appreciation for the opportunity to work here and undying gratitude for the many, many people who work to make my research possible.

Antarctica is a magnificent continent. Its majestic beauty is beyond description, its scale is unimaginable, and its intensity like no other place I've been. I've flown for miles and miles over seemingly unending emptiness, but I know that beneath me lay dynamic features so huge that the eye cannot take them in. I've seen large mountains in the distance, only to realize that they are over 100 miles away, making them far larger than they seem when I view them through eyes trained to expect smaller, closer objects.

Nature speaks more loudly in Antarctica than anywhere else I've experienced. Her storms force humans to submit to her weather. You come to be grateful for the windows of milder weather when you can do your research, because when she roars, you must wait. She rules -- we are, and will probably always be, only visitors.

I work in a relatively small field of research. There are maybe two dozen people in the U.S. and maybe three times that worldwide who do the type of work that I do,-­ and half of them don't include fieldwork in their research portfolio. It is rewarding research for many reasons. We few get to work in an exceptional environment and still discover surprising things about a part of our planet. I can think of nothing so exciting about science as making new discoveries. The new urgency of my research brought by the rapid acceleration of changes we observe adds pressure, but also an increased sense of importance, to what I'm doing in Antarctica.

Finally, there is a very strong sense of gratitude for all the support that surrounds field science like mine. From the field camp workers, who will do whatever you ask of them, to the McMurdo support of 1000 plus, to the citizens that support the work with their tax dollars, I never leave the field without being reminded that I do not work alone.

I hope you have enjoyed being a virtual part of this field season. For me, one reward has been to discover through reflection and writing my own thoughts and emotions of Antarctic field work and to have a record of it. For you I hope the rewards have been equal to mine, or even greater.

From here, I return to my office and laboratory, to begin analyzing the data from this season and planning the next season's work. David and I will meet with our other co-investigators at the end of February. Not long after that, I will be discussing with NSF(National Science Foundation) the field support we will need for the next season. If Discovery wishes, I will continue to report on our progress.

Until we "meet" again.

[Editor Note: Discovery definitely wishes that Bob will continue his his reports so stay tuned.

Fury
WAIS-Divide, Antarctica, Jan. 14, 2008 – I'm prepared to leave Antarctica now. But today I was reminded that Antarctica makes the rules down here, and the fact is that Antarctica is not ready to let go of me yet.

The morning sun was high and shone brightly from a crisp blue sky. I could practically see the Herc landing on the snowy runway at the edge of camp, even though it wasn't scheduled to arrive until mid-afternoon. Not much to catch up on -- I only had a few minutes of last-minute packing to do and for that I was waiting until notified that the Herc had actually left McMurdo. It's a common superstition with Antarctic field hands that taking your tent down before the plane is in sight is bad luck.

Much to my surprise, just before lunch, Elizabeth, the camp supervisor, came into the galley and announced that Skier 61 (the name of today's Herc mission to WAIS-Divide) was cancelled. Cancelled?! She said the forecast was for increasing winds and decreasing visibility beginning in the next two hours. It's sometimes hard to believe these forecasts; in seasons past, they have been wrong at least as often as right. Well, maybe the forecast models are getting better, because almost on cue, the winds began to build. By 3:30 p.m., when the Herc had been scheduled to arrive, visibility was "nil/nil" meaning no horizon was visible and there was no surface definition.

When this happens in calm conditions, it is called a "white out." This time the reason is blowing snow. Snow is blowing through camp in horizontal sheets, nearly hiding all buildings, vehicles and cargo in a thick haze of white. The only sounds are the howling wind and the sharp cracking of the flags on the many bamboo poles that mark where items are located.

Inside, the cook is playing music as he usually does (he has about 10 million songs on his laptop) and there are some conversations at the tables, but the outside sounds penetrate the soft walls and occasionally drown out the music. To be sure, the galley is warmer than outside, but the wind sucks heat from everything and even cranking up the stove doesn't prevent the inside temperature from being colder than it has been the past week.

Most of the people in camp are involved in the ice-core drilling project based here, and they are still working three shifts a day. For those of us just waiting for the Herc, many diversions are available -- Cribbage and Scrabble are among the most popular. The drilling and core-processing crews come and go. There are many laptops open, and people share their pictures and music. Many still keep an ear to the outside sounds and the wind; the slapping flags tell us the weather is not changing.

After dinner, Elizabeth shares with us the forecast that winds will intensify, gusting to 40 knots through the night and lasting to at least 5 a.m. "Be careful,"e; is her message.

Many people still sleep in tents at the other edge of camp. There is usually some object (a flag, tent or building) every 30 feet to prevent people from becoming disoriented. Walking outside requires more than casual attention. Focusing on where you are going and each step you take is crucial. New drifts can grow quickly, and stumbling into them is not uncommon. It‘s not dangerous as long as you remember where you are.

The movie playing in the rec hut doesn't interest me, and I decide to go to bed before 10 p.m. I have to shovel a small drift away to get into the Jamesway hut I'm sleeping in. The stove is working, but the interior is still cold. The other door has been blown open, and a drift is growing inside the hut. I shovel that snow back outside. The door frame has twisted so the door latch doesn't hold. I shove the fire extinguisher and an unused heater against the door to hold it. I breathe a long sigh of welcome relief as I slide into my sleeping bag and pull it up over my head. I will be very warm soon.

I'm glad that, as storms go, this is pretty mild. Storms with winds of 100 knots, even 200 knots, are not unusual during winter. I wonder, but not too long, how they must feel and sound as I drift to sleep.

Sweeeeet!
PIG GPS Site, Antarctica, Jan. 13, 75d28.8mS/98d49.0mW -- At Last!! Today was a good field day. A Twin Otter was able to make it to WAIS-Divide in the afternoon, took us to our second and final site to deploy a wintering over GPS, a gorgeous blue sky, NO WIND, and just to spice up the spot, monstrously large crevasses nearby. Two of our team were supposed to be heading back to McMurdo this same day, but the flight was cancelled, so all four of us were able to work on this together. We were all familiar with all the jobs needed to set this GPS up, so we worked efficiently, without the need for supervision. The conversation ran pretty free over many topics, with a lot of kidding and laughing. We all enjoyed what we were doing, who we were doing it with and where we were doing it. It was absolutely great!

For all the frustrations of this season, we ended this day with a wonderful sense of accomplishment. The Twin Otter crew allowed us the luxury of a few final minutes to get "team pictures" at the site before we left. We didn't return to WAIS camp until midnight, but we were still pumped up and stayed up for another couple of hours feeding our faces and talking about how beautiful the day was.

Having finished this work, we all can now queue up for the next Herc for McMurdo. That'll be nice, because we can return together and not let the different paths we take next tear apart our team before we leave here. Each field season I have here, I rediscover the depth of the bond that is generated by the shared experience of working together in an environment that presents a variety of challenges that must be overcome. As with past teams, we will be life-long friends.

Another common experience for me is that when the season ends, it often ends in a flurry of activity. This may be true again. In anticipation of that Herc arriving today (the weather is good now, but forecast to "go down" by the time the Herc is scheduled to leave McMurdo), we have to get our personal gear together relatively quickly. And once we reach McMurdo, David and I will have to keep hopping to return all our camp equipment, radios, ski-doo parts, etc., before showing up for tomorrow's flight off The Ice to New Zealand. Then another quick overnight before the commercial flight home. The transition can be quite jarring.

Part of me wants to sit back and savor our accomplishments. We've responded to the massive disappointment of having landed on the ice shelf only to be told we couldn't return there. We've deployed our instrumentation as close to the ice shelf as is safe considering its bounding crevasse fields, and we will be able to "watch" it in three spots throughout the winter and until we return next year with the data that will be transmitted back from our instruments. We talked about it last night and everyone is proud of how we met the numerous challenges that we faced the past few weeks.

CNX
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Jan. 13, 2008 -- There is a white, dry-erase board just inside the galley door where the current information on flights is posted. Each evening, McMurdo usually passes out the flight schedule for the following day. A flight to WAIS usually is included, but early the next morning the dreaded "CNX" is added to the board. That's the code for a cancelled flight, and it has happened almost daily this past week. Both for Hercs bringing camp supplies out and returning some people whose work out here is done, and for Twin Otters, the airplane we still need to deploy our GPS stations. First our weather was poor, then McMurdo received a windy, heavy snowfall that shut down the runway there.

The only flight that arrived this week was a Twin Otter that had been at the South Pole. Our camp is actually closer to the South Pole (700 miles) than McMurdo (1000 miles), but the decision to send the Pole Otter here was dictated by weather, more than distance. We were glad to receive it. The three members of my team were still out at a remote camp and waiting to be picked up. Their work installing the automatic weather station was finished a day earlier and it is operating normally. They were far from uncomfortable. While WAIS was being hit with 20-knot winds, drifting snow and windchills around minus 30 Celsius, they were in the sunshine with light winds and temperatures near or even ABOVE freezing. They saw their situation differently, however, claiming that because their two bottles of wine were now empty, it was time to be pulled out.

I was able to make dual use of the pull-out flight by loading the Otter at WAIS with the equipment for a GPS station, borrowing a field hand from the camp staff before the Otter left to pick up the three others at their camp. While that was going on, Ben, my super strong field hand, and I began setting up the GPS station. It seems silly -- the GPS unit itself weighs all of 3 pounds, but the power system required to get the GPS to operate through the long, cold, dark Antarctic winter weighs about 1,000 pounds. Most of that is batteries -- to big heavy ones -- but the system also includes two solar panels to recharge batteries during the summer, and two wind generators to help the batteries get through the dark winter. Add steel guy lines designed to hold it all together in 150-mph winds, and there is a lot of work to install the system.

I had prefabricated a lot of the pieces to minimize the installation time, but it still took two hours -- the final 30 minutes after the Otter had returned with the three other happy campers. The pilot was getting very antsy during those final 30 minutes, because the report from WAIS was that the weather was getting worse. It improved just enough during our two-hour flight home that we had no trouble landing at WAIS.

That was Thursday. Today is Sunday and nothing of note has happened in between. We had hoped to have that Otter for six more hours to install our second, and last, GPS, but it was called back to McMurdo the very next morning. There was a person here that hurt her shoulder, and the medic wanted her to get an X-ray as soon as possible. She had already waited four days as "CNX" appeared on the flight board day after day.

The last two days another Twin Otter, this time coming from Patriot Hills (only 350 miles away), has been CNX'd. After yesterday's cancellation, I held a small team meeting to see how people felt about calling a halt to our season. Galen, our mountaineer, will return to McMurdo on the next Herc; his expertise is not needed any more; Cliff, our embedded cameraman, will do likewise, he has other stories to cover in Antarctica. But David and I remain determined to get the second GPS installed at least along a tributary of the PIG. We'll stay here until we are forced to leave. We've come too far not to leave the GPS where we can get some valuable information on ice motion of the glacier. I've had to start adjusting my schedule back home. Science rarely runs on schedule.

Making the Best of Things
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Jan. 11, 2008 -- I'm still smarting from the emotional crash of having actually landed on the ice shelf and, at least in my mind's eye, seen the full field party come together there for our scientific program during a brief period of good weather, only to be told the Otters would not land there again (this season). Assuaging the pain is the knowledge that at least now we have a field team deployed to a site adjacent to the ice shelf where the snow is softer, the winds apparently milder and the view spectacular.

The three team members are putting up the automatic weather station. They left two days ago and, so far, their progress has been rapid. They expected to finish the job last night and hoped to stay to ensure that the data recording and transmission were working properly. Antarctic research certainly has gone "high-tech." I still remember the days of needing to take "sun shots" to determine our location; navigation was done with compass and distances were measured by steel tape. Hey, that wasn't so long ago (i.e., I'm not THAT old!); I'm talking about 1982, my first Antarctic season.

Modern electronics are fantastic for science, especially in places like Antarctica, where the field seasons are relatively short. Now the push is to make ever-more-capable electronic instruments last through the dark, frigid Antarctic winter. Power consumption of many new instruments is so low that "wintering over" is feasible. Our group is trying out a combination of 10 deep-cycle batteries, two large solar panels and two wind generators, to maintain sufficient power through the winter for our weather station, but others are using it for other instruments operating, like GPS units. Our installation will be particularly useful, because we include two web cams that will take a daily picture that we not only add to the weather information, but will allow us to see if the snow or wind or ice are making life difficult for the instruments and power components.

I stayed back at WAIS-Divide because a fourth person would make our camp heavy enough that an extra flight would have been necessary to get us deployed. I also felt that there were other ways I could be more useful to the project by either staying here with the rest of our field gear or, if possible, returning to McMurdo to discuss the decisions that curtailed our fieldwork.

What I was able to contribute was a new use for the two winter-over GPS units we have here. They are still just sitting idle on the cargo line, and an unused scientific instrument is a terrible thing (at least to a scientist). The PIG ice shelf is fed by the very fast Pine Island glacier, and this glacier has a number of tributaries that feed it. These tributaries flow at speeds that gradually decrease upstream improving the chances for finding a crevasse-free spot. One tributary lies within 20 miles of the weather station site, and the next closest is only 40 miles farther. My plan is to be flown upstream along these tributaries from their junctions with the main flow of the glacier, where crevasses are rampant, until a crevasse-free area allows the Otter to try a landing. If it can land, I will be left with the GPS equipment and a lucky WAIS-Divide staff person to set up the instruments while the Otter hops over to the weather station camp. There they will pick up those three folks and then return to me. Once we are done, we will all return to WAIS-Divide.

And so it goes. Plans change and change again. Fieldwork is like that. You come with intended objectives, but weather, conditions or any of a myriad of events force adjustment to the original plan. It takes so much effort, time and money to get here that you try to maximize what you can accomplish. Good Antarctic field scientists never accept just giving up and going home without squeezing every possible productive use of the equipment and time we have here.

Oh No!
PIG Shelf, Antarctica, Jan. 3, 2008, 75d06mS/100d06mW -- I couldn't believe my ears. The pilot's voice coming through my headset started with "Bob, we have some bad news" never a good introduction. Their message was that our landing site was too hard and too rough and too short. This translated into limiting take-off weights. So although they would be able to get us onto the ice shelf with our camping gear and scientific equipment, it would be very hard to pull us out without taking far too many loads.

They asked what I wanted to do. It's a hard question to be hit with an hour after the elation of a successful landing. I felt like the entire program we were finally going to be able to do had just been gutted. The second Twin Otter supporting us was already full of our first cargo load and was at the ice shelf. They were looking for an alternate spot and having no luck. Could I advise them where to look? No. I only knew of one spot like the one we had just visited. They had seen a nice spot off the ice shelf. Was that OK? No. The whole point was to measure water properties and speed of the ice shelf; the ice nearby had no water beneath and was not dynamically "interesting," at least not with the urgency of the PIG.

Meetings between me and the pilots of both airplanes and a teleconference with science program managers in McMurdo were already arranged by the time we landed back at WAIS-Divide. Based on what I was being told couldn't be done, a near-immediate redesign of my program were being requested. It was not a pleasant moment. I do pride myself as anticipating possible problems before they occur, but this was at a scope beyond what I had prepared. Part of the problem was that we had actually landed on the ice shelf. I felt we had finally overcome that long-standing hurdle, and I was racing along thinking how great the next week was going to be as we began to actually make measurements that would help us understand the ocean and ice interaction; understanding that was urgently needed.

It had been snatched away by this unfortunate decision and it would gut my program. The more I pushed to understand what the logistic limitations were, the narrower they became. Before long, I heard from McMurdo the unequivocal decision "you will not land on the ice shelf again this season".

I met with the rest of our field team, presented the situation, and we discussed what could be salvaged. So much required us to be on the ice shelf. The very measurement of water depth was most critical and didn't require much equipment, but flying regulations that prohibit people, explosives and detonators from ever flying together would require three landings. The GPS instruments now seemed useless as well. The only item that could be useful off the ice shelf was the automatic weather station. We examined imagery to find the best candidate locations and are hoping to build and deploy the station at one of these sites starting tomorrow.

Tonight I am an emotional wreck. The range of emotions hit some enormous highs along with some abysmally low lows. The only solace I find is to remind myself that we are at the edge of the logistic envelope and for that reason we designed this season to be more reconnaissance than science. We are getting answers to long-standing questions -- even if we don't like those answers.

Success!!
PIG Shelf, Antarctica, Jan. 3, 2008, 75d06mS/100d06mW -- On the ice shelf at last! We made it to a place no one has ever been, a place many colleagues thought we could never land, a place where we believe drastic changes in the ice sheet are being triggered, a place I have been dreaming of getting to through more than two years of planning. I thought of all these things as I jumped out of the plane onto the snow surface.

Whoa, my feet didn't sink into snow at all. The surface was really, really hard. That's why the landing had been a little rough. It will make for safer travel. Bridges across crevasses will be firmer, able to hold more weight. But my excitement is getting me ahead of the story. Our reconnaissance flight was tacked onto the end of the final put-in flight for the group studying the neighboring Thwaites glacier. After that we had to add fuel from palettes of fuel drums the Air National Guard had parachuted to the surface just the day before. Most of the palettes came to rest at odd angles. Giant-sized divots in the snow told us rough landings were common. But it was the fuel we needed and we got to it quickly. Our mission was still 100 nautical miles away.

That final leg of our journey became very scenic as we neared the PIG ice shelf. A multitude of crevasse fields beneath us told of rapidly moving ice. We could even see blue water beyond the shore peppered with thin sea ice and a few larger, thick tabular icebergs. This was a very active place where the ice sheet raced to the Antarctic coast and reentered the world's ocean.

The PIG shelf began to appear on the horizon -- first as bright areas of crevasses, miles across, but too distant to see individual cracks in the ice. As they came into sharper focus, the two mountaineers and I were awe-struck by their size, their number and their beauty. I had examined them in satellite images for years, but even intensive study never prepares me for their immense scale when they are right out my window. These monsters were 50 feet across and more than a mile long. Holes in snow bridges let us look straight down into the icy voids, often with draperies of snow hanging tens of feet into the blackness.

Crevasses and crevasse fields were the main story as we approached the waypoints defining the area I was sure was crevasse-free. I began to see features out my window that I recognized from the images I knew so well. And then, there it was!!! The "sweet spot" of the ice shelf. No crevasses! We began a careful aerial reconnaissance that took us back and forth across the "sweet spot" first at 1500 feet altitude, then 1000 feet, finally a very slow pass at 500 feet. Looking at different angles, every set of eyes in the plane was straining to see even the slightest hint of hidden crevasses.

We all agreed there were none to be seen, so the next step was to "ski drag." This is when the airplane flies along the surface, using its own weight to press downward on the snow, but flying fast enough to remain airborne. It can be rough, and it was here. The pilot then circled around to look for bridges that may have collapsed along the drag line. There weren't any, but the tracks were so slight that he wanted to repeat the procedure with more pressure. Rough again, but no danger spotted. We circled to land.

This was exciting. This was when the thoughts of all that had led to this moment raced through my mind. There was a lot of emotion mixed with the excitement. A Twin Otter can stop very quickly, and in less than 400 feet and a couple of seconds, we came to rest on the ice shelf. It WAS possible!

There wasn't much to do on the ground. We helped the pilots mark their runway with black garbage bags we filled with snow. This will help them see the runway in poorer lighting conditions. With a shovel in hand, I couldn't resist digging a little deeper. I discovered a hard layer of solid ice about an inch below the hard crust. Below that, there were more icy layers with snow the consistency of sugar.

Based on my years of experience with different types of Antarctic snow, this place is windy, it can snow a lot and it can get quite warm. A deeper snow pit will be very interesting.

On Top of West Antarctica
WAIS-Divide, Antarctica, Jan. 2, 2008, 79d23mS/111d12mW -- Yesterday came the call we've wanted since arriving in McMurdo. We were manifested to fly to the WAIS-Divide camp in West Antarctica. This is our jumping-off point for the PIG Shelf and a major step in the right direction. Flights from McMurdo can come at all hours, so we felt lucky that our check-in time was 9 a.m. for a 10 a.m. departure. We eagerly packed and came prepared to get weighed the evening before the flight. We didn't break the scale, so I guess we haven't been overeating too much.

The night before is always tense. It is the last time to make sure all our preparations have been made. I went over lists in my mind more than I slept. When morning came, there wasn't much more I could think of that needed doing. A last good shower after breakfast and we were off. A shuttle van customized for the special snow took us to an airstrip specially groomed for the skis that the Hercules uses to land on.

Delays were minimal, and not long after 10:30 a.m. we were strapped in and heading down the runway. Then we slowed, turned and headed down the runway again. Then we slowed again and headed down the runway even faster. This back-and-forth continued for 10 takeoff runs before we finally were able to get airborne. I'm not sure what the problem was, because our load did not look excessively heavy and I've never had more than one aborted takeoff here. We all were glad to be in the air as we settled in to books, naps or munching on our rather meager box lunch of snacks.

Three and one-half noisy hours later, we descended to the snow strip and made a smooth landing at WAIS-Divide. This camp is where a 3,500-meter-long ice core is being drilled to recover valuable paleoclimatic records. It is an unbelievably complex operation and located near the summit of the West Antarctic ice sheet. We were given a tour of the drilling facility. Tomorrow they take their first "real science" core. Everyone is excited.

We're excited, too. The weather forecast for our area is for gradual improvement. Before dinner we located all 9,000 pounds of our cargo. We'll talk to the Twin Otter pilots tomorrow and then begin to separate our gear into individual flight loads of about 1,900 pounds each. By the time we're done, we will have lifted every pound of the 9,000 a couple of times. I'm getting tired just thinking of it. It‘s been a long day. I'll try to send a blog tomorrow, but the bandwidth from here is too small to include a picture. Time for bed.

Plan C and then D
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 31, 2007 – I'm anything but ungrateful. The efforts to get a few of the last projects into the field are admirable. A lot of good ideas have been tossed onto the table both here and at the deep field camp, called "WAIS-Divide," where we eventually must go before our final destination. But it does require vigilance and flexibility to be sure you are aware of, and comfortable with, the current logistics scheme.

As last week finished, we heard that the decision to scout out a possible deep-field landing site for the large LC-130 Hercules aircraft to cache our cargo near the ice shelf had been scrapped. In its place was a new plan to use the "Herc" to air-drop fuel so that the smaller Twin Otter could refuel and thereby move us and our material in small bits the 300 nautical miles between WAIS-Divide and the PIG ice shelf. In the end, I don't think this plan gets us up and running on the ice shelf any faster, but there was a slight advantage for the other field party working on the adjacent glacier (Thwaites Glacier at 75.5 S, 108.5 W, for those of you who want to know where that camp is). And since I'm giving coordinates, WAIS Divide is at 79.4 S, 111.2 W, and eventually our PIG Shelf camp will be at 75.1 S, 100.1 W. You can go to Google Earth to plot these positions and see how far we still have to go. Google Earth now includes the new Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica I worked on to give everyone a better sense of what Antarctica really looks like. Have a look!

But back to planning.

There were concerns about the environmental risk of air-dropping approximately 50 fuel drums and whether there were enough parachutes and netting to complete the mission. Fuel drops are subdivided into palettes of four drums each, with about 16 inches of corrugated cardboard beneath, to absorb the shock of impact, a parachute, to slow descent, and secured with heavy webbed netting, to hold everything together. They still come down pretty fast and can land lots of different ways depending on the winds aloft and the surface they land on.

By this morning, after most of McMurdo took a two-day holiday (the regular Sunday off and then New Year's Eve), it looked as though an air-drop was possible, but not until later this week. That's when Plan D was spawned. Now, maybe I'm out of date in the time it has taken me to write this blog, but what I heard this morning was that a second Twin Otter was heading for WAIS-Divide today so that they could start deploying the two field camps even before the fuel drop. What this means is that they will have to either stage some fuel themselves or take some along. Either way, they will not be able to haul as much of our camp and science cargo as quickly, but will be able to start right away.

These are the horns of a dilemma that is certainly not uniquely Antarctic. With frustration increasing and the season racing to a late February conclusion, there is certainly pressure to make any progress, even at a more limited rate. This is the driving dynamic now, and I feel it is better to go along with it than to argue that we return to a more efficient plan. Of course, bad weather can make either course of action look wrong, but these planning decisions are more the result of consensus than a single person imposing their will.

If weather doesn't disrupt Plan D (leading to Plan E), then our group will pack our socks and undies tonight to leave McMurdo tomorrow, arriving at WAIS-Divide sometime tomorrow evening.

Hanging in McMurdo
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 27, 2007 -- I have been less prolific with my blogging because, well, I haven't been doing much the past two days. I can check the flight schedules only so many times before it gets to feel like It‘ll never change because I'm looking at it. This situation reminds me of a primary requirement of Antarctic fieldwork -- patience.

Usually what demands patience is the infamous Antarctic weather. The concept of windchill is very familiar, but few may know that it has an Antarctic origin. Dr. Paul Siple began his illustrious Antarctic career in 1928 by being selected from 800,000 Boy Scouts to accompany Admiral Byrd to Antarctica. He was 19 at the time and an Eagle Scout with 60 merit badges. Years later, he formalized the concept of windchill and even the term itself with seminal measurements during an Antarctic season recording freezing times of water at various temperatures and wind speeds.

It‘s an effect you quickly adjust to down here. If you want to know how many layers of clothes to put on before leaving your tent, listen to the wind and don't worry so much about the temperature. And when you are outside, keep your back to the wind. Turning into it invites the chill to plunge deeply into your parka, up your sleeves and down your neck, robbing you of hard-won warmth.

On a grander scale, wind moves a lot of snow around here. I'm quite sure that most snow that accumulates in a spot doesn't actually fall there, but is transported from far away. I've frequently had discussions with colleagues about how far blown snow may travel. I know of no scientific studies of it, but after experiencing my first Antarctic blizzard, I believe it can travel many miles. What ultimately stops some of the snow from moving is being jammed into the icy surface of a snow dune, called sastrugi (after the Russian for "snow dunes").

Another thing that blowing snow can stop is fieldwork. While "drifting snow" -- snow moving along the surface -- has little impact on working outside (unless you are trying to dig a snow pit), "blowing snow", snow moving in the air above the surface, can keep you in your tent for days. I've worked outside in it when I've had to, but It's not fun. Like the wind that carries it, the snow finds its way into your clothes through even the smallest openings, where it melts and threatens to get you wet and COLD. Driven against your skin, it can feel as sharp as sand in a sandstorm.

The best remedy for these conditions is patience. I've developed a fair degree of it over my many years working in Antarctica. Those who don't have patience would have a very difficult time working here. So I, and others down here on other projects, know how to wait. This year seems to be my turn to exercise this trait. And the longer I have to wait, the more I notice everybody else (well, maybe not EVERYbody) completing their projects and going home. I'm sure I've done all I can to position our project to get into the field as soon as possible. The weather will clear, the reconnaissance of our cargo cache site will take place, and the cargo will be flown there. Eventually, even I will fly out of here, deeper into Antarctica, where the mysteries of sudden and dramatic ice sheet movements wait to be solved. Watch out PIG, I'm still coming!!

Until then, I wait.

Comment
DATE: 12/31/2007 11:08:30 p.m.
Hey Bob, thanks for the blog. Makes this cold evening seem tropical. Kay and I send our best wishes for a successful project on the PIG and a very Happy and SAFE New Year 2008.

Santa Gets Around
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 25, 2007 -- A polar "Ho Ho Ho" to you all. Today was a day of rest for the town. Little doubt of that when I got up at a leisurely 9 a.m. to find the station as quiet as I've ever experienced it. Sunday night was the Christmas party in the "Heavy Shop," where the largest vehicles are worked on. It has the largest open area and most of the town turned out -- many in rather bizarre costumes like Harry, the station doctor, wearing a large peppermint striped bow-tie and a Santa hat with Mickey Mouse ears. The creativity of the populace here knows no bounds: a Santa on a ski-doo; a 10-foot-tall tissue-paper abominable snowman; and reindeer antlers made from exhaust manifolds were but a few examples on display.

The spin up to Christmas has been gradual and none too subtle. Fancy gingerbread houses were on display in the galley, and a plethora of Santa-hat adorned McMurdo citizens were scattered throughout the town. Decorations appeared on many doors and within many offices.

Yet I found the actual Christmas celebration rather quiet and personal. "Merry Christmas" was definitely the greeting most often given today, but I think many, including me, found this a day for a large amount of personal reflection. In my 15 trips to Antarctica, this is my first Christmas in town. I was glad to see a few very modest-sized presents set on the floor outside people's doors. I gave small (unwrapped) gifts to my roommate and the two others in my field party. But presents were clearly not the focus. The Internet and phone lines were crowded. I called home, too.

I was prepared to be in the field on Christmas. Had I been, I probably would have ordered a "work-optional" day. I expect most would have worked if the weather permitted it. But I'm not at our field site; nor am I home with family. To be in between leaves me with an odd feeling. Until I get into the field, I cannot make progress toward getting home. It's a funny state of limbo.

My greatest pleasure this season has been the opportunity to sing in the local choir. As with most recreational activities, it is composed of volunteers. About 15 of us gathered to practice a few carols last week. We had three performances: the Christmas party; a version of lessons and carols prior to midnight mass at the chapel; and today (Christmas) in "MacOps," the radio room to broadcast our carols to the field parties. They were all really great. South Pole Station even returned the good cheer by singing some carols for us! We traded carols back and forth for another 15 minutes.

Tomorrow work starts up again. The town will be rumbling to life by 6 a.m. and at full throttle by 7:30. I have no doubt there will be some sleepy eyes at first, but as I've said before, these folks work hard and they'll be back at it bright and early.

For us, there are steps being taken tomorrow to assist our getting into the field. Lots of things have to happen in sequence, but the ducks are lined up and we can do little but watch them waddle on, urging them to move as fast as possible.

Comment
DATE: 12/27/2007 01:08:20 p.m.
Thanks for letting us follow you on this trip. Since we've known you, we knew you went off to do science, but this lets us follow in your tracks (and stay warm). Keeping you in our prayers, Rick and Laura

Plan B
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 22, 2007 -- "Plan A" rarely works in Antarctica. You ultimately get to your field site by adjusting to the changes that invariably happen. Things were moving smoothly up until the Basler airplane was lost for the season (see an earlier blog). You can read the official description of the "incident" at the National Science Foundation Web site. We were in line to use this plane later this week. First, our cargo was to be transported by the large LC-130 Hercules 1,000 miles from McMurdo to the WAIS-Divide camp on the summit of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Then the Basler would transfer our 8,000 pounds of field gear the next 400 miles to a site near, but not on, the PIG ice shelf. The possibility of crevasses on the ice shelf required the third aircraft, the Twin Otter, which can make much shorter take-offs and landings, to ferry our gear to our ice shelf camp, squeezing into a spot between crevasse fields.

Without the Basler, we needed a Plan B. To make a Plan B, I looked at what I had to work with. Either the "Hercs" or the Twin Otter had to get our gear beyond WAIS-Divide. Earlier this year, the Air National Guard (ANG), which flies the Hercs here, expressed an interest in adding landings at open-field sites to their Antarctic repertoire. I am part of a small group tasked to help them by interpreting satellite data of upcoming open-field landing sites. In the loss of the Basler, I saw an opportunity for the ANG to do what they said they wanted to do. I spoke to the ANG -- they were thinking along the same lines.

Another important piece I worked with was the fact that just before deploying to Antarctica, we released the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. This is a high-resolution, true-color mega-image of the continent stitched together from over 1,000 separate Landsat images. Check it out at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Nasa LIMA Web sites. I offered to look at this imagery and report to the ANG what I thought might be potential landing sites near the ice shelf where a Herc could land -­ with our cargo, just like the Basler. Plan B was coming together.

Last night I reviewed the imagery and saw some smooth areas of ice. Other data on my laptop confirmed the ice was moving slowly. This morning I showed this to the ANG. They were receptive, but Plan B was not finished. Before a Herc attempts to land there, the ANG wants to confirm that there are no crevasses and the snow is not too soft (buried skis), too wet (sticky skis) or too hard (broken skis). Like Goldilocks says, the snow has to be "juuuusssst right." Thursday a Twin Otter will take a small group of mountaineers to the two sites we selected to check out the snow. If all looks good, then we move ahead with Plan B. Meanwhile, our group waits in McMurdo.

"MacTown" is getting ready for a two-day Christmas holiday. Like back home, many groups shut their doors a few hours early today. The whole town vibe is changing. People are transforming from very hard workers to a hyper-relaxed and festive mood. Time to party (or just kick back). More on the holiday celebrations next time.

Falling!!!!
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 21, 2007 -- And with that yell, each of us took our turns jumping into a 20-foot-deep crevasse and leaving a blizzard behind on the surface. Well, it wasn't a real crevasse. It actually was a deep trench gouged out of the snow by a huge bulldozer, and the blizzard was rather mild, but the simulation was real enough. Confused yet? Let me back up to describe how this day went.

There are more crevasses on the PIG ice shelf than I care to think about and than anyone will ever count. The plan is to avoid them all, but what if we were surprised by one? It's best to be prepared. Part of the preparation is to be as ready as possible and skilled in dealing with a crevasse fall. We will travel on the ice shelf linked by ropes between us so anybody that does break through the surface into a crevasse will be caught by the rope before they fall too far. This strategy is safest if you practice it first so that everyone knows the role in which they suddenly may find themselves, including the person falling.

Snowcraft-II is the name given to this crevasse-rescue course we took yesterday. Our instructor was Galen, a member of the field safety group at McMurdo Station and the mountaineer who will be with us on the ice shelf. No better way to build trust in a person than to count on them to hold you in a fall. I've taken the course many times before, but I needed a refresher to be more efficient. Time can matter a lot when someone is hanging on a rope or is injured.

No injuries today. We start inside a warm building with the basics: knot-tying and self-extraction using modern climbing gear. Ascenders are handles that grip the rope one way and slide along the rope the other direction. Better get your directions straight!! Once we get a feel for the mechanics of hanging on a rope, setting our ascenders and climbing up, it's time to go outside for some fresh air.

With bag lunches at our side, Galen drives us out of McMurdo Station in a noisy, bumpy tracked vehicle, past Scott Base (the Kiwi station) and out onto the McMurdo Ice Shelf, where we spot the bulldozer shoving enormous mounds of snow out of the quot;crevassequot;. We park beside the gaping trench and begin to hear about the other type of crevasse rescue -- when the victim (each of us in turn) cannot get themselves out. Just about then, as if on cue, the wind picks up, the sun goes behind a thick cloud-bank and the snow begins to blow. We all move behind the vehicle, but the 25-knot winds swirls the snow so it finds us and covers our goggles and forces us to add a layer (or two) of clothing for warmth.

Class continues. This will not be a cakewalk, so we listen harder. The arrangement of ropes, carabiners (climbing hardware), slings and pulleys (more climbing hardware) gets more complex. We focus. An accident on the ice shelf could ruin a perfectly fine day and we've heard that it is typically very windy, so these are likely going to be the conditions with which we will be faced.

After we are shown how to do it, it is time to really do it. Cliff, our climber/cameraman, is keen on jumping in first. David and I find it easy to go along. David feels his weight is his greatest immediate asset, so he takes the middle position on the rope. He will brake Cliff's "fall" as quickly as possible. I take the third spot, at the other end of the rope. I will need to set additional snow anchors to relieve the pull of Cliff's weight on David. Once freed, David and I reproduce the extraction pulley system and pull Cliff out. It takes about 10 minutes, mistakes turn into lessons learned and Cliff's head eventually shows above the surface. He is covered in snow, but we have managed to avoid hurting him.

I'm next to jump in. I almost reach the bottom, but Galen is pleased to see that I cannot stand and have to quote;hang around" as David and Cliff work to pull me out. I wonder how this could be taking so much longer than before. I rise to the surface in about the same length of time it took to get Cliff out. Hmmm, I learn that time passes slowly on a rope. David knows he is next. He has never done any of this, and jumping off a cliff does take some courage. He finds it and he is gone in a flash. I break his fall quickly, but learn that he, too, fell nearly 20 feet, nearly reaching the bottom. Cliff and I are able to get him out a bit faster.

After each practice, Galen discusses with us what we did well and not so well, as well as suggests improvements and alternatives. Although the blowing snow has persisted, it has become part of the scene and doesn't affect our discussion. We all want to get as much as possible from this experience. Next time would be the real thing, and lives might be at stake. Paying attention is easy. But for now, school is over and Galen drives us home. Snow has covered us, but we are able to start drying out in the warm vehicle. I'm reassured by the group interactions. We will work very well together once we get to the ice shelf.

Staged and Ready, Then …
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 19, 2007 -- We completed our packing today. The last item was the very complex automatic weather station. Where we are going is the largest gap in ground weather observations anywhere on the planet. What this means is that we really don't know what the weather is out there now, how much it snows or how hard the wind blows. One of our goals this year is to set up this weather station and have it "phone home" the local PIG weather via an Iridium phone. Another very cool feature of our equipment is that we have two webcams, so not only will we be told the weather, but we will be able to see it. This may sound frivolous, but seeing what's going on can be very useful if problems arise. And we expect problems -- there usually are whenever you try to force modern technology to last through the brutal Antarctic winter. We will outfit the weather station with 10 big batteries to power it through the dark period augmented by a wind generator and a solar panel. It'll be interesting to see what survives.

Another thing that happened today is not so good. We received word that one of the cargo airplanes had a "mechanical incident" on a mission last night and is out for the season. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the "incident" was extreme enough to strip off the landing gear and damage the propellers. Ouch! Other planes are retrieving the crew and the field party.

Incidents like this remind us that Antarctic fieldwork is hard. It also will show ultimately that the U.S. program is made up of very creative people. The logistics plan everyone was working to yesterday now has to be scrapped and a new plan drawn up. A lot of thought and discussion has already taken place today. It affects five projects already on the continent, including mine, as well as some others that have not even started their season yet, and now a recovery effort for the damaged airplane must be squeezed in. We are being asked to review our science goals this season and prioritize in case we cannot get to the ice shelf soon enough, be there long enough or arrive with all our gear.

This type of disruption is not new and not the type of early Christmas present anyone likes. Each season has some form of rewriting the plan, however this airplane loss is fairly severe. Tomorrow will bring with it some decisions (probably made back in Washington D.C., by the NSF (National Science Foundation) managers). I will be outside the station all day reviewing how to travel in crevassed areas and extract people that fall in -­ we all get our chance to play the "victim".

Remembering Thermistors, Solar Panels and Toilet Paper
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 17, 2007 -- McMurdo Station is a bustling little town of about 1,200 people during the summer. Part way-station, part frozen metropolis, it boasts a hard-working population of energetic specialists. You have the artisans of heating, mechanics, construction and food preparation that every community must have, but you also have the cargo handlers, air crews and loadmasters that support the busy airport and helo-port. This town is about science -­ doing science and supporting science -­ and gives McMurdo a very special personality.

Our team is on the "doing science" side, and we have spent the last few days caught up in the endless stream of meetings with support people to pull together and prepare all we need before actually leaving McMurdo for our field site. We get no second chance. When we leave, we must work and live with only what we gather together these few days. And the things we seek are all over town: snowmobiles are in one place, tents and sleds in another; radios are in the electronics shack ... get the picture? It's up to us to bring it all together at the cargo building, box it, weigh it and turn in slips of paper so others can take it away. Still others arrange the various items on palettes and others take your precious cargo to the airstrip, where it waits for a plane going to the right station. What makes all this seeming chaos work is the support people? They help keep track of the endless lists of material, whether you are working in McMurdo or preparing to get beyond McMurdo to some more distant site in the "deep field."

I cannot say enough about the dedication of these support people. I have forged many friendships with them that hibernate when one of us leaves Antarctica, but quickly warms back to an enjoyable partnership when we meet here again. Their experience is invaluable. Tricks and tips they learn from one group are passed on to other groups. Just yesterday, as we put our very complex automatic weather station together in the laboratory to make sure all the various instruments operated correctly and could be attached to the 17-meter tower without interfering with each other, we received invaluable advice from riggers about how to guy the tower to withstand 150-mph winds and from machinists about how to mount instruments so they stand a chance of surviving such gales that will whip in at -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Some metals and all plastics become brittle and fragile in such cold temperatures. You arrive in McMurdo thinking you are prepared, but you leave thanking those whose advice gives you a better chance to accomplish your project's science goals.

Today I packed and packed: everything from solar panels to shovels, from toilet paper to thermistors, from dishwashing soap to a 12-foot-long windsock pole. The largest box of incredibly miscellaneous parts weighed 531 pounds -­ we'll have to unpack this menagerie into smaller pieces once we get to our jumping-off field camp so we can "loose-load" into the smaller plane that will actually take us to the ice shelf. Tomorrow we pull our food from the shelves of the stockroom --­ warning, do not do this when you are hungry! -­ and pack it up. Thursday, we will pack up the remaining odds and ends and should be cargo-ready.

Friday, we will practice crevasse-rescue techniques in a nearby icefall area with genuine crevasses. This is an advanced snow craft class offered by the field-safety unit in town. Their basic snow craft class is required of all persons departing McMurdo for distant field sites. I've taken it before, so I'm only required a refresher class, but my colleague on this trip is an Antarctic rookie. Today and tomorrow he is outside all day learning basic skills that will make him more able to handle survival situations in Antarctica. He will learn that you NEVER leave camp without shelter, warmer clothes and food. And he will learn what to do with those essentials if bad weather does separate him from his group. Just about the time I am writing this, he has probably prepared his shelter for the night. I'll find out tomorrow whether he chose to dig a snow cave, construct a snow mound or an ice trench. If he succeeds at building an igloo, a shelter far more complicated than the other choices, I will be most impressed. I have no doubt that he will come back tired for lack of sleep, a bit sunburned if he under protects himself like most rookies do, but absolutely exhilarated by the experience and far more confident with the knowledge that although Antarctica can be harsh, it is manageable and when you become more comfortable with its frigid and unyielding environment, you can better appreciate its stunning natural beauty. This awareness becomes a right of passage that stays with you the rest of your life and draws scientists and support personnel back to this gorgeous continent again and again.

Feels Like Home
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 15, 2007 -- Antarctica! I finally arrived! It all seems very familiar. Maybe it should -­ this is my 15th trip over the past 25 years -­ but it was November 2003 when I was last here. Yet it seems like I've only been gone a week. That's a bit creepy. This is a place where things change slowly and many of the same people return year after year. I guess you could say it moves at a glacial pace.

One thing that has improved is the flight getting here. Sure we still have to get to the airport and have our cold-weather gear on before sunrise, but we can move around a bit more, get breakfast, and the special departure lounge is more comfortable with softer seating. We go through a security screening just like at commercial airports and then have to squeeze ourselves, complete with heavy orange carry-on bag, thick parka and bag lunch, onto a school bus sized for children. We all look and feel like the Michelin tire guy and are about as graceful as we waddle around. The bus trip is so short as to make me always wonder if walking -- I mean waddling -- to the airplane wouldn't be easier.

But here's where the improvement is. The airplane we get on is a C-17 cargo plane. It is soooo much bigger and roomier than either the C-130 or C-141 planes we used to fly to The Ice in. In those planes we sat facing each other, in web seats, crammed in so tight our knees overlapped. Five to eight hours of sitting that way can make you wonder whatever interested you in going to Antarctica. But on the C-17, regular airline seats have been strapped to cargo palettes and spaced so that you have lots of room for your legs, bag and parka. It has two-story headroom and is much brighter. It's still noisy, but earplugs help that. Honestly, the five hours go by much more quickly and it is more comfortable than many commercial flights I've been on.

And you're going to Antarctica! There is an excitement in the air, especially from those in our group that are making their first trip. About 3 ½ hours into the flight you get your first sighting of the continent. People line up to peer through the few tiny porthole windows. Usually the flight crew allows anyone a brief visit to the flight deck for a more panoramic view. It is bright. The ice sheet is very white with a wide apron of white sea ice off the coast. The mountains are spectacular and add a majestic scale to the view. Antarctica is BIG. Your eyes take in an expansive area, but all you see is more of the same frozen whiteness extending beyond the horizon.

Eventually we are called back to our seats. The descent begins, people start to put on layers of cold-weather clothing. The reported temperature is very warm, only -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees F), but they say the winds are strong. The descent is extremely gradual and seems to take forever. We are too far from the windows to see out. People can only look at each other. Most stay quiet; each keeping their thoughts to themselves, anticipating the sensation of wheels touching down. Eventually the airplane shudders slightly from the ground effect, changes attitude as the tires squeeze the frozen runway and the jet engines ease. These are the softest landings I've known. The taxi seems to take forever and the eagerness of people is palpable, even through the multiple layers of clothing.

When the horn sounds we quickly unbuckle our safety belts, but struggle to get to our feet. Once the door opens, those closest to it are greeted with an icy gust of frigid air that carries a sharp edge. The next breath is different. The cold travels deep down your throat. Antarctica invisibly enters the plane and transforms what had been a warm secure environment into part of the continent where cold is king. You can feel Antarctica embracing you, and it is exhilarating! The world around you is about to change.

Stepping outside the airplane and down the few steps to the ice surface requires care and dexterity in what are now enormously oversized, heavy, clumsy feet. This arrival was marked by a 40-knot wind. If you hadn't greeted Antarctica yet, getting hit square in the face by this wind is a rude awakening to where you are. The wind had removed most of the snow on the surface, leaving only smooth ice absent of anything for boots to grip. Looking a bit like a collection of awkward, overstuffed hockey tryouts, we shuffle around, fumbling for cameras to take pictures of the frozen chaos. We are shuffled onto a very large bus, sized better for our insulated girth, for the 20-minute drive from the airstrip to the McMurdo Station.

We are delivered to the "Chalet," headquarters of the station, where we are briefed on rules of conduct and given room assignments. We quickly disperse to settle in, meet our roommates and clean up. Having been dressed for extreme cold, we now realize we are overdressed and we quickly shed a layer, or two, to cool off. But options are limited -- nearly everything we've brought is in our checked luggage, which won't arrive at the station for a couple of hours. Dinner is a similar wait. Still there is much that takes up time. I see friends from past seasons almost right away, and conversations continue from years past. I quickly make the transition into this "alternate reality." McMurdo feels like a second home, and it feels good to be home.

Photo: National Science Foundation

Suiting Up
McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 14, 2007 -- Well, it finally felt like I was getting closer to Antarctica today. The weather in town was dreary, with rain and intermittent wind. The sun came out briefly -- a great day to get one thinking about the limitless snow and ice ahead. The task today, however, was to get fitted out with all our cold-weather clothing. This is done well north of The Ice (remember, that's "our" name for Antarctica), because you have to be prepared for the cold before you actually get there. So all 37 of us who are manifested for tomorrow's flight mustered at the Clothing Distribution Center. This is part of the Antarctic Centre complex, which is maintained here to support the Antarctic scientists traveling to and from The Ice. It used to be part of a U.S. Navy base adjacent to the airport, but it's a lot more modern now and very efficiently run. New Zealand is proud of their close connection to the Antarctic. It shows all around town, but no more so than next door, where there is a very popular Antarctic attraction complete with a self-guided tour with Antarctic views, dioramas, cold wind and a track outside where people can ride and bounce in an Antarctic tracked vehicle.

For us the task was to check out the clothing that had already been set out for us in two large orange square duffel bags. Everything from thermal underwear to parkas, boots to hats, and don't forget the gloves. Sizing isn't always perfect, so you try on everything. I've done this many, many times, so I have a good idea what works for me. My hands ALWAYS get cold, so I often take a variety of hand wear and I have my favorite type of boots -­ big blue mukluks. With these giant boots on, I feel like a clumsy two-legged elephant, but they grip the ice really well. After the hour it takes to try on everything, exchange what didn't fit and return what you don't want, you get to pack it all into orange bags, then separate out other luggage you will be leaving behind in New Zealand, and you're done. For me it was a quick return to town, a short rest, an early dinner and then to bed. Tomorrow we leave the hotel well before 6 a.m.

Our project includes a lot of people, because we need a variety of skills to accomplish this project. Only two of us are making this trip, along with a cameraman who is documenting our trip for a later film about Antarctic research during the International Polar Year. My field mate this year is Dr. David Holland from New York University, an expert in polar ocean modeling. That expertise will be very important once we have much of the data on water behavior and characteristics beneath the ice shelf. Getting those data falls to Dr. Tim Stanton at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has pioneered customized ocean instrumentation in the polar environment and is an engineering genius. Getting these instruments into the water requires making a hole through about 550 meters of ice. For that Dr. Martin Truffer of the University of Alaska will use his hot-water drilling system to make a 5-inch-diameter hole. It's a pretty slick system using insulated hose, winches, car wash heaters and a portable swimming pool. Once we have the hole, Dr. Alberto Behar of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is going to give us the first-ever view of the bottom of the ice shelf with a special video camera system he is building.

And we're still not done. This is only information at one spot on the ice shelf. Using seismic equipment and helicopters to hop to selected areas all over the ice shelf, Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan of Penn State University will measure the ice thickness and the water depth. All this information will be crucial to David Holland and another oceanographer, Dr. Miles McPhee, in constructing computer models to reproduce our measurements to verify that we understand the important processes going on.

And then for many of this team of experts, we have additional collaborators in the United Kingdom with similar expertise. They, too, are concerned and interested in finding out what is going on between the ice shelf and the water and why. The full team is listed on the project's Web site and we will be adding some pictures and more information about them as the project moves on.

First things first, however -- off to The Ice.

Heading to the Ice
Christchurch, New Zealand, Dec. 10, 2007 -- My trip to "The Ice" (as Antarctica is often called) began this morning. It feels rather normal. I travel a lot on business, so commercial flying is nothing new. But this trip will be more grueling -- 30 hours of flying and crossing the international date line means it'll be the morning of Dec. 12 before I finally arrive in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I'm starting off well rested. Most of the weekend was spent packing, repacking and mentally running through the lists of items to take. The U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) will issue to me a full set of cold-weather clothing once I reach Christchurch. USAP gives you what you need, but doesn't include some things you may want -- personal comfort items such as music players, a camera, comfortable indoor clothes and shoes. The program has processed so many Antarctic personnel over the years that their advice is excellent. Still, I have to plan for at least two days in New Zealand and a week or more in McMurdo Station, where some of the work is dusty and I plan on exercising at the modest fitness unit on base. Add to what's needed for those activities other personal items like underwear, sunscreen and computer and my bag filled up quickly to a plump 35 pounds. If I forget something, there is time in New Zealand to find it and there is a very small store in McMurdo Station. But it's best not to rely on these options and to get it right now. It just adds to the pressure of going to "The Ice."

Let me take the rest of this entry to give you a bit more of the back-story of this science project. I mentioned before that we are going to the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf, because satellite and airborne measurements have captured this region thinning rapidly and accelerating. So what? The answer lays in the fact that loss of ice causes sea level around the world to rise. Coastal areas around the world are hyper-valuable real estate, ecologically and economically. A 1-meter rise in sea level will cost the world economy an estimated $1 trillion! That's serious money. Sea level has been rising at a relatively gradual 2 millimeters per year for thousands of years, but the rate has increased 50 percent in the past two decades and is expected to rise even faster in the near future. We could reduce the costs of rising sea level a lot if we knew how much and how fast sea level will change. PIG drains a part of the West Antarctic ice sheet that could raise sea level one meter all by itself.

That's where our research comes in. Even the best computer models can't reproduce the measured changes in this area. And if we can't simulate an active area, we have no confidence in predictions of future behavior of this or any other area. Our goal is to improve this embarrassing situation. The spatial pattern of thinning and accelerating of PIG (get used to my using this moniker) suggest the action is taking place on the ice shelf, the floating end of the glacier, and spreading inland. Our hypothesis (yes, the scientific method you learned in school is still how a lot of science gets done) is that warmer water is circulating underneath the ice shelf and melting more ice. We've seen on the Antarctic Peninsula that the loss of an ice shelf leads to much faster ice flow and thinning upstream, so we expect a thinning ice shelf has the same type of response, but less extreme.

I'll save a description of how we're going to test our hypothesis and who is on our research team for my next entry. My flight is being called to board.

Christmas Among Crevasses
Greenbelt, Maryland, December 7, 2007 3:30 p.m. -- Every trip needs a theme. That's going to be mine this field season. I like it because it touches on two very important aspects of conducting scientific research: scientists don't always get to choose the time they work, and we have to go to where the action is, even if it may be a dangerous place. Both are true for me this holiday season, and I'm inviting you to come along by following this blog.

Today I packed up what I think I'll need from my office: maps (images actually), laptop computer, a notebook and some work I didn't quite finish yet (there always seems to be too much of that). I said goodbye to lots of friends there and received good wishes from all. It seemed odd to be wishing them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, but I won't see them again until 2008.

Why? Because I'm preparing for a field trip to Antarctica. It's my 15th Antarctic field trip, so some things seem routine, but not where I'm ultimately headed. I am leading a new project designed to find out what is causing a major part of the West Antarctic ice sheet to become suddenly so active. Satellite-based observations, supported by some airborne measurements, have shown that ice flowing into the Amundsen Sea is thinning rapidly (a few meters per year) and accelerating (a few percent per year). The spatial pattern of change suggests that the cause is warm water melting ice more rapidly underneath the floating fringes of the ice sheet. These floating fringes are called ice shelves and are hundreds of meters thick.

Why now and what's the danger? The sun is up only six months of the year in Antarctica, and we are aiming at mid-summer because we think we'll have the best chance of good weather then. The danger comes from all the crevasses on this ice shelf. The fast motion of the ice (and I'm talking ripping fast for ice -- 10 meters per day! -­ That's more than one foot per hour!) breaks the ice apart. These crevasses are BIG -­tens of meters across and hundreds of meters long. Most are hidden beneath fragile "snow bridges" that can collapse if someone (like me) were to step on one. I don't intend to, but that part of the story will come later.

This weekend it's time to pack the rest of my clothing, say goodbye to wife and cat and start the journey. By Christmas we hope to be camped on the ice shelf that is fed by the Pine Island Glacier (PIG for short), so we call this project the PIG ice shelf project. We've posted more information about this project on the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) Ice Shelf Web site. And I'll let you in on more of the story, too, as the trip unfolds.

Comment
DATE: 12/24/2007 10:20:41 a.m.
Hey Bob - Have a Merry Christmas and keep up the good work.