Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

While in New Zealand waiting for the weather to clear in Antarctica, I met a gentleman named Mike Davis. We got to talking while looking at the view from the top of the Christchurch Gondola. It turns out that he is a Chicago college prof who did something really cool. Something right up my alley!

He constructed the world’s LARGEST PERIODIC TABLE!

World's Largest Periodic Table on the Daley Center in Chicago 2006.

Mike Davis sporting his Periodic Tattoo. The element Zinc of course!

Turns out that Mike made a promise. If his students could raise enough money to get the table installed, he would get a tattoo of one of the elements!

Did he keep his promise??

Yes indeed he did. (To his wife’s dismay she told me!)

There is another periodic table available that is totally cool. All you need is a computer to use it.

This comes under the category of why didn’t someone think of this before??

The site is

http://www.ptable.com/

Click the link and check it out!

I am a proud member of the International Association of Broadcast Meteorologists. Many of us who do weather on TV and radio realise that we may very well be the only person of science the average person sees each day. Those of us in the IABM take that responsibility very seriously. We strive to give accurate information on not only weather but on science in general.

Paul Gross of the IABM and the chair of the AMS Station Science Committee has an excellent editorial in the most recent issue of the IABM journal UP FRONT. (Full disclosure- Paul is a friend, and I am a member of the committee)

Here is a well reasoned and fact based look at the issue. I deserved wider dissemination than just us TV science types.

Click image for full pdf.

I have my own little mention in the UP FRONT. It is a summary of my trip to Antarctica. You can read it below.

Click to read. TV types- you should consider applying for membership in the IABM.

Trust me on this. Don’t email your local meteorologist and say something like “What do you think of global warming now with all these blizzards?” You will come across rather silly if not down right ignorant.

Why?

Let’s think about it for a minute. Consider a few things before we jump to the keyboard. My grandmother always said you can’t say something silly if you keep your mouth shut. Something I have learned the hard way far too many times.

Yes, it has been the snowiest winter on record in Washington DC. Pretty bad in Boston and the Big Apple too. Those cities are less than 600 km apart. The planet is about 40,000 km around at the equator. The weather in the Northeast USA is not usually representative of the planet as a whole. Climate change IS affecting the entire planet though.

The Winter Olympics start Friday in Vancouver. They have been trucking in snow, because it has been so unusually warm! That’s no surprise either, because when Mother Nature brings the cold down to one part of the planet, she almost always compensates somewhere else.

Satellite derived temperatures worldwide from analysis done at UAH in Huntsville. (Note that their method of analysis usually runs cooler than a similar analysis done by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in Cal.)

You might wonder just what the planets temperature is right now??

The answer is unusually warm.

We just finished one of the warmest years on the instrumental record. The satellite measurements of the lower troposphere (The bottom part of the atmosphere where weather occurs) are actually indicating the warmest temps ever recorded using this method. The January surface data from NASA/NCDC is days away and I will lay odds it is near all time levels for January.

Another fact to consider is that weather and climate are two different things. If the temp. continues to warm another 4C by the year 2100, we will still have all time record lows and we will still have blizzards. The blizzards may not be as frequent, but they may very well have a lot more snow.

The reason is simple thermodynamics. Warmer air can “hold” more water vapor. The IPCC has estimated that the atmosphere has 4% more water vapor in it now than 40 years ago because of the warming we have already experienced. Even in a warmer world we will still see all time record lows. The all time record highs will far outnumber them though.

Click to read Meteorologist Jeff Masters explanation of Heavy Snowfall in A Warming World

Doctor Jeff Masters is a Meteorologist who writes an excellent blog on the Weather Undergound site. He has a very good explanation of this on his latest post. Click the image and read it. I bet you will think twice before typing that email to your local weather geek afterwards.

That's me in the hydroponics unit at the South Pole. I was asking questions for some Huntsville Students competing in a national science competition.

A little story for you.

I’m on the board of our great science museum, SCI Quest, here in Huntsville. Just before my trip to the South Pole, I found out about a project some students were doing with help from Sci Quest. I was asked if  it might be possible to get some info or pictures of a greenhouse in Antarctica for them.

Lane Patterson operates the vegetable grow unit at Amundsen - Scott Station at the South Pole.

The students are involved in an eCybermission project on hydroponics. This is a free web based science, math,engineering and technology competition for students grade 6-9. When I saw what they were working on, I promised to try and bring back something for them.

So four weeks and 13,000 miles later, I’m walking down to eat dinner at Amundsen Scott Station at the South Pole, and guess what I see?? A hydroponics greenhouse! Dinner was delayed while I grabbed my cameras. Best of all, the operator of the unit Lane Patterson was there!

Lane calls this the vegetable growth unit and it’s not just for science. It provides fresh vegetables to the researchers and support staff wintering over at the South Pole. No planes can reach the Pole during the long polar night, and this is the only supply of fresh vegetables available.

Lane works out of the University of Arizona with the Controlled Environment Agricultural Center. They received a grant from the National Science Foundation to build and operate the unit. Lane is employed by Raytheon Polar Services the NSF civilian contractor to operate the unit.

So, take a look and see how it works , and how Lane grows things from 9,000 miles away in another desert – Arizona.

Oh, and yes, the students at Sci Quest will have this video and more.

Me at the entry sign into McMurdo.

I’ve spent one day and zero nights here at the bottom of the World now. Before bed last night I walked to building 155 to get  midnight rations in the cafeteria. The sun was shining high above the dirt main street that is McMurdo Station.

Midnight rats, as they call it, was delicious. The NSF has kindly given me a distinguished visitor pass so I can eat right at midnight instead of waiting until 12:30 when all of those who are not working an overnight shift can eat. The food is free and plentiful. The cold and hard work means you have a very high metabolism. 4,000 calorie per day diets are the norm for many and at the pole, where it’s MUCH colder and higher, a 6,000 calorie a day diet is common.

Brian Johnson explains putting up a tent in Antarctic conditions. Josh Landis of CBS on right. We were standing on Snow (on top of sea ice) on the McMurdo Ice Shelf..

Today was survival school. It lasted all day. It’s mandatory for anyone going to the inland sites away from the bases at McMurdo or South Pole. Since we are going to the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf drill site, and the Dry Valleys, our group of 8 were required to do the course.

Brian Johnson of the McMurdo staff was our instructor and he was a fountain of fabulous information.  I learned info that may save my life someday, although I hope I never need it.

Memorial at Hut Point to member of the British Antarctic Expedition. Mcmurdo Ice shelf behind me. Pic taken at 1125PM.

Afterwards we drove in the snow bus for an hour to a spot on Ross Island called “room with a view”. I’m not even close to being a good enough writer to describe it- but I took pics!

Let’s just say that I have never seen anything like it, and unless you have been here- you haven’t either!

Everyone here works very hard. Support staff outnumber scientists and researchers by five to one. It takes a lot to survive here. The living quarters are very spartan. I have a tiny bed and a tiny desk. No light in the room. (It’s light all the time so not really needed.) My room mate is one of the survival school instructors.

The main thing you do is sweat.

Really! I kid you not.

Our transport onto the ice shelf. It took about 20 minutes from McMurdo, but we drove another hour out to a spot called "room with a view".

See, you have to keep your ECW (Extreme Weather Clothing) gear nearby when going away from the base. Depending on the weather, you usually get hot and sweaty walking in the heavy bunny boots. The ECW kit is very good. You do stay warm, but it takes awhile to get the right amount of layers. When you exert yourself, the needed layers change!

Warnings are posted everywhere about not getting dehydrated. EVERYWHERE.

You can think of McMurdo as a kind of busy mining town surrounded by nothing. I mean nothing. Empty and quiet and very bright white. Intensely beautiful. Amazingly beautiful and vast.

A Skua flying over us at lunch. They are the scavengers of the Antarctic.

More than any picture can convey.

There are Penguins and Leopard Seals and Skuas (The scavenger bird of Antarctica) The wildlife have no fear of humans at all, but disturbing them in anyway is strictly prohibited. The Antarctic Treaty is followed to the letter and spirit, with the the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. If it can be recycled it is. Trash that has to be burned is shipped to Port Hueneme California and incinerated. 65% of waste at McMurdo is recycled.

This is the greenest town on Earth bar none. McMurdo sets a fabulous example for the rest of the world.

I saved the biggest news for last!

Tomorrow is Sunday here ( I wrote this at 830pm Saturday night here in Mac Town.) At 2pm Sunday out on the Mcmurdo Ice Shelf is the annual New Zealand (Scott Base) vs USA  (McMurdo Base) Rugby game. They play in the snow on frozen ocean. Wearing bunny boots!

The view from Hut Point. About a 10 minute walk from my room. Robert Falcon Scott's 1902 hut is just a few steps away. I will show pics of that tomorrow!

In case you do not know, Rugby is wildly popular among the Kiwis and they play it very well. The American team has NEVER won. Actually the McMurdo team has never scored a point!

So tomorrow at 2pm I will cover my first sporting event! Pics and video to come!! (Trust me if you are wagering, bet on the Kiwis! (everyone here is!)

Dan

McMurdo Science Base, Antarctica

22:42 Saturday 9 January 2010