Today is yet another gorgeous sunny spring day in McMurdo, so we found no blown snow in our collection baskets when we went out to our sites this morning. Fortunately we did have some twice last week and we are also collecting lots of sea ice cores and surface snow for analysis. The following is a photo essay of our recent adventures.
Our primary instrument is the blowing snow collection tower. Made of steel sections and aluminum poles no longer than 7’11” long, so that it will fit on a helicopter, it stands 5.5 meters tall when assembled. We anchor it to the ice with ice screws. The baskets, or butterfly nets, as I insist on calling them, can be mounted at a variety of heights and swing freely. On top is a weather vane and wind cups. Near the base is the Davis weather instrument, the bane of our existence.
Blowing snow collection tower in light wind
Baskets with snow
Collecting snow from a basket
Rachel measuring snow depth
Profiling a snow pit
After a successful day at our Iceberg site
Ross checking on our met (meteorological) data on the Bell 212
On Monday, after a week of weather delays, we finally got out to Cape Bird. The sea ice is thin there, so we landed on the beach below the Kiwi’s hut (there is an AWS on the hill there) and just south of the Adele penguin colony. We erected a mini sampling tower (three baskets, no weather instruments) under the watchful eye of a native.
Our mini tower at Cape Bird
Adele penguin footprints
Some dude in a tuxedo
On the way to Cape Bird, we flew past 13,000 ft Mount Erebus, one of only three volcanoes in the world with an open caldera. (Ross Island, where McMurdo is located, is entirely volcanic rock.) In pictures of Erebus, you can often see the plume rising from the top. Cape Bird lies North of Mount Erebus, while McMurdo is South. To get to Cape Bird, you have to fly over the flank of Mount Erebus, or skirt the edge of the sea ice (helicopters here don’t fly over open water). Often the clouds that cling to Erebus prevent travel. The Erebus Glacier flows west into the Ross Sea, producing a glacier tongue.
Erebus Glacier Tongue
Rachel on Ice 2012 