We often talk about the cold temps and winds in Antarctica, but it is really a land (and ocean) of ice. We are lucky enough to have some of the rare mountains that rise above the ice on our doorsteps. The Royal Society Range sits right across the McMurdo sound which is on the continent (for real… we are on an island… but it is frozen to the continent so its kinda like part of it).
Here is the current view from McMurdo and we can see ice of a few different colors…well colors of white. The smoother white to the bottom left is about 5 ft (1.7m) thick which is plenty thick for us to work on. Off to the right side the rougher patch is only a couple week old and there are some pretty significant cracks there that if it continues to freeze may form up into solid ice. And if not, we don’t cross them. Good news. It is -42 C right now and that is good ice forming weather! Whoo Hoo.
It is the ice that dictates our paths and activities and we spend a significant amount of time on the ice. It is a cruel mistress that we love and …sometimes like a lot less. This is a strange year, to say the least, and it has gotten off to a slow start. Over the past (as long as anyone here can remember) there is solid ice in front of the station going at least up to a feature about an hour north, and usually, ~100 miles north that sets in by July at the latest. This year, it was a short 2 weeks ago that the ice began to actually freeze us in and this has and will lead to some interesting days ahead of us.
This is a pretty significant crack just off Hut Point. It all depends on how thick it is and whether or not it is moving. The shape of this crack makes it look like a working crack, so one to pay attention to.
Now cracks are a thing too. We spend a lot of time monitoring and tracking cracks to make sure we can get over them. We have sea ice training to make sure we can do this safely and work with the field safety team (Field Support and Training or FS&P) to monitor and track the cracks. However, our vehicles are designed to both cross cracks as well as have the most gentle pressure on the ice.
The view north from Hut Point.
Looking north, there are many different features in the ice and we hope that in coming weeks the ice will solidify enough for us to head this way to our main site.
Here you can see McMurdo Station in the background, Scott’s hut in the foreground and Rowan and Lila, braving the brisk late winter’s day to peer at the ice (and hour-long sunsets)
To look north and see what the ice looks like up there, we hiked over to the Hut point where Scott’s hut, from 1902 sits still unchanged for more than a hundered years.
During our extended layover in New Zealand, we took part in a variety of online information sessions teaching us some important facts about Antarctica as a continent and working with USAP (the United State Antarctic Program). Here are some of our favorite highlights of these sessions!
1. Antarctica is huge!
source: USAP
The Antarctic Ice Sheet covers 99% of the continent of Antarctica and has a total area of 5.4 million square miles (or 14 million square kilometers). It is the single largest mass of ice in the world and in some places, is up to 3 miles thick! This frozen mass contains 90% of the planet’s freshwater ice and about 70% of all the fresh water on Earth! If all the ice on Antarctica melted, it is predicted that the global sea level would rise 60-65m (or 200-210 ft)!
2. Antarctica is the Highest, Driest, Windiest, and Coldest Place on Earth
Photo credit: Rowan McLachlan
Elevation: Although covered in ice, Antarctica actually has one of the largest mountain ranges on Earth: the Gamburtsev Mountains. This range (750 miles or 1200 kilometers in length) has peaks around 2,800 meters in elevation; equal to about 1/3 the size of Mount Everest!
Humidity: The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are the driest place on Earth, where the humidity is so low, that snow and ice can’t accumulate here! The humidity is so similar to the conditions on Mars that NASA did testing here for the Viking missions!
Wind: wind speeds of up to 200 miles per hour (or 320 kilometers per hour) have been recorded in some locations
Temperature: The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -89.2 degrees Celsius (or 128.56 degrees Fahrenheit).
3. No one owns Antarctica
source: USAP
When people first saw Antarctica in 1820, it was the only continent on Earth that was yet to be inhabited. Several nations tried to quickly lay claim to it, which unsurprisingly lead to tension! Eventually, everyone agreed that the only solution was to share this beautiful place without anyone nation owning it. In December 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty and agreed to work together to govern, protect and conserve this special place as a haven for peace and science. The treaty fully came into force in 1961. Sixty-odd years since it was signed, 42 other countries have also signed the treaty and participate in annual meetings where they discuss how human activity in Antarctica is managed.
4. There are >70 Research Stations in Antarctica
source: USAP
Thirty different countries have scientific research bases on the continent. During the summer months (Dec-March), there are ~4000 people living and working here. In winter (April-Nov) this number drops to about 1000. How much humanity remains in these 1000 people after a long, dark winter in Antarctica is another question…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Walker
5. Wonderful humans work here!
source: USAP
United States Antarctic Program (USAP) employs ~3000 people every year to work in Antarctica, mostly during the summer months. The people who work here are not just scientists. In fact, scientists are the minority here! Contractors are hired from all walks and backgrounds. To name a few (based on people I have met here already), there are firefighters, medics, mechanics, communication engineers, bus drivers, janitors, chefs, HR staff, search and rescue mountaineers, helicopter pilots… the list goes on! If you are interested in working in Antarctica, check out USAP’s Jobs and Employment webpage
Everyone should experience Antarctica – this place is heaven… if heaven is cold and windy, but beautiful!
Just yesterday morning, as Rowan and I were walking to pick up breakfast in downtown Christchurch, she turned to me and said “Today is the day! I can feel it!” I didn’t want to dampen her mood, because enthusiastic optimism about our flight had been hard to come by these days, but I had looked at the weather earlier and felt pretty confident we’d probably be delayed another day. An hour later, I was sitting on a bench in downtown Christchurch, repeatedly refreshing my email, well braced for the likely news that our 9:30 “weather call” would result in another let down. As I was starting to ponder what take-out I’d try for lunch, I got a message from Andrew.
“Our flight is a go.”
I was shocked. Really??? The leisurely distractions I’d planned for the day evaporated and suddenly there was so much to do. I needed to get back to the hotel and pack back up! I speed walked back, grabbing snacks on the way. Once you’re in the US Antarctic Program (USAP) Clothing Distribution Center (CDC), where all flights check-in, you’re not allowed back out to get food (COVID protocol). I double checked everything I needed was in my carry-on and boomerang bag (all you get back if the flight is attempted, but needs to turn around). My carry on had enough entertainment to last me a few 2-hr flight delays in the CDC, and my boomerang was packed with enough clothing for another few days in Christchurch if we didn’t end up landing. I was fully expecting one or both of these things would happen.
Once we got to the CDC, the “hurry up and wait” phase began. Rapidly change into your gear, weigh your bags (only 85-125 lbs per person on the ice flight), check in for the flight, and then sit on your bum waiting for an indeterminate amount of time. Only…we didn’t wait. Once we checked in we were told we had 15 minutes until another quick training video before boarding.
I rushed to send a few texts out to my family and boyfriend, warning them it could be a few days before they hear from me again. Before I knew it the farewell video with happy penguins and humans waddling around in Big Red was over and it was time to board. We filed through metal detectors and for a moment it felt like a regular flight, but that’s where most of the similarities ended.
We were all herded from the TSA look-alike, onto a shuttle, Big Reds and orange ECW bags overflowing everywhere. We drove along the edges of the Christchurch Airport until we rolled up to the C17 we’d seen on the tarmac in the distance upon first landing almost 2 weeks ago. My heart skipped a beat. “I cannot believe I’m actually about to board that.” We filed out of the bus, being guided along by US Air Force personnel and attempting to rapid fire pictures while clumsily walking in our military-issue Bunny Boots.
The plane was cavernous. Industrial and bare, with its guts exposed for all to see. It was so cool. “Welcomeee!” boomed a female voice from over the plane’s loud speaker. We made our way to seats along the edges of the plan and watched in awe as the largest, strangest machine I’ve ever seen loaded pallet after pallet smoothly into the floor tracks of the plane. A crew member came by with ear plugs, “You’re gonna want ’em – it gets real loud.”
The pallet across from us was labeled “freshies.” Cartons of milk peeked out from the bottom corner. It held some of the first fresh produce and perishable goods the station would see after six long months without any flights in or out.
After some efficient and informative, but comical safety briefings by the Air Force flight crew, the back of the C17 folded closed, we buckled up, put in earplugs to drown out the roaring engines, and suddenly the plane began to hurdle forward. It was unlike any take-off I’ve experienced before. There’s no sound-proofing, so you feel the vibrations right to your core, and there are no windows, but your body tells you’re being flung upward into the air.
I lied. There are two teeny windows – one in each emergency exit door. After what felt like an eternity, we finally reached cruising altitude and were allowed to move about the plane. Rowan and I frequently peered through the windows – at first we saw nothing but ocean, but around 3 hours into our 5 hour flight we began to see something fascinating. Huge sheets of pack-ice loomed below us in the pink light of the fading day. Our first signs of the icy continent we were speeding toward. About an hour out from McMurdo we began to see the most never-ending expanse of mountains I’ve ever laid eyes on. As far as the eye could see – white peaks jutted out of the earth. To my surprise, my phones GPS showed me that we were over the mountain range along the Northwestern Ross Sea.
In between window watching, we found various ways to entertain ourselves. At first we were ambitious, writing blog posts and doing some offline computer work. But that rapidly transitioned into crosswords, stretching, and chatting with (aka screaming over the noise at) our new station mates. Also staring off into the distance and looking around at the plane in wonder.
To my surprise they even sold merch on the C17! Everything was marked with the “Operation DEEP FREEZE” logo. Operation Deep Freeze was the code name for the series of US scientific missions to the South Pole and later elsewhere on the continent, supported by the US military. It’s now just the general term for Antarctic military support operations.
About half an hour away from McMurdo, I turned to the officer next to me and asked “what do you think the chances are we’re actually going to land?” “They’re good, the weather looks good right now.” Announcements started directing us back to our seats and to suit up in our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear in preparation for cabin cooling and descent. We waited in anticipation and before we knew it, there was a shuddering thud and the feeling of braking along a seemingly never-ending runway (the officer next to me informed me it was over 10,000 feet long).
The C17 rear door slowly opened, and the Antarctic air rushed in. My first breathes of Antarctic air condensed instantly in front of me. Through the door, I could see our lights illuminating massive forklifts and a passenger bus “Ivan the Terra Bus” off in the dark icy distance. Even further beyond you could spot the shining lights of the McMurdo (USAP, new home!) and Scott (Antarctica NZ) bases.
My steps on Antarctica, captured by Andrew
After a quick welcome, the doors to our bus swung shut, lights were turned off, and we began our 1 hour trip toward Scott and Mcmurdo. The C17 shrank into the distance and darkness began to envelop us, but the bus still glowed with lively chatter and tired excitement as we jostled toward station. We had finally made it. I let go of the world beyond the ice and smiled to myself thinking about all the friends and memories I would make before seeing that C17 again.
Welp! Our flight to Antarctica has been delayed enough days that we’ve begun to call our hotel room home. The Indian restaurant and Filipino bakery next door know us by name, we’re running out of non-polar clothing to wear, and Rowan and I have no new stories to tell each other. But in between days marked by PCR tests we’ve also gotten to take advantage of the extra time to prep before lights, camera, action!
Rowan in PDX with our bags (which all made it through 4 layovers – woooo!). People in the check-in line hated us.
Remember all those bags we packed? Four of them were mostly full of gear for our SEVEN cameras (that’s not even counting our two drones). That includes their underwater housings, batteries, chargers, lights, maintenance equipment and more doodads than you can imagine. Taking all the footage we’ll show you in future blog posts takes a lotttt of gear. Although we’ve all had a chance to practice using them during our prep dives for Antarctica back in the Pacific Northwest (prep pics*), there’s always more to learn. Yesterday we had the first warm sunny spring day since our arrival in Christchurch, NZ and jumped on the opportunity to take the cameras for a spin.
Fish and plumose anemone from drysuit and camera equipment training dives in the Hood Canal (Washington).
An example image I took where the colors do not reflect reality. Although a purple sky would be cool.
Although I’ve always loved taking pictures, before beginning to prep for this trip my expertise level ended at “iPhoto Expert”. F-stop who? Over the last year or so, it’s been so much fun to start thinking about all the different components of an image you can control on a camera. Things like: Do you want the background behind your subject to be blurry – how blurry? How bright do want your photo to be – what about if you’re using a separate light for flash? Is your picture really representing the colors in front of you?
All those questions get even trickier under water, especially when what’s in front of you doesn’t even look like what’s in front of you. When you’re scuba diving, it’s important to “white balance” your photos. That is, to tell your camera what’s actually white so that it can adjust for the colors (mostly red) that have been absorbed by the water above you. Without that, no pretty pink sea stars.
An example of fixing a bad white balance in Adobe Lightroom (or Photoshop). Yay green grass!
Once we got back to our hotel, I got to work in another world that was pretty foreign to me until recently – Adobe Lightroom. I had messed with Photoshop on my Mom’s computer as a kid, taking pictures of Mr. Potatohead and trying to make him skinny or voluptuous. Unfortunately, as talented as I may have felt back then, it’s safe to say my skills were lacking. After a few YouTube videos I’m a pro! Just kidding, but it has opened the door to a whole new realm of photo-editing.
After a day of taking 200 mostly “meh” photos, parsing out my 20 favorites, and fumbling around in Adobe – I present to you the following images. Yes, I really like flowers.
It’s wild to imagine that the next time I take a picture on this camera it’ll be from below the flowerless Antarctic ice, using a hand encased within 3 layers of gloves snapped onto a drysuit. A drysuit that will seal me into me into what (I hope) will be a water-tight, albeit somewhat chilly, oasis from which to observe the alien seascape around me. Despite all our training dives, it’s still hard for me to imagine what that will feel like, but I can’t wait to report back and show you what we find!
Stay tuned for future blogs, and remember, if my pictures look 25% as good as Andrew and Rowan’s it’s all my camera’s fault and has nothing to do with the operator.
Winfly (a series of 3-5 flights in the middle of August) is a time of year when the weather is a bit cold still. The flights sneak in to set up the station for the onslot of science that happens at mainbody (starting in early August) and support a few science groups (us) that need to be there as early as possible in the season. It is sometimes a bit of a difficult dance to get the planes in, and unfortunately, that has been the story thus far this year.
So while we wait… we practice all the things that go into science. Macro photos, all sorts of photo and video editing, and mostly try to get used to the cameras that we will use underwater but in very large and clumsy cases where it is best to know what button you are looking for before it is encased in metal. So here is Lila getting re-familiar with one of the many cameras we use to document science and also convey to everyone what and why we do what we do.
After a brief and highly anticipated two nights in New Zealand and being ready to fly, we have waited while a diversity of challenges have kept the flights not going. The good news is that yesterday, (which was Friday here, Thursday most places) the second of the flights made it in! Hurray! That is also exciting since we are on the 3rd flight – so we are next! After a morning of anticipation…. we got the dreaded “24 hour delay”. So we remain in New Zealand at least until Sunday. So instead of 2 nights in New Zealand, we are stretching into 11. Normally, this would be pretty awesome. I love Christchurch and I love New Zealand – however, we are staying in our hotel rooms to avoid catching COVID, while being tested every couple of days to make sure we don’t bring COVID to the “Ice”. So we make it out to the fresh air and distance from everyone to at least see grass and green before we see white and more white.
This morning we took a trip to the USAP CDC (clothing distribution center) to get fitted for our extreme weather gear!
A few weeks ago, we filled out paperwork specifying our clothing sizes. When we walked into the changing room area, we picked up two orange bags tagged with our names that were filled with the following:
So how are we supposed to wear all of the extreme weather gear? Well here is a step by step guide! (Model: Dr Rowan McLachlan)
It is SO IMPORTANT for us to try everything on, make sure it fits, and is in good working conditions (i.e., no rips, holes or broken zips) now when we are here in New Zealand as we have the opportunity to switch it out for something better. However, when we get to Antarctica, and are “on ice”, the supplies of ECW (extreme condition weather) clothing is really limited, and it is very difficult to make swaps or get replacements.
For the rest of today, we are listening to a variety of different training and safety talks to prepare us for living and working in Antarctica. There is a lot of information to absorb – but all of it is really important to keep us safe and to conserve the precious and pristine ecosystems in Antarctica.
A world in 360 – be sure to drag around the image.
As we sit here in our Hotel Rooms, I have had some time to edit some of the other images collected over the past couple of years. This is a 360 video that we shot of working in French Polynesia on Project RECHARGE. This project is aiming to understand how coral reefs are impacted by fishing and nutrient pollution through a large-scale manipulative experiment. You can read a little bit more about it here on the site of Dr. Vega Thurber, who along with Dr. Deron Burkepile and Dr. Tom Adam are the leads of the project. In this video we are scrubbing cages to remove overgrowth that builds up over time.
As always, the highlight of these trips is the amazing water and people of French Polynesia. This took place in Mo’orea at a NSF funded Long Term Ecological Research Site (the MCLTER).
So after 4 flights and something like 28 hours of travel after departing on our first one, we ended up in Christchurch, New Zealand. This is always one of my favorite places on the planet with wonderful people and a totally different feel to the states. Among the most amazing parts is that all of our bags even made it.
8 bags for 3 people + 6 carry-ons. Sometimes traveling light sounds really really nice.
We have spent our time since then sitting through virtual training to take care of some that we would otherwise have to do when we get to Antarctica. Covid remains a problem globally and New Zealand is no different. Many of us have been hunkering down for the two weeks before we left and now are hunkering down in New Zealand, trying to avoid exposure and (as you can see from the pictures) wearing masks throughout. So we spend out time here, not enjoying the wonderful food and beauty, but instead sitting in a hotel room and on zoom. However, this is the first time in a long time that there is not mandatory isolation quarantine (translated to 2 weeks locked in a hotel room where you are literally not allowed to leave) and so the few days we have here are just fine. In addition, we can still go for walks and so I was able to continue my long-standing tradition of visiting the Christchurch Botanical Gardens to enjoy the smell of soil and plants before a few months of none of that.
It’s still the tail end of Winter here so the skies are overcast and the temperature a very comfortable brisk.
Our flights remain a bit delayed which is very normal for this time of year. We are among the first since Winter to try and rejoin the frozen continent and so little challenges plague the flights, from cold to wind to a runway made of Ice that hasn’t been used for many months. Right now we are scheduled to fly on Sunday (2 days from now) but long ago I learned that you fly to Antarctica when the fates align and sometimes that is sooner than others. No reason to rush, because it just doesn’t help.
We have been studying how shallow water corals are part of the ocean ecosystem to better understand out future and the way biology can amplify change, and not always for the better.
After a bit of a break from our blog, we are back and embarking upon a new project in Antarctica. For the past few years we have been working all over the Pacific Ocean to better understand how it works, from the coral reefs of Mo’orea, French Polynesia to the deep sea off of Oregon and New Zealand. Throughout this we have continued to be amazed by the diversity and amazing life that supports humanity through a multitude of ways.
Sometimes we stay local to improve our research skills – for example here is a dive from Clear Lake, OR. We dove here since the water is cool (around 40 F or 4 C) so we can use the gear we use in Antarctica without sweating too much.
This year, and for the next 4 years, a team of 3 scientists a cinematographer, educator and visual artist (although not all at once) will join an expedition back to Antarctica to better understand the role of this vast continent in the gasses that shape our current and future climate. We will be actively blogging and sharing the experiences from August until November for the next few years.
During our training we spent many dives in Oregon looking at the pretty wildlife. This lingcod was a great subject to practice our camera work on (since it didn’t move much at all when we approached it – my favorite kind of fish.)The First Deploying Team is Lila Ardor Bellucci, Dr. Rowan McLachlan, and Dr. Andrew Thurber.
The first step of the journey is a multi leg trip to New Zealand. Travel on COVID test willing this starts on August 15th – just a few days away.
Well the trip went great. Tons of wonderful samples however due to being at the ends of the earth we couldn’t get the bandwidth to keep up our blog. I’ll keep putting some highlights here even though we have returned to the land of the warm, although we are now in winter after our nice stay in Antarctic summer.
