Just for fun, here is a picture of my friend Steve Warren with some visiting adelie penguins that I took on an Australian Antarctic Expedition awhile back -
Questions and answers about the South Pole
Q. How long does it take to get there from Bloomingdale? It's in the 60's
here today, Sunday December 5. I live next to Bloomingdale School and I'm in the 5th grade. Alex Savarie hjaz@juno.com
A. I left Bloomingdale on 26 Nov, then worked in Seattle for a couple
of days. On 29 Nov I left Seattle flying to Los Angeles CA, Aukland, NZ and
Christchurch NZ, where we arrived on 30 Nov. I left Christchurch for MacMurdo on
4 Dec then flew from MacMurdo to South Pole on 6 December. Not including my stay
in Seattle, it took 9 days to get here, and about 40 hours of flying.
Q. Since you have arrived in Antarctica, have you seen any animals? If you have, could you send us a picture of one?
Miss Williams' 1st Grade
A. Unfortunately, I was at MacMurdo Station on the coast for
only a day and a half. I did see one seal at a distance, and lots of Skua birds,
which are like large seagulls. At South Pole I am 800 miles from the coast,
and the snow is so deep here (9000 feet!) that even the mountains are
covered, so there are no animals but us. I'll try to photograph some animals
when I am in MacMurdo again next month.
Just for fun, here is a picture of my friend Steve Warren with some visiting
adelie penguins that I took on an Australian Antarctic Expedition awhile back -
Q. I have been checking the weather at McMurdo Station. It says there it
is in the high 20's, is this accurate? Mr. Camelo
A. Yes, it is quite warmer at MacMurdo as it is on the coast. Sometimes
it even gets above freezing there!
Q. Why do you go to New Zealand, instead of going off the tip of Argentina?
Dillion Calderone Grade 4, Mrs. Paul
A. If you look at a globe, MacMurdo is is at about 170 degrees east
longitude, so the closest place where there is a commercial airport is New
Zealand. The United States also has a costal station called Palmer which is at
about 65 degrees west longitude. Scientists travel there from South America as
you have suggested.
Q. Question: What does the Z stand for after the time on your weather report?
Travis, Dillion, and Kyle Mrs. Paul's 4th Grade
A. It stands for Grenwich Mean Time, which is the standard time zone at 0
degrees longitude. Bloomingdale is 5 hours behind Z time (GMT-5), New Zealand is
GMT+13. (An extra hour as NZ is on daylight savings time). NZ and South
Pole Station are 18 hours ahead of you. So if it is noon on December 9th in
Bloomingdale it is 6am on December 10th in New Zealand. NZ will be the first to
experience the year 2000 in the world! At South Pole all the Time Zones
meet, but we choose New Zealand time to simplify logistics. Meteorologists use Z
time so we don't have to figure out what time zone a particular observation is
made in.
Q. What kind of food do you eat at your place in Antarctica? (You said you had yummy desserts. What are they?)
Mrs. Cluckey's 2nd Grade
A. It costs more to bring food here than the food costs in the store, so
they get us really good food! There is always cereal, oatmeal, bacon, eggs, and
potatoes for breakfast, hot lunches such as enchiladas, hamburgers, pizza, plus sandwich
makings , and veggies, meat and vegetarian main meals for dinner. Anytime
we want we can help ourselves to homemade cake (several kinds), homemade
cookies, Danish, ice cream, and doenuts. If you are not careful; you can get
really FAT here!
Q. What kind of clothes do you wear to protect you from the cold?
Mrs. Cluckey's 2nd Grade
A. We get ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) clothes issued. 2 pairs of long
underwear, 6 pair of wool socks, a pair of fleece all body suits, wind bibs,
wind jacket, heavy down jacket, fleece jacket, 4 types of hats, and eight pairs
of gloves - the heaviest of which come to your elbows. I'll show you some
pictures of these clothes when I return.
Q. If an adult penguin dies, what happens to the baby penguin?
Mrs. Cluckey's Other Half of 2nd Grade
A. I've heard that sometimes a chick will be accepted into another
penguin family. Most penguins have one or two chicks, so a baby chick might get
lucky and join a family with only one original chick. Otherwise they would
probably perish.
Q. Is it possible to take a digital camera picture of the ice crystals
that you photograph with the video camera in the weather balloon?
Mrs. Cluckey's Other Half of 2nd Grade
A. Yes. Our digital camera is not here at the moment, but will arrive
with my friend Von soon, and I'll send some images of the crystals.
Mrs. Battistoni's First Grade
Q. Is it snowing a lot there this week?
A. We only get 12" of snow in a year here, so it does not snow much,
just a light dusting from time to time. But the snow never melts so it gets VERY
deep over hundreds of thousands of years.
Q. Are there mountains there?
A. Yes, but they are buried under 9000 feet of snow so we can't see them.
It is a flat snow surface here.
Q. Are you having fun?
A. I'm having a GREAT time here - I really love it! I do miss my family;
Ellen, Neil and Naomi though.
Mrs. Battistoni's 1st Grade
Q. Do you like having it daylight, 24 hours a day?
A. Yes it is really neat having the sun go around in the sky, but not
going up or down!
Q. Do you have your own bedroom, and is it hard to sleep at night when it
is daylight?
A. I live in a Jamesway tent which has heat and is separated into 13
little bedrooms with plywood and canvas walls. We call this summer camp, in the
winter people stay in rooms in the dome. There is only a window in the hall, so
it is dark in our rooms for sleeping. I enjoy living in summer camp alot!
Mrs. Durkin's 3rd Grade
Q. How many people are there with you at your station?
A. There are 220 people this year, many more than the 68 people I worked
with here in 1992. The extra people are building the new station, and work in
shifts, so the construction goes on 24 hours a day. Most of the 'night' workers
I've never even seen!
Q. If the ground is so frozen, are you able to skate on it?
A. No, it is not ice but snow. If you dig down 100 feet or so the snow
there is compressed into ice by the weight of the snow above it. I suppose we
could make a skating rink easily, but melting water for it is very expensive as
it requires lots of fuel. In fact, to conserve water, we are only allowed to
take two showers a week, and you can only run the water in the shower for two
minutes. One minute to get wet, then turn the shower off and soap up, then the
second minute to rinse off the soap. At least the water is nice and hot!
Q. Because it is so cold, has any of your equipment frozen up?
A. I have been designing cold weather equipment for quite a while now, so
I have learned what works. For some of the electronics that cannot work in
extreme cold, I build heated, insulated boxes like the one I showed at school,
to keep the electronics warm. So far we have had good luck, but the construction
crew has been having a lot of difficulties with the hydraulics on the cranes,
and a plane yesterday had it's front ski frozen in a pointed down position and
decided not to try to land here, but rather to fly back to MacMurdo as they have
a better crash response team. Fortunately they landed ok there.
Mr. Peer's 4th Grade Class
Q. Do you get the same amount of sleep in Antarctica as you do here because you are
now doing weather experiments?
A. I try to sleep 7 hours here, more like 8-9 at home.
Q. How will you be spending your Christmas/New Year's?
A. We will have some wonderful parties here! We even have a plastic
Christmas tree we will be decorating tomorrow! New Year's will be extra special
of course, as we can celebrate for 24 hours as all the time zones meet here...
Some tourists will be flying in too, for $65,000 to $100,000 for just one day.
I'm glad I don't have to pay that to come here.
Q. Do you know of anyone who has gotten frost bite, and if so, how do you
treat it?
A. We get a lot of training to learn how to avoid frostbite. I don't know
anyone who has had bad frostbite, but we have seen movies of bad cases. It
usually happens to fingers and toes first. It is treated by slowly warming the
affected tissue, then antibiotics and painkillers are prescribed. Often the toe
or finger turns black and is cut off. So it's REALLY important to avoid
frostbite!
Mrs. Roppolo's 2nd grade
Q. Do you have to take care of your room, or do you have room service like
a hotel?
A. We take care of our room, and do our own laundry and changing sheets,
and vacuum once in a while. Everyone pitches in to help keep the station clean,
but there are also people who's job is to clean common areas like the galley.
Q. How is Waddles doing? We would like to see a picture of you, your
friends and Waddles, please.
A. Waddles is very happy in my research hut. She likes to sit on the
computer network box on a shelf as it is cozy and warm. I'll post a picture of
her soon - I've been too busy for pictures but will try to get one this weekend.
Q. When you visited us, you talked about the new dome on stilts, have you
seen it yet and is it finished?
A. The new building will take 5 years to build. Right now they are
building underground arches that will house the power plant and cargo areas.
These will be done by next spring. After that the new station, which will be two
long, rectangular modules on stilts will be started.
Miss Williams 1st Grade:
Happy Amundsen Day! Today on our announcements we heard that today is the anniversary of the first man to come to Antarctica! We also saw the
date on the sign that Waddles was sitting on!
Thank You! I'm so glad you reminded me, I had forgotten that the 14th of
December was such a special day here - the day the first people made it to the
South Pole!
Q. How are you doing?
A. I'm doing really well, thanks! I've been here a week now and I'm
finally getting used to the cold and altitude. As there is less air up
here it takes a person's body a week or so to adjust. One thing that happens is
your body adds extra red blood cells to transport more oxygen to make up
for the thin air. I notice that I'm not breathing as hard so I must be
getting used to the altitude. I've also made alot of new friends, and it is fun
learning things from all sorts of people who live around the world. I've made
friends from Russia, Sweden, Germany, and from all over the U.S., especially
Alaska. I've also made a friend who is moving to Finland to study arctic
ecology.
Q. Have you decorated your Christmas tree yet?
A. Yes, we decorated it on Sunday and it looks very nice in the galley
where we eat. I'll send you a picture if it, Waddles especially likes the
ornaments.
Everyone in Miss Williams' class wishes you a very Merry Christmas to you and Waddles and all our friends at the South Pole!
Thanks you very much! May you all have a Merry Christmas too, with only one more
week of school before your vacation. Enjoy the winter snow!
Q. Could you give a brief explanation of a barometer and what it measures?
Mr. Camelo
A. A barometer measure the air pressure. Because the earth has gravity,
the air is pulled toward the earth, and it exerts a pressure on the earth.
If the earth did not have gravity all the air would just diffuse away. The moon
has such low gravity that it does not have air for this reason. You can think of
air pressure as the weight of the air above you, to the top of the atmosphere.
If you climb a mountain, there is less air above you, so there is less air
pressure. At sea level there is about 1013 mb (millibars) of air pressure.
As the South Pole is over 9,000 ft elevation, our air pressure is closer to 700
mb , so we have about 30% less air pressure than at sea level so it is a bit
harder to breath here.
Air pressure is very useful to measure if you want to predict the weather. Rain,
snow, high winds, and storms usually come when the air pressure drops a bit.
Likewise, clear sunny days usually come after the pressure has gone up a bit. By
watching the barometer, you can get a good idea of how the weather will change.
I'll bring you a barometer when I return so you can see this for yourselves.
Mrs. Abbot-Jones 3rd grade, Greetings from the 3rd Grade!! Thanks!
Q. When you walk in the snow, do you sink down into it?
A. The snow crystals are so small here (usually less than 1/10 of a
millimeter), that they pack together as they fall and are blown around. So you
only sink down a couple of inches as you walk. Sometimes you might sink down to
your ankles. I always ski everywhere so I don't sink much at all. The snow is so
cold and dry that you cannot make snowballs, and it is so cold that as you walk
or ski the snow makes a loud squeaking noise. It is so loud that you can here a
person coming to your building when they are still 30 feet away.
Q. Is it completely flat or are there any hills?
A. It is completely flat, all the hills and mountains are buried under
almost two miles of snow. We just had our transmission experiment's path
surveyed last week. Over a 1/2 km (about 1/4 mile path) the snow level varied
only +/- 6 inches! That must be one of the most flat solid surfaces on
earth!
Q. What supplies your power for lights?
A. Two huge diesel generators supply all the power for the station.
Q. How long can you stay outside in the cold at one time?
A. It depends of course on the wind and how you are dressed. In the
summer I can bundle up and work outside for about 6 hours at -30 degrees F. Last
weekend I skiied for 4 hours, although the skiing keeps me extra warm.
Q. Submarines can go under the Arctic, can they also go under Antarctica?
A. Antarctica is a continent, so it is a land mass, unlike the Arctic
which is a frozen ocean. So submarines cannot go under the Antarctic continent,
although they can go under the ice shelves and sea-ice that surround the
continent.
Mrs. Pratt's Class
Q. When you were with us you showed us a slide of you dipping in hot water
outside, and freezing your hair. Have you done that yet on this trip?
A. No, they don't let people do that anymore here because they say it is
not safe. Oh well, I though it was quite fun myself...
Q. What will the new weather station look like?
A. Actually they are building a complete new station, but have only
worked on the steel roofed underground part so far. (You can see this on Waddles
page). I''ll bring a picture to show you what the new station will look like
when it is done. It will be on stilts!
Q. Have you seen or been in any caves with snow overhanging?
A. Not on this trip, but I hope to visit a new snow tunnel that will be a
half mile lone when it is completed. It is being dug to run pipes between
sites.
Q. Do any of the buildings have icicles hanging from them, if so how large?
A. No icicles are here at all, it is just too cold for the snow to
melt on the roofs of the buildings.
Q. Are any of the other scientists working with a school, like you are with
us? Will we be the only school flying a banner over the South Pole on New Year's Day?
A. None that I've met so far, although my friend Von will be sending
email to a school in Idaho when he arrives. Bloomingdale not only has the only
banner however, but I have the only tethered balloon, so we will have the only
flying banner on the first day of the year 2000!
Q. Hi, this is Cody. How do you get
around? Bye, Cody (Sent from twizzler@capital.net
)
A. I like to ski everywhere around here, but if we go farther than a
couple miles or so we have several vehicles we can use. Skidoo Slandic
snowmobiles with sledging trailers are useful to about 5 miles away, but we usually take a snowcat called a Spryte if
we need to go up to 30 miles. The Sprytes have heated cabs and can carry alot of gear, and
have tracks that run on the snow. If we need to go 100-200 miles we'd take a Twin Otter ski equiped plane. Unfortunately the Twin Otter pilot Henry just crashed the plane last week - fortunately he is ok, but the plane is not available. To get back to McMurdo I will fly in a Hercules CA-130 which is a huge 4 engine cargo transport plane that has both skiis and wheels.
(If you need to haul something heavy you take the Catallac - see the last picture in the
Waddles Picture page).
Mrs. Paul's 5th grade:
Q. From Lee Freeburg: Where does Waddles sleep at night?
A. Usually Waddles sleeps in my research hut (see the first picture in
the Waddles Picture Page). However I went on a
sleepout with Steve at the ski hut, and Waddles came along. I didn't have the
digital camera but I took some slide pictures of her there which I will show you
when I return. She travels in my backpack, and has accompanied me on about 30 km
of skiing so far.
Q. From Dillon Calderone: Have you seen a snow tornado from the wind?
A. Funny you should mention snow tornados. I have not seen one at the
South Pole as we usually don't have the wind speed here necessary to
create one. But I am in the middle of reading a book called 'Home of the
Blizzard' by Douglas Mawson who is the famous Australian Antarctic explorer. The
book is about his 3 year expedition in East Antarctica in 1912-1915. He
discovered over a thousand miles of new coastline on this expedition, and picked
a place called Cape Denison to build a hut and spend the winter. It turned out
that this place has the highest average windspeed on earth! Mawson was an
excellent scientist and measured an annual AVERAGE windspeed of 43 mph! In his
book he reported frequent snow tornadoes that smashed up alot of their stuff
that was left outside. Remind me when I come to visit your class, and I'll read
some of Mawson's descriptions of the windiest place on earth.
Q. From Blake Neigel: What happens if the polar icecap melts?
A. That is a very interesting question! If the polar ice cap were to
melt, world seal level would go up 75m or about 250 feet! This would flood most
all coastal cities (New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Tokyo, etc) and would
cover many of the islands in the South Pacific where people live. However
this is unlikely in the near future as Antarctica is so cold. Next spring a new
satellite is going up which will use a laser altimeter to measure the height of
the ice in Antarctica and to see if it changes over the years. I think that for
the near future Antarctica will actually grow. This is because it is so cold
here that climate warming will not cause much more melting, but will cause more
snowfall as there is more water vapor in warmer air. Predictions over the next
50 years show that Antarctica will grow and slightly lower sea level. The new
satellite will be able to prove whether the prediction is true. However, sea
level is also rising because as the ocean warms up it expands, and most all
northern hemisphere glaciers (including Greenland) are melting. These cause sea
level to rise much faster than Antarctica causes it to fall, so we expect sea
level to rise over the next 50 years even if the icecap is growing.
Q. From Travis Farmer: Did anyone ever get hypothermia and did they die?
A. A group pf Norwegians led by Amundsen were the first people to
make it to the South Pole. The second group to make it were British, led by
Scott. They arrived about a month after Amundsen, but they didn't have enough
food to make it back to Mc Murdo, and they all died of hypothermia. Nowadays, we
have good heat sources and airplane support, so I have not heard of ant recent
deaths here by hypothermia. However, quite a few climbers attempting Mt. Everest
in Tibet (now part of China) have died recently of hypothermia, usually due to
the altitude, storms and bad judgement.
Waddles and Rich wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Q. From Cody Geo, Mr. Peer's class: Where did you land in Antarctica?
When? When are you coming back? What airplane did you ride on?
A. I flew on a Hercules LC-130 from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo,
Antarctica on 4 December, then on the 6th I flew from McMurdo to South Pole
Station. My work is almost done here, so I'm leaving the South Pole on Monday 10
January. A C-130 is a large 4 engine turboprop cargo aircraft. The LC-130 a much
rarer aircraft, it is a C-130 that can deploy either skiis or wheels for
takeoffs and landings. There are less than 20 of them in the world.
Q. From Josh Euber, Grade 3: I just read a book about Sir Ernest Shackleton and his expeditions to
Antarctica. I found out that he died and was buried on South Georgia Island. Have you ever seen where he was buried?
A. Shackleton is one of the greatest Antarctic explorers of all time, and
it is always fun and exciting to read books about his trips. On his most famous
trip he failed at his goal of skiing across Antarctica. His ship was stuck in
sea ice and was later crushed by the ice. He led his men over several months
walking and boating to a remote Antarctic island. There was no chance of rescue
as no one knew where they were. Shackleton took 4 of his men in a small lifeboat
and sailed hundreds of miles to South Georgia Island where there was a whaling
station. However they landed on the wrong side of the island and had to climb
several mountains, with glaciers and terrible weather, to finally get help.
Shackleton then rescued the rest of the men who were stranded on Elephant
Island. On his next trip he died of a heart attack after stopping at South
Georgia Island, and his wife said that he would have liked to be buried there. I
have never been to South Georgia Island, but would love to see it some day.
Q. Also, I was wondering how you prevent buildings from getting buried with ice and snow?
A. This is a very good question! The first South Pole Station is now
buried under 30 feet of snow, and the present station, which is under a geodesic
dome, is getting buried too. They have just started to build a new station, and
some other new buildings which are on big piers, or stilts. The wind can blow
snow under them, and after the snow builds up to much for this to work, the
stilts can be lengthened, and the buildings jacked up. I'll show you some slides
of these buildings when I return.