Made it to McMurdo!

After several hours of delays and an eight hour flight, I'm finally in McMurdo! I won a trivia contest that gave me the privilege of sitting on the flight deck (with the pilots) for the landing on the Ross Ice Shelf. On the final approach, we passed a pod of orcas whales and seals resting on the sea ice. The US Coast Guard's icebreaker was also visible in the pack ice; the icebreaker comes once a year to McMurdo to provide supplies for the winter.

Once arriving in McMurdo, we sat through yet another briefing, grabbed our linens, and picked up our luggage.

Our gear loaded onto a palette in the back of the DC-130

Seating arrangement on the DC-130

My first view of Antarctica!

More Antarctica

Getting off the plane onto the Ross Ice Shelf

Our ride from the "airport" to McMurdo

Looking down on the road out to the airport

A day of cancelled flights

I woke up this morning at 430am to my hotel phone ringing. Our flight to McMurdo had been delayed by four hours. I went back to sleep and woke up several hours later to go for a quick run through the Botanical Gardens. When I returned from my run, I found out that our flight had been cancelled and that we would fly tomorrow instead. Fingers crossed.

With our flight cancelled for the day, we decided to check out the Christchurch Gondola in Lyttelton. The weather was beautiful and views were stunning.

View back towards the beach near Christchurch

Lyttelton

Cold weather gear

After getting to my hotel in Christchurch around 1am yesterday morning, I woke up six hours later to head to the US Antarctica Program headquarters to pick up my cold weather gear. I got my "Big Red" (a very warm down jacket with a fur-lined hood) and a pair of insulated carhartts. I imagine these two items of clothing will be my primary outerwear for the next few weeks. I tried on four different pairs of carhatts before I found a pair that fit just right.

We finished up at headquarters around noon and had the rest of the day to explore Christchurch. We took the opportunity to walk downtown and explore the botanical gardens. As you may know, Christchurch experienced a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in February 2011 that killed 185 people. Roughly 2/3 of those deaths occurred when several buildings collapsed in the heart of the city. At the time of the earthquake, I was living in Wellington and had several friends in Christchurch. I visited Christchurch twice in the year after the earthquake but the city center was still in the "Red Zone" and inaccessible to the public.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to finally see the Red Zone. I had expected most of the construction and restoration to be done by now, but there is clearly still a long ways to go.

Cathedral Square 

Christchurch Cathedral

Bridge of Remembrance

On my way to Antarctica!

To get to Antarctica, I will fly through Christchurch, New Zealand. Right now I am sitting in the Sydney airport waiting to board the plane to Christchurch. It has been over 30 hours since I left Seattle and I have yet to reach New Zealand. 

I had a ten-hour layover in Sydney, so I took the opportunity to leave the airport and head downtown.

Royal Botanical Gardens

Sydney Opera House viewed from beneath the Harbor Bridge

Hopefully my next post will be from Christchurch!

A quick swim in a tarn

We are now back in Kangerlussuaq. Laura and I decided to check out the other road out of town today (there are only two!). On the way back, we took a quick dip in a tarn. It was warmer than expected but a bit muddy.



Tomorrow we catch the Air National Guard flight back to the States. Until next time!

Finished packing

We finished packing up the rest of the gear yesterday. We had 30+ boxes to pack and almost ran out of boxes near the end. Tomorrow is our last day in Ilulissat, and we plan to go on a short hike. The following day we will head back to Kangerlussuaq.

Last day of gear retrieval

We grabbed the rest of the gear from the ice sheet today. There is nothing too exciting to report about retrieving gear, so instead I will share some pictures.

This photo is from our flight onto the ice sheet. The margins of the ice sheet are heavily crevassed. The size of the Greenland Ice Sheet is jaw-dropping; the ice sheet spreads out in all directions. I knew the ice sheet was big, but it's a completely different thing to see it in front of you.

Several of our GPS stations were installed near a "supraglacial lake" (shown above). The prefix "supra-" means above, so the term refers to a lake formed on the top of the ice sheet. These lakes are sourced by glacier melt and form because there is no easy way for the water to drain from the top of the ice sheet to the bottom of the ice sheet. Some of these lakes periodically drain through the formation of a moulin (as I talked about in a previous post) and other lakes never drain. When these lakes drain, they drain a significant quantity of water to the ice sheet base, which can lubricate the rock-ice interface and potentially cause the ice to move faster. 

On our flight two days ago we took a detour to the terminus of Jakobshavn Glacier. This photo shows the calving face of the glacier. Ice is constantly breaking off the glacier in small and big chunks, forming icebergs like the one shown below.



That's one big iceberg! Many believe that Jakobshavn produced the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.

A day of packing and sightseeing in Ilulissat

Today we packed up the first set of boxes and then had some free time to explore in the afternoon.

Sled dogs are a big part of the Inuit culture here, especially in the winter when they are the primary form of transportation to go hunting. During the summer, the dogs are chained up in the fields. They get fed once or twice a day and often howl at night. They are not accustomed to human affection, and you are not supposed to approach them. Some of the dogs have doggy houses.

 

The sled dog puppies are adorable (and you are allowed to approach them). I am almost tempted to sneak one into my bag on the way home.



Since the sun never sets at this time of year, I've been staying up late to explore the town at night. The lighting is beautiful around midnight.

 

Here is a final photo of Ilulissat on our flight back to town yesterday.

First day of gear retrieval

We will have two days of helicopter time to retrieve all our gear from the ice. Today was our first day of flying.

 

Our GPS stations consist of a GPS antenna, solar panel, and a large black pelican case with all the electronics. These stations have recorded position every 30 seconds for the past few years, giving us a very detailed record of glacier motion. Unfortunately, the stations typically turn off in the winter months when there is no light to recharge the batteries, but they work roughly 2/3 of the time.



These stations were installed to better understand the impact of water reaching the bottom of the ice sheet. Water is denser than ice, so in certain places it can hydrofracture to the bottom of the ice sheet. When it reaches the bottom of the ice sheet, it can lubricate the ice-rock interface, reduce the friction, and cause enhanced slip (kind of like the impact of putting water on a slip-n-slide).



We call the places where the water hydrofractures to the bottom of the ice sheet "moulins". The above picture shows a stream flowing on the surface of an ice sheet. You might notice that the stream disappears into the ice. That's a moulin.

We collected roughly half of the GPS stations today and will pack them up for shipment tomorrow. The day after tomorrow we will head back up to the ice to collect the rest of the gear.

Flight from Kangerlussuaq to Ilulissat

We had a few more hours this morning to explore Kangerlussuaq before we left at 13:30 for Ilulissat. The other Laura and I borrowed some bikes and headed up into the hills. The road was quite sandy in places, which made for an exciting ride.

I'm always amazed by the things that you find by the side of the road. This RV was parked off in the hills with a "for sale" sign. I don't quite understand how an RV would be useful in Kangerlussuaq, because there appear to be no large roads out of town. Maybe that's why it's being sold.



The flight from Kangerlussuaq to Ilulissat was stunningly beautiful. We flew along the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet and saw many outlet glaciers.

 

Ilulissat is a stunningly beautiful town. The town is situated at the end of the fjord that reaches Jakobshavn Glacier. Jakobshavn Glacier, which moves roughly 60 ft per day and is one of the fastest-flowing glacier in the world, produces a prolific number of icebergs that choke the fjord and the surrounding waters near Ilulissat.

Arrived in Kangerlussuaq

Today we took the Air National Guard flight from Albany, NY, to Kangerlugssuaq, Greenland. Since the flight is on a C-130, it is very loud and you must wear ear plugs for the entire flight. As a result, it is nearly impossible to have a conversation with someone on the flight, so I spent most of the six hour flight sleeping. That's pretty standard for me.

Kangerlussuaq is a very small town in West Greenland with a very large commercial airport.

Tomorrow we will fly from Kangerlussuaq to Ilulissat to start our fieldwork. In the meantime, here are some photos of the area surrounding Kangerlussuaq.


View of the town from across the river


Hills nearby Kangerlussuaq


Kangerlussuaq dump

On my way to Greenland!

I am on my way to Ilulissat, Greenland, to help out with a field project. Our research group at the University of Washington has had GPS stations out on the ice for the last few years, and we need to remove the stations and ship them back to the USA.

To get to Illulissat, I will take a commercial flight from Seattle to Albany, NY, and then board an Air National Guard flight to Kangerlugssuaq, Greenland.

I can't wait! Stay tuned.

bye bye Franz Josef

Today we packed up all the gear in the Mighty Triton (our rented vehicle from Uni) and said goodbye to Franz Josef. It took quite a bit of time and jigsaw puzzling to fit all the gear into the Triton. Most of our gear is wet at this point, so we'll have to dry it out when we get back to Wellington. I think I have accepted that I may permanently smell like mildew for the rest of my time here in New Zealand.

We left Franz Josef in the early afternoon and headed to Brian's house to drop off a bit of the gear. He has acquired quite a bit of the research gear at this point as he lives so close to the glaciers, and it is cheaper to leave the gear there than to ship, fly, or otherwise lug it around. Afterwards, Karen, Chris (one of Karen's friends that we acquired along the way), and I were off road tripping!

We first stopped by the beach in Hokitika and went for a short stroll. Karen and I have wanted to have a photo shoot with the Triton on the beach since we got to Franz Josef, so we decided to take a few photos. I am almost too embarrassed to post this one...

At the beach in Hokitika

We then stopped by Pancake Rocks around dinner time and had a beautiful sunset picnic. As their name suggests, the rocks look like a stack of pancakes and strangely made me miss maple syrup. There are also a couple blowholes around Pancake Rocks where the ocean water gets forced up in a jet.

Pancake Rocks

Pancakes. Per New Zealand ridiculousness, this view had a sign in front of it showing what each of these rocks looked like. The middle and tallest one, for example, was a man with spiky hair (the grass).

Karen and Chris advertise our wonderful dinner. Mmm Tasty Cheese, avocados, hummus, and capsicum.

"cleaning" up the glacier

Today we gathered all the GPS units and ablation stakes so that they can be picked up by the helicopter tomorrow.  Sadly, one of the GPS units was turned off when we went to pack it up, but the others were still working. Hopefully our GPS units captured the two big rain events over the last two days. On Thursday it was raining up to 2 mm/min, according to the rain gauge!

Brian, Wolfgang, and Oliver came down to help us pack up. It took significantly less time than expected. Now that I know my way around the glacier, I laugh thinking how long it took us to set up the units. Our second unit was set up about 150 meters from the first unit, and it most definitely felt like the longest 150 meters of my life. I thought for sure it was at least 1 km, but I guess I should have known better as our study area is only a couple square kilometers.

Tomorrow the helicopter will pick up the gear on the glacier and we will take down the GPS base station on Teichelmann's Rock. Afterwards, Karen and I will start the drive back towards Picton to catch the ferry on Monday. We plan to drive along the West Coast, stop at Pancake Rocks, and spend the night in Westport.

Happy after we packed up all the gear

finally, a day off!

Today was my first "day off" in about two weeks. My field assistants have had days off, but as this is my project, I've been going to into the field with at least one of them most days to check on gear, fix problems, and make measurements. It was nice to sleep in, or at least think that I could. I woke up around 8am and couldn't fall back asleep, but at least it's the thought that counts. I stayed around the hotel most of the day inputting data into spreadsheets and checking to make sure that everything was in order.

GPS per usual and drinks in town

Today we carried up the last two batteries and recorded stake locations with the GPS again. My bag was unbelievably heavy, and I think I might have aggravated an old rib injury from rowing. I'm definitely starting to feel my old age!

After we got back from Franz Josef, Martina and I decided to head into town for drinks. We walked from our hotel, which is slightly out of town, into Franz Josef. There are about three bars in Franz Josef: the Landing, Blue Ice, and the Monsoon. You can tell by the names that they are all high quality. We headed to the Landing. Apparently no one is out on a Wednesday night at 8:30 pm in Franz Josef, so it was a rather unexciting affair. We drank our beers and started to think about walking home. Then it started to pour, per usual. Eventually it cleared up and we walked back, getting bitten by sand flies on the way.

torrential rain and battery replacement

I woke up in the middle of the night last night to hear perhaps the heaviest rain I've ever heard. It was absolutely pouring -- I finally understand what the locals mean by "West Coast rain;" it's like nothing you've ever seen or heard before. Luckily it cleared up this morning before we headed out. Again, today was supposed to be a rest day, but we ended up having to work again.

Over the last few days we've discovered that the GPS units are not getting enough power. Essentially the solar panels are not providing enough power to run the GPS units, so the batteries are dying. As we don't get any data when our GPS units don't have power, we needed to fix this. So today we lugged up five more batteries to replace GPS batteries on the glacier. We carried three 17 AH batteries and two 33 AH batteries -- that's about 150-200 lb right there between five us carrying the gear up. It was a rough day. Tomorrow two of us will be carrying the PPK gear in addition to two batteries, which will be even heavier.

Hopefully the new batteries will keep the GPS units alive until Saturday when we take all the gear down and wrap up our field campaign. There is supposed to a huge rainfall event on Thursday, so we'll be able to capture that event before then.

Heavily crevassed area near the terminus.

replacing the base station battery

Today was supposed to be a day off, but as research goes, we ended up working anyways. As the base station had turned off yesterday morning before we installed an additional solar panel, we figured it would be best to replace the battery today with a fully charged one. The base station is one of our most important GPS units as it allows to make atmospheric corrections for all the other units and thereby increase our accuracy.

The "trail" up to the base station on Teichelmanns Rock is not quite a trail; it's more of a bushwack. Not only is it a bushwack, but it's a bushwack through New Zealand bush, which is a bit different than the bush I'm used to in the states. It's very thick and takes some time to maneuver through. Once we reached the GPS unit, we discovered that the unit had turned off again. We installed the new battery and headed back down, luckily before the torrential rain started.

Our GPS base station

yet another day of "GPS-ing"

I know that "GPS-ing" isn't a word, but it seems to be the theme of my research. We leave GPS units on the glacier, and then go to the glacier every other day to take ablation and stake location measurements with a GPS. Today was yet another of those days.

We also added an additional solar panel to the GPS base station today, which is located nearby int he valley. The voltage was a bit low when we checked it yesterday (11.36 V and the GPS units shut off at 11.0 V), so we figured that an additional solar panel would help. Unfortunately the unit was shut off when we got there. It probably turned off sometime during the night.  

Holding the GPS unit at a stake location. I look so small compared to the glacier!

Looking down valley from the glacier. It's amazing that the Franz Josef Glacier practically ends in a tropical rainforest.

GPS pole redrilling

Today we redrilled all the poles for the GPS units. They have melted out 50-100 cm since we installed them a little over a week ago. That's rather impressive!

Unfortunately three of the six units were off when we arrived. The solar panels are not providing enough power to keep the units running. I ended up bypassing all the load disconnects on the solar controllers, so at least the power will disconnect at a lower voltage (11V rather than 12V) now, but it looks like we might need to replace some of the batteries so that we get data for the next week.

The GPS base station set up on Teichelmanns Rock had by far the lowest voltage when I checked. Tomorrow we will add an additional solar panel to see if that will help the battery recharge a bit.

GPS set up. The white saucer is the antenna, which is connected to the GPS unit in the orange box. The battery, solar controller, and other wires are also in the box.