Friday, November 11, 2011
Fishing in Antarctica!
Current Temp Ambient: 18 Windchill: 5
Windspeed (knots): 14
Sunrise: Negatory
Sunset: Nope
A friend of mind down here is a scientist working on a fish project. Yesterday she ran into some scuba divers who offered to film her fishing from under the ice. The video shows an number of interesting things:
a) she needs to work on her technique;
b) the absolute clarity of the water down here;
c) the diverse and dense wildlife in the Ross Sea; and
d) the Sea Ice from underneath.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5PDgCgX0AoY
Enjoy!
Friday, November 4, 2011
SEALS!
Current Temp Ambient: 14 Windchill: 3
Windspeed (knots): 6
Sunrise: irrelevant
Sunset irrelevant
Finally some early summer action with Weddell Seals! Yesterday on our way out to the Ice Runway a young seal was in the road, poor thing seemed lost and confused and should have been with it's mother. We had a big 2 day snow storm, it must have lost it's hole. By the time I came back from the runway, it was gone so hopefully it got back where it needed to be. The first video is that young seal and a man who was WAY too close. We are not supposed to impact the behavior of the animals at all down here. If they approach us, we need to slowly back away, but this man was excited and getting really close to the scared seal. You can sort of hear me trying to politely tell him to back away.
These videos are from my coworker Ricky (the one who saw the penguin!) who went Ice Fishing with a scientist yesterday and they had a visit from a seal. The scientists drill holes in the Sea Ice so they can access teh water, and then carpenters build fishing huts that are warm on the inside around the holes so they can fish, go diving, etc...This seal used the hole to breathe for a bit. Normally seals have to use their teeth to make their own holes from under the sea ice, but this one was smart and used the hole the scientists made. After they come up to breathe and can then stay underwater for around 30 minutes to fish!
Pretty cool!
Windspeed (knots): 6
Sunrise: irrelevant
Sunset irrelevant
Finally some early summer action with Weddell Seals! Yesterday on our way out to the Ice Runway a young seal was in the road, poor thing seemed lost and confused and should have been with it's mother. We had a big 2 day snow storm, it must have lost it's hole. By the time I came back from the runway, it was gone so hopefully it got back where it needed to be. The first video is that young seal and a man who was WAY too close. We are not supposed to impact the behavior of the animals at all down here. If they approach us, we need to slowly back away, but this man was excited and getting really close to the scared seal. You can sort of hear me trying to politely tell him to back away.
These videos are from my coworker Ricky (the one who saw the penguin!) who went Ice Fishing with a scientist yesterday and they had a visit from a seal. The scientists drill holes in the Sea Ice so they can access teh water, and then carpenters build fishing huts that are warm on the inside around the holes so they can fish, go diving, etc...This seal used the hole to breathe for a bit. Normally seals have to use their teeth to make their own holes from under the sea ice, but this one was smart and used the hole the scientists made. After they come up to breathe and can then stay underwater for around 30 minutes to fish!
Pretty cool!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
PENGUIN!
Current Temp Ambient: 1 Windchill: -27
Windspeed (knots): 13
Sunrise: 0227
Sunset: 0116
My coworker Ricky, who is new this season, got to see an emperor penguin this morning on his way to the ice runway!
He (the penguin, not Ricky) is schootching himself along on his belly using his feet to propel himself, it's called toboggining, and they can really move quickly (unlike this poor fella).
Enjoy!
Friday, October 21, 2011
A much overdue update
Current Temp Ambient: -2 Windchill: -22
Wind speed (knots): 13
Sunrise: 3:12 AM
Sunset: 12:02 AM
¡Hola niñas y niños! Perdona que hace tanto tiempo desde he escrito, pero he estado bien ocupada con el trabajo.
Hi Kids! Apologies for not writing much lately, I've been so busy with work, and that stuff is just plain boring to write about, and even more boring for you to read about. But the weather is starting to get nicer, and as that happens, the sea ice starts to melt, which means that the seals and penguins have easier access to fish closer to McMurdo! So soon I'll be blogging and posting pics about the seals, then about skua birds, and finally, sometime around Christmas, hopefully, PENGUINS!
I said a lot of stuff in that first paragraph that you probably want some background on.
Weather getting nicer -
Antarctica is in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet. That means that our seasons are opposite, so your fall is our spring, your winter is our summer. As it gets colder for you, it gets warmer for us! Here is a link to a video from Youtube that explains that the earth's axis is tilted and how that effects which hemisphere is warm or cold, and when:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuiQvPLWziQ
If you want to know how cold it can get here, check out this link to 2 videos of coffee freezing in mid air when it was -81 degrees out a few weeks ago! That's me throwing the coffee in the first video, and my friend Dave in the YouTube link
http://jonionice.blogspot.com/2011/09/current-temp-ambient-33-windchill-65.html
Sea Ice -
During the winter in Antarctica, it can get as cold as -50, -100, or even colder! (Make sure to read the blog entry called "And now for the good stuff, actual Antarctica!" so you have a better understand of why exactly it's so darn cold here.) During this super cold time of year, the ocean actually freezes! This year the Sea Ice is about 6 feet thick, and we actually land airplanes on the sea ice!
Here is a picture of our airport on ice, called the Ice Runway. I was out there the other day setting up and fixing some computers for the workers out there.
As the sea ice starts to melt in December/January (the middle of our summer), the seals and penguins have an easier time fishing around McMurdo, which means we have a much better chance of seeing them!
Work
Boring compared to seals and penguins, I know, but if you want to know what in the heck we are doing here, everyone here is either a scientist or here to help the scientists out in some capacity. There are about 150-200 scientists here, so the rest of us are all here to do something to help them out. There are about 1000 people here total. So about how many non-scientists does that make? If you are interested in fractions, maybe you can figure out the percentage of scientists to non-scientists here. But that is a pretty advanced math problem for 5th graders, so no worries if you don't know how to figure that out yet!
There are all sorts of jobs down here. We need buildings to live and work in right? What sorts of workers do you think we need to build and maintain all the buildings down here? And of course we need heat and electricity. How do you think we might get power? We also need water to drink, to shower in, and even for going to the bathroom. How do you think we get clean water? We also have to eat, how do you think we get our food? We also have to get around from place to place, sometimes with heavy stuff to carry. What sorts of vehicles do you think we have down here, and who builds the roads? I work in the IT (Information Technology) department, we maintain and help folks out with their computer problems. We also make sure the phones and the internet work.
All that just to have a town for the scientists to come to! I'll talk about the scientists in another blog entry.
Here is a picture of McMurdo, our little town, that I took about 6 weeks ago when it was still dark more often that light during the day here. Now it's always light out, even at night! All that white between town and the mountains is Sea Ice.
OK, that was a lot of information, what questions do you have?
Wind speed (knots): 13
Sunrise: 3:12 AM
Sunset: 12:02 AM
¡Hola niñas y niños! Perdona que hace tanto tiempo desde he escrito, pero he estado bien ocupada con el trabajo.
Quiero que sepan que hablo español, pero desfortunadamente hoy no tengo tiempo para escribir en ingles y en español. Pero cualquieres preguntas que tienen, por favor escribalas en español si prefieren y se las contesto en español. Tambien, en el futuro cuando tengo mas tiempo, escribiré en los dos idiomas.
Ojala que intienden el ingles, si no, avisame y escribiré todo el blog en español también.
¡Estoy emocionada de conocerles a todos!
Hi Kids! Apologies for not writing much lately, I've been so busy with work, and that stuff is just plain boring to write about, and even more boring for you to read about. But the weather is starting to get nicer, and as that happens, the sea ice starts to melt, which means that the seals and penguins have easier access to fish closer to McMurdo! So soon I'll be blogging and posting pics about the seals, then about skua birds, and finally, sometime around Christmas, hopefully, PENGUINS!
I said a lot of stuff in that first paragraph that you probably want some background on.
Weather getting nicer -
Antarctica is in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet. That means that our seasons are opposite, so your fall is our spring, your winter is our summer. As it gets colder for you, it gets warmer for us! Here is a link to a video from Youtube that explains that the earth's axis is tilted and how that effects which hemisphere is warm or cold, and when:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuiQvPLWziQ
If you want to know how cold it can get here, check out this link to 2 videos of coffee freezing in mid air when it was -81 degrees out a few weeks ago! That's me throwing the coffee in the first video, and my friend Dave in the YouTube link
http://jonionice.blogspot.com/2011/09/current-temp-ambient-33-windchill-65.html
Sea Ice -
During the winter in Antarctica, it can get as cold as -50, -100, or even colder! (Make sure to read the blog entry called "And now for the good stuff, actual Antarctica!" so you have a better understand of why exactly it's so darn cold here.) During this super cold time of year, the ocean actually freezes! This year the Sea Ice is about 6 feet thick, and we actually land airplanes on the sea ice!
Here is a picture of our airport on ice, called the Ice Runway. I was out there the other day setting up and fixing some computers for the workers out there.
As the sea ice starts to melt in December/January (the middle of our summer), the seals and penguins have an easier time fishing around McMurdo, which means we have a much better chance of seeing them!
Work
Boring compared to seals and penguins, I know, but if you want to know what in the heck we are doing here, everyone here is either a scientist or here to help the scientists out in some capacity. There are about 150-200 scientists here, so the rest of us are all here to do something to help them out. There are about 1000 people here total. So about how many non-scientists does that make? If you are interested in fractions, maybe you can figure out the percentage of scientists to non-scientists here. But that is a pretty advanced math problem for 5th graders, so no worries if you don't know how to figure that out yet!
There are all sorts of jobs down here. We need buildings to live and work in right? What sorts of workers do you think we need to build and maintain all the buildings down here? And of course we need heat and electricity. How do you think we might get power? We also need water to drink, to shower in, and even for going to the bathroom. How do you think we get clean water? We also have to eat, how do you think we get our food? We also have to get around from place to place, sometimes with heavy stuff to carry. What sorts of vehicles do you think we have down here, and who builds the roads? I work in the IT (Information Technology) department, we maintain and help folks out with their computer problems. We also make sure the phones and the internet work.
All that just to have a town for the scientists to come to! I'll talk about the scientists in another blog entry.
Here is a picture of McMurdo, our little town, that I took about 6 weeks ago when it was still dark more often that light during the day here. Now it's always light out, even at night! All that white between town and the mountains is Sea Ice.
OK, that was a lot of information, what questions do you have?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
And now for the good stuff, actual Antarctica!
We finally made it here last week, and I apologize for not posting sooner from Antarctica, but I've been busy working and getting settled in since I got here.
So here is the scoop on the highest, driest, coldest, windiest, most desolate place on earth, Antarctica!
The continent of Antarctica is made up of land like any other continent, but about 98% of it is covered in ice and snow, most of it left over from the ice ages that started about 20 million years ago (that is older than your teachers and even your parents and grandparents!) The ice ages also lasted for millions of years, and during that time, the continent became covered in thousands of feet of snow, which turned mostly into ice.
Those of you who live in a snowy place like Colorado may know that snow doesn't just land evenly. After a big snow storm, sometimes there are huge drifts maybe 8 feet high in your yard, and maybe your neighbor only has 6 inches of snow because the wind blows the snow around, or maybe the snow gets stuck on one side of your house and the other side has none, right? If you live in a place that gets snowy in winter, keep an eye out when it snows and see if you notice different levels of snow in different places. Well that kept happening over and over for millions of years in Antarctica, so there are places with more ice or less ice.
Antarctica is the highest of the 7 continents because of the snow. So much snow has been piling up here for so long that it's actually made Antarctica taller! The south pole stands at around 9000 feet!
It's the driest place on earth because there are no rivers or lakes for water to evaporate from, so it never, ever rains and it very rarely snows from the sky (lots of snow blows around though!) Antarctica is actually a desert, if you can believe that, because it's too dry for any plants or trees to grow.
It's the windiest place on earth because the continent is highest in the middle due to that drifting I discussed earlier. The air flows down from the taller middle toward the lower coasts and creates wind. That is a very simplistic explanation, but a good thing to research with your teachers or parents!
Antarctica is the coldest place on earth due these things:
1. Because 98% of Antarctica is covered with snow and ice, the light and heat of the sun are reflected instead of absorbed.
2. Because it's so dry here, there is no moisture in the air, called vapor, to absorb the heat, so it all escapes.
3. During the winter, the size of Antarctica doubles because the ocean actually freezes and blocks heat from the warmer ocean all around the continent.
4. Because Antarctica is so high, it's cold, just like when you are on top of a mountain or in an airplane.
So here is the scoop on the highest, driest, coldest, windiest, most desolate place on earth, Antarctica!
The continent of Antarctica is made up of land like any other continent, but about 98% of it is covered in ice and snow, most of it left over from the ice ages that started about 20 million years ago (that is older than your teachers and even your parents and grandparents!) The ice ages also lasted for millions of years, and during that time, the continent became covered in thousands of feet of snow, which turned mostly into ice.
Those of you who live in a snowy place like Colorado may know that snow doesn't just land evenly. After a big snow storm, sometimes there are huge drifts maybe 8 feet high in your yard, and maybe your neighbor only has 6 inches of snow because the wind blows the snow around, or maybe the snow gets stuck on one side of your house and the other side has none, right? If you live in a place that gets snowy in winter, keep an eye out when it snows and see if you notice different levels of snow in different places. Well that kept happening over and over for millions of years in Antarctica, so there are places with more ice or less ice.
Antarctica is the highest of the 7 continents because of the snow. So much snow has been piling up here for so long that it's actually made Antarctica taller! The south pole stands at around 9000 feet!
It's the driest place on earth because there are no rivers or lakes for water to evaporate from, so it never, ever rains and it very rarely snows from the sky (lots of snow blows around though!) Antarctica is actually a desert, if you can believe that, because it's too dry for any plants or trees to grow.
It's the windiest place on earth because the continent is highest in the middle due to that drifting I discussed earlier. The air flows down from the taller middle toward the lower coasts and creates wind. That is a very simplistic explanation, but a good thing to research with your teachers or parents!
Antarctica is the coldest place on earth due these things:
1. Because 98% of Antarctica is covered with snow and ice, the light and heat of the sun are reflected instead of absorbed.
2. Because it's so dry here, there is no moisture in the air, called vapor, to absorb the heat, so it all escapes.
3. During the winter, the size of Antarctica doubles because the ocean actually freezes and blocks heat from the warmer ocean all around the continent.
4. Because Antarctica is so high, it's cold, just like when you are on top of a mountain or in an airplane.
And finally, Antarctica is the most desolate place on earth because who would want to live here? OK, there are a few of us who keep coming back, but nobody lives here all the time except for the wildlife. And we will get to that subject later on when it gets warm enough for us to see penguins and seals. But as for people not being here, way back when humans and pre-humans were migrating around the planet, the continents were in different places than they are now, but even then Antarctica was different. People were able to get from place to place on land or by sea, except for poor, lonely Antarctica. And even if people got here, they would't have survived for long without food, fuel, and constructions supplies being shlepped in. There is very little to eat, and nobody could survive here without shelter, heat, and lots of supplies, which are flown in by huge airplanes and also brought in on boats. I will talk about that in February though.
Poor Antarctica doesn't stand a chance of ever being like all of the other continents, but it's very important to the rest of the earth that it stays cold here!
Today it's -18 degrees, but I have lots of layers on, so I'm actually quite warm!
What is the temperature where you are? Do you have any questions so far?
Here is a nice picture of McMurdo Station, our little town, with the frozen ocean and then some beautiful
mountains in the background. Enjoy!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Getting from New Zealand to Antarctica
I'm still in New Zealand waiting for my flight to Antarctica. We are currently on a weather delay which means a storm is brewing, so we have to wait it out in Christchurch until it's safe to land in McMurdo.
This is a good opportunity to tell you about how we actually get to Antarctica. We will be flying on an Air Force jet called a C-17. Below is a picture of the inside of the C-17. We will land on what is called an airfield. There are actually a couple of different airfields in McMurdo, the biggest station on the continent and also my new home for the next six months. I thought as long as I'm waiting I'd send you a link to the live webcam in McMurdo: The USAP Portal: Science and Support in Antarctica - McMurdo Station Webcam
It looks pretty good to me but I'm sure if we could fly safely, we would be on the C17 aircraft right now! When we land today, we will use the airfield called Pegasus on the permanent ice shelf. What, you may be wondering, is the permanent ice shelf? Funny you should ask, I will tell you all about that when I get to McMurdo, whenever that is, it is up to nature so we just have to be patient and wait.
Any questions so far about New Zealand or the C-17?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Time travel? Not really, but we are about to miss an entire day
So here I am at Denver International Airport waiting for my first of 4 flights that will eventually get me to Antarctica. There are about 100 of people from all over the United States deploying at the same time. Our journeys may start all over the U.S., but we all end up in Los Angeles and take the same flight to Auckland, New Zealand together. It will be a long, long, long, long flight, and I'll tell you exactly how long shortly. But first, I used the word deploying a few sentences ago, does anyone have a parent or family member in the military? If you do, you may have heard that word before and maybe you can help your classmates learn what it means!
OK, so as far as this time travel (not really) thing goes, today is August 23rd, and I will arrive in New Zealand on August 25th. I leave Denver at 4:20 PM Mountain Time (GMT -6) on August 23rd, 2011, and I will arrive in Auckland, New Zealand (GMT +12) at approximately 8:00 AM on August 25th. My flights will go as follows:
8/23/2011 - 4:20 PM Denver to Los Angeles (L.A.), CA - 2 hour flight then a 6 hour layover in L.A. - Yowza! I am very thankful to whoever invented the Tablet PC!
8/23/2011 - 11:40 PM L.A. to Auckland, NZ - 13 hour flight -that sure is a lot of time to sleep, read, and watch movies, then sleep, then read, then watch more movies, hijole!
8/25/2011 - 8:10 AM Arrive Auckland, NZ then I have another short flight to Christchurch, where I will get ready to go to Antarctica for real! But that will be a blog entry for a different day.
So what in the heck will happen to August 24th?
I'll tell you what, it won't exist for any of us on that flight! Earlier I said "GMT - 6 and GMT +12", remember? GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time. Some of you may be wondering, can time be mean? Some say time is cruel, but that's really something entirely different. Do you think mean might mean something else? Oh no! How many things can that word mean? But I digress...you can learn all about GMT and the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Mean_Time and I'll let you send me your thoughts on the subject of August 24th and what missing it could mean for me. If someone's birthday is on August 24th, will they still be a year older?
OK, time to board my first flight to Los Angeles, next time I blog, I'll be a day ahead of you and in a very, very, very beautiful place, New Zealand!
Woo hoo!
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