If you had to shovel a barrel of snow and melt it first?
Antarctica Time: Friday, 25 January | 5:30AM
Good morning from WAIS divide. Imagine camping on top of 2 miles of snow and ice, that is what I am doing. I set up my tent two nights ago when we arrived. The temperature has been somewhere around 0 F. You can find out more about this field camp by Googling WAIS. It is the site of an ice core drilling project.
George and I had a quick tour of the drilling facilities. This was the first year of "real" drilling. The drillers reached back in time to about 300 B.C. The ice cores can be used to give a very detailed look at the past climate. George and I flew towards the pole yesterday to visit Teresa and Briana weather stations via a Twin OtterA highly maneuverable utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada. It can be flown slowly and in tight circles, and is designed for 20 passengers, short takeoffs and landings, and often used for cargo, passengers, and as a science platform.. If you look them up on the AWS website, which I have previously given you, you will see how windy and cold it was. Very windy, blowing snow and cold. We were on the ground at Teresa for 4 cold hours. The pilot and copilot were extremely helpful and set up a wind break for us. We think both stations are working now. Ironically we don't know how cold it was, we repaired the stations while we were there but did not have a way to actually make the weather measurements. Teresa is at an extremely scenic location with black cliffs jutting up out of the glistening white glacial ice.
We are scheduled to fly out to two other sites today. Sorry for a lack of pictures and audio but the connection is very slow and the satellite is only above the horizon between about 4:00AM and 9:00 AM.
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