As far south as you can go: What I am doing in Antarctica

A couple of people asked me to talk more about my project in Antarctica. So here you go:

I came here with the AWS group from Wisconsin - supporting the Automated Weather Stations (AWS) network. The AWS project was taken over by Wisconsin several decades ago and it has been expanding ever since. Every summer season a couple of members of the team go to the field and service weather stations. This year I am lucky enough to be a part of the team.

Here's how an AWS looks like:

(Kominko-Slade station near WAIS camp)

Each weather station is equipped with a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, aerovane measuring direction and speed of the wind and acoustic gauge to measure distance to the ground (i.e.. snow accumulation). Some stations have additional sensors, such as radiation measurements. Stations are powered by solar panels and batteries, which provide energy to the station during polar night. Each station is also equipped with an antenna and transmits all the data in real time via satellite.

The data from each station are available on the University of Wisconsin site and are used by various research communities. The data are also utilized in Antarctic forecast model, making it really useful for broader Antarctic community.

The network is quite elaborate with over 60 stations throughout the continent:

The red triangles on the map above are the station that University of Wisconsin group put up and maintain. The stations are autonomous for the most part, but every now and again they need a new battery or an instrument replacement. Also stations get buried under the snow in areas of high accumulation and need to be raised. The AWS network is also quite active, so every year we remove stations that are not needed and put up new station in new locations.

Some station are close to where we stay, so visiting them involves a short snow mobile ride:

(Masha and Zozo by the Kominko-Slade station - a short snowmobile ride away from the WAIS camp)

However, most of the stations are located far away and visiting a station usually involves flying to a site in a helicopter or in a small Twin otter plane. The majority of stations are serviced from McMurdo, but there are a few that we service from "deep field" camp such as WAIS. Due to weather delays that I talked about before my first Twin Otter flight of the season was out of WAIS station:

(Emily and Zozo are about to get on their first plane ride of the season - visiting Janet station in West Antarctica).

Flying is a lot of fun!

(This is our pilot Lindsey hanging out with Zozo in the cockpit)

If we can, we try to take other people from town/camp when we fly. Usually people really want to get out and we get help shoveling the snow - it's a win-win situation!

For example this station, Janet, needed to be completely reinstalled - we had to take all the instruments off, dig out the tower completely, secure the tower again and install all instruments back on it.

(Janet before and after)

We had three "moral" people on this trip, which actually resulted in Lee and I mostly working on the station and instruments, while our helpers shoveled the snow. Thank you!

(Janet in progress - the tower is completely disassembled. Lee and I are trying to connect two tower sections together properly. The old section that we are reusing was a little bent, so we straightened it out... mainly with the with the help of curse words and a hammer. Zozo had an important job as well - he was marking "due South" direction. We need this direction to align the aerovane properly - to make sure our wind direction measurements are correct).

(The tower is up again and Lee is installing the instruments back on it)

Janet was the first station we did and Lee was showing me a lot of his tricks. The next station, Erin, I got to work on myself, although Lee had to help me quite a bit ;). It was much colder and windier and I was wearing my "big red" jacket. I looked ridiculous, but I was warm, so that's what matters. Since I was mainly working on the tower I did not get as many pictures of it.