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.
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?
