Finally Done!

I've been holed up in my Christchurch hotel for the last few days putting the finishing touches on my Antarctic Correspondent's Diary for the Economist's online edition. 4,500 words hot off the presses. At the moment, it's supposed to appear the week of February 11th, one entry each day for the week. If you go here, you'll see the Correspondent's Diary section on the upper right. I'm told there's a chance it may get pushed back to make room for a diary from the political riots in Kenya. Understandably a little more important and timely right now than Antarctica.

At the moment, I'm sitting in the ferry terminal surrounded by lush green mountains waiting to go from New Zealand's South Island to the North. Couldn't be happier!!

The Best Shave of My Life

Well, I was paroled from Antarctica last night. Unfortunately, I left a little bit of me behind. No, I'm not talking about my sanity (I'm hoping that will eventually come back someday...) However, I did lose my iPod somewhere on a hiking trail at McMurdo. Oh well. It was only a Shuffle, and it was already a few years old. No penguins this time either. There were killer whales though, and I could hear them surfacing and blowing water out of their blow-holes while I was out hiking.

We got into Christchurch around 8 last night. Our flight was truly international. There were a bunch of Kiwis, some people from the Italian Antarctic program, and some seriously hardcore Russian guys. They lived up to the stereotype: One of them was so drunk he kept falling over on the flight and had to be picked up. Last I saw of him, he was laying on a pile of coats in the immigration line. Wonder if they let him into the country or not...

After some drinking last night, I woke up to a beautifully overcast drizzle today. Just smelling moisture has been amazing. After breakfast, I headed to get a much needed shave and a haircut. I went to this fancy place called the Groom Room. It was one of these wood-paneled British barbershops that looked like it belonged in Sweeney Todd. Totally unbelievable. The woman tipped the chair back and put hot towels on my face, gave me a massage, and then gave me an old-school straight-razor shave. Something only a guy can truly appreciate. She even offered to pluck the stray hairs on my eyebrows. Did I take her up on the offer? You'll just have to guess.

So now I have a few days here. I've got to finish writing my Correspondent's Diary for the Economist website (it's supposed to run the week of February 11th). Then off to meet Willoughby for some traveling!!

How To Relax At The South Pole II

Yes indeed. That's bocce in front of the geographical pole. Click here for the animation. Don't know why it doesn't display above...

Sorry I haven't finished Science Lesson Part II yet. I've been switching to days, so I've been exhausted and sans satellite. I leave tomorrow morning (fingers crossed on the weather...) so I'll finish it soon...

Science Lesson Part I

I promised the other day that I'd actually write something substantive about science, so here it is. (I can't resist mentioning it though: I did indeed take my record-breaking third shower of the season a few days ago...)

I had a really interesting conversation yesterday with this professor from Dartmouth who just arrived at the Pole as part of a joint Norwegian-US Traverse, and I think it may spawn another Economist article. It has to do with ice sheets, global warming, rising sea levels, and how you go about figuring all this stuff out.

Let me back up a little bit. Everyone knows about global warming. And everyone knows that one of the really bad things that could happen with global warming is a rise in global sea levels. There's this nice google map that shows what parts of the world will get flooded when sea levels rise. It's pretty cool. You can adjust the amount of sea level rise and then check out your own favorite neighborhood-Bangladesh, Manhattan, Florida, etc.- to see if it's still above water or not. Anyway, rising sea levels come from two things. First off, as temperatures increase, water expands. This is just basic science: hotter things take up more room. In a hot air balloon, turning on the flame heats the air in the balloon. The air expands and the balloon becomes buoyant.

The second cause is the big one. When you melt ice that's sitting on land (such as the three mile thick ice sheet I'm sitting on right now), the water flows into the ocean and causes the sea level to rise. Just to be clear, this only happens for ice sitting on land, not ice that's already floating on water. The usual analogy is an icecube in a full glass of water. When it melts, the glass doesn't overflow. This is because the meltwater takes up the space that the ice was already taking up. Because of this, all the stuff you see on the melting of the Artic and the North Pole doesn't contribute to rising sea levels. That ice was already floating in water. The melting of the Artic is alarming for other reasons which I won't get into right now...

This brings me back to Antarctica. Most of the Earth's fresh water is locked up in the icesheets here, so obviously what they're doing is really important for sea levels. We do know that West Antarctica, the part that juts out towards South America, is warming up and melting really quickly. The problem is that the ice in East Antarctica, the huge part closer to where I am, may actually be getting thicker. That's because, in a warmer climate, it's expected to snow more. That snow falls onto the ice and stays there. If more snow falls than ice melts, the sea level actually goes back down.

So here's the real kicker: we don't actually know if Antarctica is losing ice or gaining ice, overall. There are models and calculations and some satellite data, but there's very little on the ground data from East Antarctica. We just don't know. I even think the recent IPCC report concluded that it was too early to say whether Antarctica is losing ice or not (though I have to check on that).

This is all an interesting little tidbit. One that doesn't usually get reported amidst all the scary stuff you see on the news. I'm guessing the media thinks that people are too stupid to digest complicated information. "Well, if Antarctica isn't melting, that means that global warming isn't real and we don't have to do anything about it." I trust you guys more than that.

So how do we figure out what's really happening in East Antarctica? I'll save that for Science Lesson Part II. But for those of you who just can't wait, I'll give you a preview: You get in some tractors and you spend two-and-a-half months driving across the ice...

Thwarted!

Well, I had just gone for a long, stinky run and was psyched to take my record-breaking third shower of the season. I walk into the bathroom just as this guy is posting signs saying that all showers are forbidden for the next few days. Apparently they're doing maintenance on the well where they melt the snow to get our water. Damn.

For whatever reason, I feel like I'm only writing about hygiene this year. You all must be getting bored. I think I'll make my next few posts about something interesting and scientific, just to keep y'all entertained :)

Article Link

In case you care, you can find my Economist article here. The photo is mine too...

Shower Counter

Well, last night was number two. That already ties my total from last year. And considering that I did laundry last week for the first time ever down here, I'd say that I've reached a new hygienic high. I even went for a two mile run on the treadmill last night. With the altitude, that's not too bad either...

It Really Can Be a Harsh Continent

In case we needed any reminder that this is a pretty harsh place, we all got a bit of a scare the other day. I was out working in a lab with my coworker Tim at about 4:30 in the morning. All of the sudden we hear this loud alarm go off. We look around because we're freaked out that it was something we did. Then this scary voice comes on and says "Attention. There is a medical emergency at DA. There is a medical emergency at DA." DA is one of the entranceways to the main station. We ran outside to see what we could see, but we were about a mile out, so we could only see some vehicles off in the distance. We figured we had better just go about our business.

We walked to another building where our coworker Sean, a grad student from Madison, was supposed to be finishing up some stuff. He wasn't there, and his work hadn't been done. We cursed him out under our breath and got started finishing the work. Slowly, as we talked about it, it began to dawn on us that the medical emergency could have been Sean. He was in that area of the station. He hadn't shown up where he was supposed to. And he didn't have a radio to let anyone know if there was a problem.

Eventually, someone called and let us know that it was indeed Sean. We hopped on a snowmobile and raced to the station to find out what had happened. He had been out riding a snowmobile, and he hit a deep rut in the ice. He lost control, and somehow his leg got caught and pulled up into the treads of the snowmobile. It was so far wedged in that he couldn't get it out. It was the middle of the night, and he didn't have a radio, so he just laid there in the snow for at least ten minutes, until someone happened upon him and called in the alarm.

Basically, Sean was incredibly lucky. He was hopped up on morphine when we got to see him, but he didn't break his leg, and he hadn't cut himself. If he had torn up his leg and spent ten minutes in the snow before anyone found him, he would have been in some serious trouble. Now he's just got a nasty bruise and is walking around on crutches, all the better for impressing the women when he gets back to New Zealand.

All's well that ends well, but it freaked us all out at least a little bit. We're so far away from anything here, that when something goes wrong, it has the potential to go really wrong. Under the best case scenario, it takes about 24 hours to get to a real hospital in New Zealand. A driller on my experiment was seriously injured a few years ago and it took them that long before they could operate on him in Christchurch. Everything ended up well with him too, and he's actually back down here this season working again. Some of these guys are truly crazy.

In the meantime, I'll say a prayer and knock on some wood just in case. Oh, and I'll be careful too.

I just found out that an article I wrote from down here is going to be in next week's issue of the Economist. It's called "Snow Place Like Home" and it's on the new station dedication. Check it out if you get the chance...

The New Station

The last few days have been pretty busy around here. Saturday was the official dedication ceremony for the new South Pole station (you know, the fancy new facility that I get to walk back and forth to from my tent every morning and evening). The weather had been really crappy and all flights were being cancelled, but luckily it lifted just in time for all the special visitors to make it in. These included the director of the National Science Foundation (the primary US science funding agency), a few more congressmen, and all sorts of officials from the State Department and Homeland Security and the military. In general, it's annoying to have these people down here, since all work basically comes to a stop so that they can be catered to and given tours. But the ceremony actually turned out to be pretty cool. We took a group photo in front of the old station, this geodesic dome structure you can see in the photo of my coworker Ryan and I below:



Then, the US flag on top was lowered and passed from person to person to the new station, where it was eventually raised. It was generally a pretty moving ceremony, since a lot of people have put in so much time and effort down here to make the new station a reality. It really is light years better than the old facilities (which weren't even heated), and it's the state-of-the-art as far as Antarctic living quarters go. Here it is:



On the other hand, the whole nationalistic thing with the flag and the government officials was a little bit ridiculous. To me, it only underscored the fact that no one can really ever own Antarctica. It's too big and it's too harsh. People can have a toe-hold here, and that's great and really useful for science. But it's not part of the US, and the US can never really own it. We put our flag here, but it's in no way ours.

If you're interested in reading more about the station, you can check out this Chicago Tribune article (thanks Ann!). It's a little misleading, since the dateline makes it seem like the guy is actually down here, which he doesn't seem to be...

In other news, yesterday I got to take part in a live webcast to the San Francisco Exploratorium (kinda like the Museum of Science and Industry or the Adler Planetarium, for my Chicago friends). It was pretty fun. Sorry I didn't let y'all know in time to see it live (I only had time to let my SF friends know) but if you want to check it out, it's still online. The webpage is here and the direct link to the realmedia webcast is here.

Damn. I'm Getting Old

So as you would expect, I've stopped shaving so that my burly mountaineer's beard can provide some measure of protection against the harsh elements down here. Now that's it's growing out, I'm discovering that I have a bunch of gray hairs in my beard. What the hell?!?

Shower Counter

For those of you keeping track at home, I took my first shower in 10 days last night. And oh was it sweet...

A Real Post From the Pole

Well, the windchill is -40F, but I'm sitting inside with some tea and finally have a free minute of satellite time to sit down and write about the last week. Let’s start all the way back at last Wednesday. On Wednesday, we flew down to McMurdo, about a five hour flight from New Zealand. The flight was actually perfect—smoother than the flight across the Pacific to New Zealand was. We landed at McMurdo on the frozen sea-ice, and it was so smooth we weren’t even sure when we touched down. Here's me just after getting off the plane:



I mentioned before that there was a congressional delegation on our flight. They were mostly members of the House Science Committee and the Ways and Means Committee as well as the Deputy Director of the NSF. It’s funny how well these people get treated. They get shiny brand new bags, while ours are all faded and beat up. They don’t even have to carry their own bags (I think you can see someone picking up their bags in the photo above). They board at the last minute, and they get the nicest seats up front. They continued on to the South Pole with us, so we actually got to talk to them quite a bit. More on that below…

McMurdo was nice, but nowhere near as amazing as last time. First off, let me just get this out of the way. I didn’t see any penguins. Zero. Zilch. So there will be no penguin souvenirs. Maybe I'll be luckier on the way out. The chances are better then, since the icebreaker will have come in and cleared a channel already. So keep your fingers crossed for me. Second, the souvenir shop was closed. What the hell. I came all the way down to Antarctica and couldn’t even buy a f*ing t-shirt.

Thursday morning we left for the Pole early. There were maybe 30 people on our flight, about half of them from this congressional delegation. Most of us got a chance to shoot the shit with them. Nogg, I spent some time talking to one of your representatives from the fair state of Nebraska. There was a woman from Cali and a few stereotypically dirty congressmen from Tennessee and Louisiana.

It was funny though. A bunch of us had just been discussing how badly science fared in the recently passed budget. High energy physics (including Fermilab) got crushed, and they actually pulled the US out of an international treaty for this big fusion energy project. So a couple of us asked the congress-people about this. And none of them knew that it had even happened. I might not expect your average congressman to be up on the science news, but these people are one the science committee, for God’s sake. What are they doing with their time if they don’t even read the bills they’re passing?

Well, we found out the answer when we got down here. They were more interested in playing golf than in their two hour whirlwind tour of the Pole before they got back on the plane. The guy from Tennessee reacted to the altitude so badly (we’re at 10,000 feet after all) that he had to be put on an oxygen tank. That didn’t stop him though. He was out there, golfing away, oxygen tank and all. The medical people were actually really concerned since his oxygen tubes were starting to freeze up. Guess that explains why they couldn’t be bothered to read the science budget…

Once again, I'm staying in a Korean-War-era tent (think MASH) a few minutes walk from the main station. I had a little trouble getting acclimated to the altitude (some lightheadedness, dizziness, etc.) but I already feel better acclimated than I ever did last year. At least I can walk up the stairs. And things are actually a little bit more relaxing this year than last. I have less to do, and I know what to expect. So I think I'll be able to get my Economist side projects done without arousing the suspicion of my bosses down here.

One last photo. It may be hard to see, but there's a beautiful rainbow around the sun from floating ice crystals:

Yes Mom, I'm Still Alive

Wow. It's been a long time since I've posted. I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for my next report. It's been an eventful few days, including my flight to McMurdo and then on to the Pole (among my co-travellers was a distinguished congressional delegation. I've got much, much more to say about that...)

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait just a teeny, tiny bit longer for the full story. There have been problems with the satellite connection at Pole, so I've been without the luxury of the internet for awhile now. Fortunately, the problem seems to be fixed, and I'm in the process of transitioning to night shift, so I should once again be basking in the warm glow of the Internet soon. I'll give a more full report (with pictures) sometime tomorrow...

P.S. I just found out that I'm getting to write a five article series of diary articles for the Economist's website. Should be fun. And should be a good chance to recycle some of the material from this blog...

Stopping to Smell the Roses

Today was a pretty relaxing day, culminating in a stroll through the botanic gardens. I figured I'd better get a whiff of the roses since I'm about to enter the land without smells. Well, I should say the land without pleasant smells. Of course there are plenty of disgusting, unshowered human smells.

We're supposed to report at oh-six-hundred tomorrow morning for the flight down there. If all goes well, I'll be writing next from Antarctica...

Deja Vu All Over Again

Well, here I am sitting in Christchurch again. I thought about calling this post "The First Shall Be Last" when I realized that I arrived in New Zealand on the first day of 2007 and then again today, the last day of 2007. But this surreal deja vu feeling I've been having all day won out.

Every step along the way of this trip so far has been similar but subtly different than last year. I feel like I'm in a dream or somehow reliving the past. I'm staying in the same bed and breakfast with the same friendly owners (and the same dog sleeping on the porch). My room is one door down from my room last year. I'm walking around Christchurch seeing the same shops and restaurants, knowing my way without needing a map. I spent the morning at the clothing distribution center again getting all the same cold weather gear from all the same Kiwi workers. It's almost like the last year hasn't passed. Of course, I'll be lucky if I still have this deja vu feeling when I'm staring at hundreds of penguins again in McMurdo, but I'm not holding my breath.

After reading some of my old blog posts from the end of my trip last year, I'm remembering just how miserable I was and just how much I wasn't expecting to be coming back down here. That's part of the reason this all feels so weird. But slowly, the excitement is creeping back in. I think when I get hit with that first blast of Antarctic air it'll be back (at least for awhile, before every last ounce of energy gets sucked out of me completely at Pole and I'm left with nothing but a vacant stare...)

We're scheduled to leave Christchurch for McMurdo on January 2nd. Tonight, though, is New Year's Eve. Some of you may remember my tortured post last year on New Year's and the international dateline, but there's no need to worry about anything like that this year. Ryan and I will be out on the town having a good time (if we can stay awake, that is...) Happy New Year's everyone!!

Free At Last, Free At Last

Thank God Almighty I'm free at last. It's been a surprisingly hectic last few days, but I'm here in Christchurch again. I said peace-out to the Pole Thursday afternoon:




The weather was a little iffy, so we were nervous about not making it out, but in the end it was good enough to fly. We had an interesting experience on the flight out. I mentioned awhile back that the altitude at Pole is at around 10,000 feet. Right after we took off, there was a loud whining sound in the plane (the military flights are always an assault on the ears). Anyway, my co-worker Keith realized that they were pressurizing the cabin, so he took out his GPS, which has an altimeter on it. Here's the video . Since we started out so high, even though the plane is ascending, the altimeter shows that we're going down as the cabin pressurizes. You could immediately notice the difference. Oxygen at last!!

Landing back in McMurdo was such an amazing experience after the Pole. The weather was a balmy 32 F, and the mountains and open ocean and icebergs after a month of nothing but white expanse was a site for sore eyes. It was a little overwhelming, actually. The oxygen combined with a galley full of hundreds of people combined to make me feel a little out of it--dizzy and confused at the hubub around me. Man, I'd been isolated for far too long. We had some wine in the wine bar (McMurdo is a spa compared to the Pole), which cleared my head a little bit, and then I went to bed.

The next day I woke up early and headed out to Hut Point where I'd seen all the penguins on my way in. It was pretty dramatically different--all open ocean where before there had been sea ice. The icebreakers had done their job, and the resupply vessel was safely offloading its cargo in the port. So alas, no penguins, but I did get another pleasant surprise--Minke whales. You couldn't see all that much, but occassionally a group would surface and blow a spray of water up into the air.

In the afternoon, we climbed Observation Hill, this sharp volcanic hill that has an amazing panorama of McMurdo sound--the ice, the mountains, Mt. Erebus (the southernmost active volcano in the world), etc. etc. Here's a photo of me at the top:



Our C-17 flight left around 9, which meant we got into Christchurch after it was dark. Seeing darkness for the first time in a month was quite an experience, though it was quicklly overwhelmed by smell. I had heard this, but I didn't really think about it: There are no smells in Antarctica. There are no plants, no pollen, nothing alive. When we landed, it was a little bit wet, and the first thing I noticed were all the smells around me. Finally there was life around me again.

Yesterday and today have been consumed by the complete pursuit of pleasure--drinking coffee outside and reading the paper, dozing along a river bank in the sun while feeling the grass beneath my bare toes, drinking tons and tons of beer while watching the Bears embarass Chicago, etc. etc. I'm renting a car tomorrow, and Justin arrives after that. We'll be road-tripping it and hiking for a week, then I head to Melbourne for a week and Sydney for a week after that. It's Michelangelo-On-Vacation until the end of the month...

I'm Out...

Well, the day has finally come. I'm off to McMurdo today and then Christchurch tomorrow. I'm longing for some humidity, a breath of fully oxygenated air, and the chance to heal (I've had a cut on my finger that's been open for 30 days now. Sweet.) A few more photos to take before I head out. Hopefully the penguins will be back in McMurdo upon my return...

How to Relax at the South Pole

My Last Few Days

Well, I'm officially exhausted. After another 24 hour shift, some serious whiskey drinking, and another switch from night shift to day shift (hopefully the last), I think I'm officially on the verge of losing my mind. Thank God I'm leaving the South Pole the day after tomorrow. As of now, I'm scheduled to be in Christchurch three days from now, but there's a chance I may stay in McMurdo for the weekend to work on my Economist article. Which would be cool, since then I'd get to watch the Super Bowl from Antarctica (and which, apparently, guarentees that the Bears will win.) Anyway, I couldn't be more ready to leave. I'll post some funny last minute photos tomorrow....

Moving Poles

I thought I'd write in today with your friendly geography lesson for the week. We had a discussion today about moving poles, and that reminded me that I had been meaning to post on that for awhile now...

I took this photo in the cockpit of the C-130 on our flight from McMurdo to the Pole. If you look closely over the co-pilot's knee, you'll see the plane's electronic compass. And if you look really closely, you'll notice it says that we're flying North, not South. "What the?!", you might be asking yourself. "I thought you were going to the South Pole." Well, it turns out that the magnetic South Pole (the one on a compass) and the geographical South Pole (the point around which the Earth spins) are not in the same spot. The magnetic South Pole is quite a ways from here, and it's moving further away each year (the magnetic poles are moving pretty quickly and will eventually change place. Don't know when that's supposed to happen...) During our flight, we had already passed the magnetic South Pole, so technically, we were flying north again. At the magnetic South Pole, any direction you go in is north.

Funny geopolitical fact: After the U.S. established this base at the geographical pole, the Russians got pissed and wanted a piece of the action too. So they built Vostok station at what was then the magnetic pole. Unfortunately for them, it's not there anymore. Gotta love the Cold War.

You'll notice something else interesting in this photo at the geographic pole. I have no idea what Justin's trying to do with the Pole marker, but if you look back into the distance, you'll see a series of othe poles (and ice sculptures). Those poles are there because every year the location of the pole changes. While it feels like the ground underneath my feet is pretty stable, I'm actually sitting on top of a huge moving ice sheet. Ever year, the ice sheet flows a little bit downhill towards the ocean. The rock underneath it stays in the same place, so the actual geographic pole stays in the same place, but the place on the surface that's over the pole changes. Every New Year's, there's a ceremony here where they install a new pole. But I guess, technically, a few minutes later the Pole is no longer where that pole is... I think in a few years the Pole is going to intersect the station. Who knows--maybe the ceremonial marker will be sitting on top of someone's desk.