Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

The National Science Foundation's U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) has a large center at the Christ Church airport. Clothing for those headed to "the ice" is issued there.

So what DO YOU pack when you’re headed to the very bottom of the world??

Little clothing surprisingly!

Most of my winter clothing will not suit for Antarctica and instead when I get to Christ Church, I will be outfitted with the polar clothing. I did spend 50$ on special long underwear. I will be given much heavier long johns when I get to Christchurch but this is for those “warm days’ at McMurdo.

McMurdo is actually not bad in high summer. Highs can reach near freezing. The South Pole is much different.  If it gets above -20F that is a warm day. The permanent residents consider anything above -30 a warm day!

Antarctica is a HUGE place. About the size of the Continental USA and almost entirely covered by over 2 miles of ice. It’s also completely surrounded by ocean. No other continent is situated in this way, and that ocean isolates the weather in Antarctica.

If you thought the North Pole and the South Pole had similar weather you would be very wrong. The South Pole in high summer is just a little warmer than the North Pole in Winter. The ocean and all that ice, along with an elevation of nearly 3km’s is why.

What you have to wear on the flight from Christ Church to McMurdo! Image courtesy Scientist Herman Kolanoski

So what am I taking?

Three still cameras. Two digital SLR’s and one pocket camera that shoots HD video. I’m also taking a Panasonic AVCHD camera that shoots gorgeous high definition video. The files are huge and it takes a very expensive editing software just to view them properly. So, I will have about 100 gigabytes with of special SD cards with me.

The other must haves are back up batteries for all those cameras. Chargers as well. The cold will make a battery that lasts two hours last 5 minutes. Chemical hand warmers are hopefully going to keep those batteries warm until needed.

A special bit of advice that I’m taking very seriously is to put my cameras in a plastic bag when I come inside. The cameras will be cold soaked and moisture will want to condense on the internal parts, causing havoc. I plan on making sure I do just that.

The three cameras are mine. The TV station bought the  special HD video camera for the trip. It is light weight, small and as I said, shoots incredibly good video. I bought insurance for that!

I hope to be able to post the story of my adventure with pics and video here. McMurdo has decent internet but when I am at the WAIS site or at the Pole the internet will be very poor. Much of my time will be at McMurdo so I should have frequent posts!

If you post any questions, I will gladly try and answer them and that goes for students and classes as well. I may even try and do a Skype video with a few classrooms. Email me at dansat@gmail.com if you would like to and I will try my best.

Dan

An unknown viewer sent me this today.

Whoever you are, many thanks!

For those who read this journal from outside of the Tennessee Valley- the other characters are my fellow Meteorologists here at WHNT TV. Tiny Tim is my News Director!

Did you get a gift certificate for Christmas?

Amazon, Barnes and Noble?

Borders perhaps?

Here are my suggestions for some of the best reads related to science, climate change and meteorology. I have written about these books in previous blogs, but this time you have money in your pocket!

Let’s start with weather:

Rough Guide to Weather by Robert Henson
The AMS Weather Book by Jack Williams

These two books alone answer just about every weather question I have ever heard. Believe me when I tell you that is saying something!

These two really are THE BEST out there for ages 12 -99. I know of few meteorologists who do not have one or both.

The best books on Climate Science are  IMHO:
The Two Mile Time Machine by Richard Alley
The Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson

You don’t need a degree in advanced mathematics to understand them and they are spot on as far as the science goes. Jut a few days ago, I linked to a lecture given by  Richard Alley at the AGU conference just last week. It was one of those “how we know what we know” talks that I think anyone would find interesting.

Full disclosure: Robert Henson (Bobby) is a friend of mine. Jack Williams is an “email friend”.

Best books on science in General:
The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan
Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing by Richard Dawkins

The book by Sagan is now considered a classic must read. He saw the war on science as the first shots were fired and it worried him greatly. Based on the events of the past 4 years, he was right to worry. Arm yourself with some real knowledge from one of the greatest teachers of science ever.

Dawkins book is a collection of some of the best writings about science from the greatest in the field. I grabbed the book on a lark and was not disappointed!

There are some other great books and I mentioned them last summer here.

A week from tonight, I’ll be on my way to Antarctica. Ann Posegate of NEEF, and I are about to embark on a trip that will take us to the bottom of the World, and to the South Pole itself. Our  goal is to share the journey and the science with those of you who read these ramblings on science. For students who are thinking of a career in Science, we hope you will see that the process of discovery is not just wearing a white lab coat and sitting in an office all the time!

Glen Kinoshita works at the South pole and did an incredible time lapse of a full moon with a spectacular Aurora Australis!

To understand the world, we have to observe it.  That means doing science in places that are very inhospitable. Antarctica is the only continent on Earth that humans have not naturally inhabited. Even today the residents are mainly there to support science. The National Science Foundation has given us the very rare opportunity to see places that very few people will see except on TV or in books.

The video below is the last plane out from the Pole before the long dark winter sets in. Only about 50 people stay through the long winter. They endure 24 hours of darkness and temps. around -90F. Only in an extreme emergency can someone be evacuated out during this time.

Visitors have been increasing rapidly around the edges and especially in the Antarctic Peninsula.  This is a real worry because humans have a very bad habit of loving a place to death. The harsh conditions there will give protection but not forever. Antarctica belongs to no country. It’s not even the property of the humans who live on this planet. It belongs to all the life on this planet.

Let’s keep it that way.

This is a video by Anthony Powell that speaks for itself:

And finally Keith Beattie walks on a warm day (-22F) from the Amundsen Scott station to the South Pole.

The place, the people and the science is a story that needs to be told.  I hope I can do that while inspiring those who will someday take up the mantle of science at the bottom of the world in the great white quiet.

I leave you with my personal favourite- no self respecting meteorologist could not possibly just LOVE this video!!

I just finished watching one of the best lectures on climate change ever.

Dr. Richard Alley of Penn. State gave the Bjerknes lecture at the AGU (American Geophysical Union) meeting in San Francisco this past week. This AGU meeting is the biggest scientific meeting in America, and likely the World each year. If I weren’t getting ready to head to Antarctica in 10 days to see the very ice cores he talks of, I would have been there.

Richard Alley’s book THE TWO MILE TIME MACHINE is a MUST read for anyone interested in the history and future of the Earth’s climate. It’s a must read if you just want to know HOW we know, what we know, about the deep past.

I linked to this lecture at the end of my last post, but it’s so superb, it deserves more than just a mention. It deserves a headline. For those who cannot spare the hour, but will take 5 minutes, I’ll write a summary of the talk soon here, but really, take the time to watch it.

It’s a riveting history of Earth’s climate and what caused the dramatic changes in it.

Click the image below to go to the AGU lecture page. I’m a proud member of the AGU and this is one reason why.

Dr. Richard Alley's talk at the AGU in San Francisco on how CO2 has controlled our climate for eons.