Midnight Stroll
Hope this letter finds you well and happy.
I wrote a nice, long, incomprehensible e-mail last night. Like others before, it got deleted just after I read it. I see people sit in front of computers wanting to email home, only to wind up staring at the screen for ten minutes and walking away. That blob of light in the picture below is our whole world now. There are no mountains in the distance, no glaciers, no sea for them to flow to. Just a void - an endless, empty void that could, at any moment, reveal an aurora, a wayward seal, or a 130 mile-per-hour frozen scream.
Time has become little more than numbers on a clock. We're doing well enough down here, but even those of us (like me) who look ever-skyward, are discovering life here has challenges we never anticipated. One of them is a kind of mental fatigue that is very hard to explain. It's called the "thousand yard stare". It's that look you see on the faces of Arctic explorers in old, faded photographs. A lot of us are starting to get that look. I don't mean to seem melancholy. I'm every bit as excited as the first day I got here. I'm just finding it harder and harder to describe this experience.
Our darkest Antarctic day was June 21st, the winter solstice. My friend Keith took that picture of McMurdo from Observation Hill around lunchtime on June 21st. The haze you see is unusual. It was caused by a temperature inversion, when "warm" air sits over a layer of extremely cold air above the ice. Back home, you'd call it fog.
In the three weeks since the solstice, the sun has begun its long return from wherever the heck it went. It's still always dark, but at 1:00 PM the northern sky turns deep blue with a hint of blood red along the horizon. The moon used to stay up for two weeks at a time. Now - just one week a month. The rest of the time, the southern stars and the Southern Lights demarcate the sky.
Speaking of the Southern Lights. . . Three times I was invited to go hiking last week, and three times I felt too exhausted (or too cold) to go. And three times auroras danced the night away - big, bright, beautiful, twisting, fantastic ones. The lights of the station make it difficult to see auroras from town. I missed them all. You have to dress in pretty much everything you own and head out into the Deep Cold if you want to catch a good aurora. I may go out alone tonight, around midnight, and stroll down to the edge of the ice, away from the lights. The Auroral Index is sitting at 9. The best index is a 10.
The "Auroral Index" is a measure of possible auroras. I check the index every day. Amber Burton is also kind enough to email us whenever things look promising. Here is her most recent email:
> "Hello Sky Watchers... We had two major solar events occur yesterday. The first was an x-ray flare accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME). The second event was a very powerful (X1) proton flare. There is a lot of activity headed towards our magnetosphere. Hopefully, the winds will calm down so folks can head out and check the skies. (To check the Kp index go to the Satellite Environment Plot.) Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to range from quiet to minor storm levels. Occasional major storm periods are possible at high latitudes. The greater than 10 MeV proton event currently in progress is expected to continue through 15 July. Assuming no new injection of particles, this event will likely end by 16 July. Have a great Weekend! Amber" <
That's the kind of regular email traffic we get down here. A little different, but worth reading, especially if you're willing to brave the cold with your camera.
I don't have any of nature's southern lights to show you this time, so how about some man-made light? This is a science station, and although most science is done in the summer, some winter science goes on too. One example is the LIDAR, a laser which regularly shoots straight up from the laboratory to measure temperatures and cloud thickness in the upper atmosphere. Usually, the LIDAR beam is invisible because the air here is so clear, but during a temperature inversion (like the fog in the picture) the laser's beam shows up:
With each passing month in Antarctica, my respect for Shackleton only grows. We have it sooooo easy here these days, and still we struggle. The last three weeks have been stormy ones, with winds in town reaching 112mph (130 on the hilltops). Twelve foot snow drifts buried doors, windows, trucks and bulldozers. Last week at work, the station hit Condition One and the SAR team (Search and Rescue) had to come get us. We tied ourselves to a long rope, and 21 people dragged themselves single-file and half-blind through a blizzard. We could just make out live power lines, thick as my arm, lying in the street. Plenty of us wound up lying in the street too. It was all uphill, and by the time I reached the galley my parka was glued shut - the zipper encased in an inch of ice.
Here we are with the SAR team heading out from the power plant. I had to turn my camera off as I headed out the door:
Of course, that's all part of the experience, and I wouldn't have it any other way. As wonderful as she is, Antarctica does not return our love for her. Here's a pickup truck after the storm, it's the one with the red roof:
Before I go, I've got to include my next "Antarctic Explorer Of The Week". (Even though it's been 3 weeks)
ANTARCTIC EXPLORER OF THE WEEK: KEITH MARTIN
Keith is our project engineer at the power plant. He's a true explorer, having visited many hard-to-reach parts of this planet. He's also my friend, and the two of us have discussed trying to reach Shackleton's grave once we get to civilization. Both of us volunteered for the McMurdo Historical Society, and that sign he's holding is an artifact we found while taking inventory. McMurdo used to be powered by a nuclear reactor taken from a U.S. submarine. I really should write about that next time.
Well, time to go. It's 11:00 PM, and I have auroras to see before I sleep. There's a road with no name (none of the roads here have names) that winds down past the ice pier on its way to Hut Point. You can lean your back against the wood of Scott's Hut and block much of the light from town. Maybe that empty void out there will appreciate my company, and set the night sky on fire.
Stay warm:)
Mike
UNITED STATES ANTARCTIC PROGRAM
I wrote a nice, long, incomprehensible e-mail last night. Like others before, it got deleted just after I read it. I see people sit in front of computers wanting to email home, only to wind up staring at the screen for ten minutes and walking away. That blob of light in the picture below is our whole world now. There are no mountains in the distance, no glaciers, no sea for them to flow to. Just a void - an endless, empty void that could, at any moment, reveal an aurora, a wayward seal, or a 130 mile-per-hour frozen scream.
Time has become little more than numbers on a clock. We're doing well enough down here, but even those of us (like me) who look ever-skyward, are discovering life here has challenges we never anticipated. One of them is a kind of mental fatigue that is very hard to explain. It's called the "thousand yard stare". It's that look you see on the faces of Arctic explorers in old, faded photographs. A lot of us are starting to get that look. I don't mean to seem melancholy. I'm every bit as excited as the first day I got here. I'm just finding it harder and harder to describe this experience.
Our darkest Antarctic day was June 21st, the winter solstice. My friend Keith took that picture of McMurdo from Observation Hill around lunchtime on June 21st. The haze you see is unusual. It was caused by a temperature inversion, when "warm" air sits over a layer of extremely cold air above the ice. Back home, you'd call it fog.
In the three weeks since the solstice, the sun has begun its long return from wherever the heck it went. It's still always dark, but at 1:00 PM the northern sky turns deep blue with a hint of blood red along the horizon. The moon used to stay up for two weeks at a time. Now - just one week a month. The rest of the time, the southern stars and the Southern Lights demarcate the sky.
Speaking of the Southern Lights. . . Three times I was invited to go hiking last week, and three times I felt too exhausted (or too cold) to go. And three times auroras danced the night away - big, bright, beautiful, twisting, fantastic ones. The lights of the station make it difficult to see auroras from town. I missed them all. You have to dress in pretty much everything you own and head out into the Deep Cold if you want to catch a good aurora. I may go out alone tonight, around midnight, and stroll down to the edge of the ice, away from the lights. The Auroral Index is sitting at 9. The best index is a 10.
The "Auroral Index" is a measure of possible auroras. I check the index every day. Amber Burton is also kind enough to email us whenever things look promising. Here is her most recent email:
> "Hello Sky Watchers... We had two major solar events occur yesterday. The first was an x-ray flare accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME). The second event was a very powerful (X1) proton flare. There is a lot of activity headed towards our magnetosphere. Hopefully, the winds will calm down so folks can head out and check the skies. (To check the Kp index go to the Satellite Environment Plot.) Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to range from quiet to minor storm levels. Occasional major storm periods are possible at high latitudes. The greater than 10 MeV proton event currently in progress is expected to continue through 15 July. Assuming no new injection of particles, this event will likely end by 16 July. Have a great Weekend! Amber" <
That's the kind of regular email traffic we get down here. A little different, but worth reading, especially if you're willing to brave the cold with your camera.
I don't have any of nature's southern lights to show you this time, so how about some man-made light? This is a science station, and although most science is done in the summer, some winter science goes on too. One example is the LIDAR, a laser which regularly shoots straight up from the laboratory to measure temperatures and cloud thickness in the upper atmosphere. Usually, the LIDAR beam is invisible because the air here is so clear, but during a temperature inversion (like the fog in the picture) the laser's beam shows up:
With each passing month in Antarctica, my respect for Shackleton only grows. We have it sooooo easy here these days, and still we struggle. The last three weeks have been stormy ones, with winds in town reaching 112mph (130 on the hilltops). Twelve foot snow drifts buried doors, windows, trucks and bulldozers. Last week at work, the station hit Condition One and the SAR team (Search and Rescue) had to come get us. We tied ourselves to a long rope, and 21 people dragged themselves single-file and half-blind through a blizzard. We could just make out live power lines, thick as my arm, lying in the street. Plenty of us wound up lying in the street too. It was all uphill, and by the time I reached the galley my parka was glued shut - the zipper encased in an inch of ice.
Here we are with the SAR team heading out from the power plant. I had to turn my camera off as I headed out the door:
Of course, that's all part of the experience, and I wouldn't have it any other way. As wonderful as she is, Antarctica does not return our love for her. Here's a pickup truck after the storm, it's the one with the red roof:
Before I go, I've got to include my next "Antarctic Explorer Of The Week". (Even though it's been 3 weeks)
ANTARCTIC EXPLORER OF THE WEEK: KEITH MARTIN
Keith is our project engineer at the power plant. He's a true explorer, having visited many hard-to-reach parts of this planet. He's also my friend, and the two of us have discussed trying to reach Shackleton's grave once we get to civilization. Both of us volunteered for the McMurdo Historical Society, and that sign he's holding is an artifact we found while taking inventory. McMurdo used to be powered by a nuclear reactor taken from a U.S. submarine. I really should write about that next time.
Well, time to go. It's 11:00 PM, and I have auroras to see before I sleep. There's a road with no name (none of the roads here have names) that winds down past the ice pier on its way to Hut Point. You can lean your back against the wood of Scott's Hut and block much of the light from town. Maybe that empty void out there will appreciate my company, and set the night sky on fire.
Stay warm:)
Mike
UNITED STATES ANTARCTIC PROGRAM
posted by Mike Bair | 12:26 PM
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