3 December 2012 Observation – A Practical Skill for Scientists and Everyone Else

Journal

This is another little PolarProblem to test your skills of observation. I’ve put in two pictures. One was taken today, the other was taken on November 11. Both days the visibility was limited because of the weather, but there has been a big change between November 11 and December 3. What is that change? Look carefully and tell me what’s different in an Ask The Team entry.

Chalet 12-3-12 — Looking South from the Chalet deck on 12-3-12.

Chalet Deck — Looking south from the Chalet deck on 11-11-12. Note how far you can see on this date. What else is different from the other picture?

Here is another pair of pictures to show you how much difference the weather makes in visibility. I took it over the helicopter operations area at 3:30 P.M. today. This afternoon a helicopter took off with a load hanging down under it on a long rope. This is how helicopters carry a lot of their cargo loads. Anyway, the pilot took off and circled out over the ice, flew back in to the base, then back over the ice. He did this about four times. He finally came back in and dropped the load he was carrying, landed, shut down the helicopter, and gave up on flying. I guess the visibility was too limited to keep flying.

The first picture was taken today. The second picture I took on November 6. Look at how much further you can see on the November 6 picture.