Sunrise?

After 6 months of darkness, the sun has finally and officially risen on September 21 ... but where is it?

We are having the stormiest weather of the entire season these days, and of the sun we have only been able to see a mirage on Sep 16, and a few rays on Sep 24, when the storm subsided for a few hours.  This storm has brought record-setting winds, very close to the strongest wind ever recorded at the South Pole of 55 mph (88 km/h), dating back to1989.  The wind lifts snow grains from the ground and blows them high across the featureless polar plateau, reducing the visibility to nil.  In the proximity of our buildings, then, it creates turbulence and massive amounts of snowdrift that can pile up to form ice cliffs that can be difficult to negotiate on the way up and treacherous to descend from.  Another effect of the wind is the creation of static charge.  When we walk in these conditions, the snow grains rubbing against our insulated clothes leave static electricity, so our bodies charge up without us noticing it, and when we finally arrive at our destination and open the metal door the enter a building, we receive strong electric shocks, even through the three pairs of gloves that we wear.  Many of our science projects are suffering, either by the direct impact of the force of the wind, or by the creation of static electricity, and we have been quite busy troubleshooting and fixing equipment.  Some is hard to access in these conditions, and we will have to wait until the weather allows us to safely visit the sites on the ice.  All in all, going out in this extreme weather, has been quite an exciting, fun, and unique experience, one that cannot be safely experienced anywhere else in the world.  It is, after all, one of he reason that we signed up to spend a year at the South Pole.

Here are some photos to show what it has been like around here in the last few weeks.

Our last full moon of the winter occurred on Sep 11.  Here the station is seen from the Atmospheric Research Observatory, about 1/3 of a mile (half a kilometer) away.  What illuminates the snow is not the full moon, but the twilight from the sun, located only 4 degrees below the horizon, opposite the moon.

On Sep 13 the fire team, of which I am a proud member, went out to take a photo at the ceremonial South Pole.  Pointing the camera towards the rising sun, clear skies, and a flash, provided some spectacular morning colors.  A windchill of -130 F (-90 C), though, was bitter, and some of us came back with frostbitten noses after uncovering our faces just a few seconds for the photo. (Photo courtesy of Christy)

On Sep 16 we saw the sun for the first time, even though this is only a mirage.  The sun was still 2 degrees below the horizon, but a thermal inversion near the surface of the ice caused the rays of the sun to refract down towards the earth.  On that day, the temperature at the surface was -96 F (-71 C), while the temperature just a few hundred feet above the ice was -40 F (-40 C), as measured with a weather balloon.  The next day a series of strong storms would start lashing at us and would prevent any further sightings of the sun, except for a few hours on the 24th.

On Sep 24 the wind dropped to 10 mph and allowed me to put on my skis for the first time in a week and go inspect our wind turbines to see if the wind of the previous week had caused any damage (luckily it had not).  I took this photo of the rising sun from the Atmospheric Research Observatory.  When the skies had cleared, the temperature had dropped down to -91 F (-68 C), so I was happy to return to the station, where a sumptuous sunrise dinner awaited me.

The South Pole is the only place in the world where one can have dinner at sunrise.  It is one of the three major celebrations that mark the passing of the season here, together with the sunset dinner on March 21 and the mid-winter dinner on June 21.  This time the chef came around a few weeks before the event with a form soliciting our suggestions for a menu.  We each wrote down our favorite dishes.  What a surprise when the cooks presented us each with our own selection, like an a la carte restauant, and so it is that I enjoyed a delicious piece of grilled salmon with steamed broccoli.

A stronger storm has been pounding us since Sep 25, with winds up to 52 mph (84 km/h).  I took this photo today, Sep 27, at the geographical South Pole, where the axis of rotation of the earth is indicated by a short pole barely visible to the left of the flag.  We erected a tent at this location in mid-September for anyone who dared spend the night out on the ice, but with these strong winds, no one has dared, yet.

This is the ceremonial South Pole, the same location where we took the fire team pictures two weeks ago, now pounded by 40 mph winds.  The station, less than 100 yards away, is barely visible through the drifting snow.

The North West corner of the station early in the morning of Sep 27.  The length of the station is 400 ft (120 mt), but not even half of it is visible through the snowdrift, yet we see blue skies overhead.

Sep 11, 2011

Sep 27, 2011

What a difference 2 weeks make!  This is the underneath of the station.  The station has an airfoil design, like an airplane wing, that causes the predominant North winds to accelerate as they pass through, scouring the surface and preventing snow accumulation under the station.  This provides a hard surface that I have used for running all winter long, when the darkness prevented me from venturing far from the station.  I even left a track on the ice along my running path, visible in the photo on the left.  This winter we have rarely had winds in excess of 15 mph, but this last few stormy days have put the design of the station to a test.  A steep cliff has formed at the edge of the station, about 15 feet tall, looking like a giant ocean wave about to crash, and is now starting to encroach on the northernmost set of columns supporting the station.  My running tack has been erased, but the snow has not yet accumulated under the station.  So far the design has proved to be effective, but the storm is not over, yet.

The Polar Night

We are in the middle of the polar night: the single, 6-month long night that only occurs at the Earth’s poles.  Today, July 23, one month after the winter solstice, the sun is still 20 degrees below the horizon.  We all studied in school that at the Poles there is a 6-month long day and a 6-month long night.  We often associate that notion with the polar regions in general, but in reality the 6-month night only happens at the very pole.  Even at Vostok, the Russian station which is the closest inhabited location to the South Pole, at 78 degrees of latitude, twilight will show up every day of the winter, as the sun will be less than 12 degrees below the horizon at least for some time every day even in the deepest of winter.  So, it is an incredible and unique privilege to experience the polar night at the South Pole Station, where we live in complete darkness, without even the faintest of the twilight, for 80 days in a row, from May 12 to Aug 1. 

Winter at the South Pole feels like a long tunnel.  We entered the tunnel on March 21, when we switched from day to night.  But for several weeks we were able to still see the light at the entrance of the tunnel in the form of twilight getting fainter and fainter every day.  That was a time of slight apprehension for me, as I did not know what to expect as we went deeper and deeper into the night: would I still be able to navigate outside, on foot and on ski?  Would it get even colder and windier?  How big would the snowdrifts get?  Would I go insane without sunlight for so long?  Then, on May 12, we left behind the last of the twilight, and we could not see the entrance of the tunnel any more.  We have now been in the middle of this dark tunnel of the polar night for 70 days, and it has been beautiful, as I have learned how to cope with the lack of light first, and then how to truly enjoy it, to the point that I now regret that this very special time will soon come to an end.

The South Pole in winter is the most pristine environment that I have ever experienced, with no air pollution, no light pollution, and no noise pollution.  In the summer we have the noise of the airplanes and of the snowmobile, but not in the winter.  To reduce interference to the scientific instruments that look at the sky and at the auroras, we do not have lights on the buildings, and we cover all the windows, so all our buildings appear as black boxes against the glare of the snow, and we are thousands of miles away from any source of atmospheric pollution, provided we stay upwind of our power plant. 

In winter we do not have to wear goggles to protect our eyes from the solar radiation, as we do in the summer, so we enjoy much clearer views, unobstructed by the fogging that always forms on the goggles.  Unfortunately, because I do not wear my glasses outside, I do not fully enjoy the night sky, but I still can see many different stars, and even use them as navigational aid.

Soon our eyes will be pointed at the horizon, looking for the end of the tunnel in the form of a faint twilight which will get bigger and bigger as the days will progress.  We often look forward to that moment that will signal the return of the sun, without thinking that it will also mark the beginning of the end of this wonderful polar night and polar experience, so I try to go out every day and enjoy the little that is left of this mystic polar night, with its stars, its auroras, and its silence.

No photographs can make justice to the magic of the polar night, but I have selected a few, taken this winter by Dana, the scientist who operates the South Pole Telescope.  Dana is spending his sixth winter at the Pole this year.  He has done scientific work both at the North Pole and at the South Pole, a very rare distinction, and is probably the most experienced winter traveler.  During his six winters at the Pole he has walked a total of 5 ~7,000 miles on the ice, probably more than any other human being has on the Polar Plateau.  I have learnt a great deal from him on how to stay safe outside in the middle of the night.  I often meet him outside while I am skiing and he is walking back from the telescope.  If I don’t see him on the ice, there is always a chance around dinner time to exchange our impressions of the night sky that we experienced while outside, as every day the night sky is a little different.  One big difference between Dana and I is that Dana does not like it when the moon is out, because it washes away the stars, whereas I really do enjoy the moon and how it reflects on the ice.  More photos from Dana are posted on his website http://www.polarwinter.com/

We see different portions of the sky from the Northern and Southern hemispheres.  This is a photo of the Milky Way, which is our own galaxy.  We can see it both from the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern, although we see different portions of it in each.  The small blob in the upper left quadrant of the photo is the Large Magellanic Cloud: a galaxy orbiting our own Milky Way.  We cannot see it from the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.  From the Northern Hemisphere instead we can see the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 100 times larger and 15 times farther than the Large Magellanic Cloud.  Andromeda is not visible from the South Pole.

This photo shows both the Large Magellanic Cloud (Lower left) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (Upper Right) in the same frame.  The Small Magellanic Cloud is also a Galaxy, slightly smaller and farther away than the Large Magellanic Cloud.

On June 16 our full moon was obscured for a few hours by an eclipse.  This is a photo of the moon partially eclipsed just a few minutes before it became completely dark.  I decided to enjoy the eclipse from the ice, so I went out running when the moon was still full and providing good visibility, and kept running for about 1 hour until it got so dark that I could not see well any more, at which point I came back into the station to watch the last few minutes of the moon eclipsing.  It was one of the highlights of my winter so far.

The moon at the South Pole does not have the daily cycle that it has at intermediate latitudes, where it rises and sets every day.  Here at the South Pole, instead, it stays up in the sky continuously for two weeks, then it sets and remains below the horizon for the following two weeks.  I like the moonlight because it allows me to roam around farther from the station without the risk of getting lost, and I can much easier navigate around the snow drifts when I go out running or skiing.  Therefore I have created this chart to display the brightness of the moon through the winter.  The brightness is calculated based on the elevation of the moon on the horizon, the phase of the moon, and the distance of the earth from the moon.  I look at this chart almost daily to plan my outdoor activities.

Silhouette of the South Pole Telescope against the moon ...

... and against an aurora.

Extreme Cold Weather Skiing

I have never been a big skier, having never lived in a place where it snows.  I have skied downhill a handful of times, and, before coming to the South Pole, I had only cross-county skied maybe a dozen times.  Nevertheless, knowing that people had skied all the way across Antarctica, I thought that skiing should be a fun outdoor activity at the South Pole.  Before leaving home I inquired with some veteran Polies and I was told that the South Pole station had plenty of skiing equipment, but the gliding would be poor, and it would not be possible to ski in the winter, as the temperatures would be so cold that the skis would nearly freeze solid with the ice.  Prepared with this grim outlook, my expectations have far been exceeded.  Since arriving at the Pole last November, I have skied almost every day: in the summer, in the winter, with temperatures down to -70 C (-94 F), and I have been having a great time, so I decided to write this blog to let future generations of Polies know that it is indeed possible and enjoyable to ski year round at the Pole, and also as a way to record the clothing and equipment that I used, my experiences about what worked and what did not work, so that I might use this blog as a future reference in case I decided to buy some of the equipment for my personal use, or for the benefit of anyone else who might be considering doing some skiing in extreme cold environments. 

Steele took this picture of me on July 1, outside of the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory (MAPO), about ½ mile from the station.  The temperature was -63 C (-82 F), and  it was blowing a 16-knot (18 mph) wind. 

The glide: is there actually any glide here at the South Pole?

The short answer is that yes, there is some gliding, but very, very little.  To quantify the gliding I took some data point earlier in the season, at the end of March, with temperatures around – 60 C (-76 F).  I counted the number of steps that it took me to ski the 400 ft (122 mt) distance between two sets of flags along the skiway.  I did this several times in three different conditions: 1. Forcing myself not to glide; 2. using my regular Nordic ski pace; and 3. trying to glide as much as possible using the skating technique.  With no gliding it took me an average of 146 steps to cover the distance, meaning that my step was 2.6 ft (80 cm) long.  This is about the same as when I walk.  When I used my regular Nordic ski pace it took me an average of 92 steps to cover the same distance, which corresponds to a step length of 4.3 ft (132 cm).  Therefore, the gliding per step was 132 cm – 80 cm = 52 cm.  Using the skating technique and trying to glide as much as I could, it took me an average of 66 steps to cover the distance, which corresponds to a step size of 6.1 ft (185 cm).  In this case the gliding was 185 cm – 80 cm = 105 cm.  I am not sure how this compares to warmer conditions, but I suspect the gliding here at the Pole is inferior.    Another way to compare the skiing conditions here at the Pole to other locations is by comparing the speeds obtained during races.  In the McMurdo marathon on the Ross Ice Shelf here in Antarctica, on Jan 16, and with a temperature close to freezing, the winner in the ski category completed the 26.2-mile course at an average speed of 10.5 mph, while here at the Pole, on Dec 25, and with a temperature of -12 F (-24 C) the fastest skier on the much shorter 2.2-mile course of the Race Around the World skied at an average speed of 5.4 mph, and he was an experienced ski racer from the Northeast, who had even competed in the Marcialonga in the Italian Dolomites.  So, the speed here at the Pole is about half of what it is at temperatures closer to freezing.  Therefore, the gliding must not be great, but we can ski and have a good time nevertheless.  I have been skiing at a speed of 3 ~ 4 mph, closer to 4 in the summer and closer to 3 in the winter, which is kind of like a fast walk.  I have not tried to wax the skis.  I have talked to numerous adventurers last summers who skied to the Pole, and none of them was waxing their skis.  I guess the wax loses its gliding properties when it gets too cold.  The gliding is probably affected not only by the temperature, but also by the quality of the ice.  There is no snow here at the Pole, as the temperature is too cold for snow flakes to form.  Instead, precipitation comes in the form of ice crystals, which are only about 0.01 mm in size, much much smaller than snow flakes, and invisible when they are in the air.  The ice crystals remain on the ground as a powder.  They only aggregate together to form solid ice under their own pressure several feet under the surface.  Also, there is no melting and refreezing here at the Pole, so the surface is a constant dry powder all year round, with a thin crust on the top.  The ice crystals make a screeching sound under the pressure of the skis that can be heard a long ways away.  The friction between ice crystals is in my opinion where the energy of the forward motion of skiing is absorbed. 

The clothing

I ski an average of 5.5 miles each day, which takes me a couple of hours, so warm clothes are necessary.  I have found that the equipment provided by the US Antarctic Program is excellent and perfectly adequate for this activity, so I would like to give its description here.

I start with an under layer of cotton socks and longjohns.  The top, made by Kenyon,  is 100% polyester, and is commercially available; the bottom is 100% polypropylene, it is made by Peckham Vocational Industries and does not appear to be commercially available.

Then I put on heavy wool socks, or more precisely, 95% Worsted Wool and 5% Nylon.  Ours are made by Wigwam Mills.

Then comes what we call the Carhartt.  Carhartt is actually the name of the manufacturer.  This is a fantastic piece of equipment, one of my favorites of the entire wardrobe provided by the program.   These are insulated work coveralls with multiple pockets suitable to hang tools.  They are designed for outdoor work, and they are very sturdy, although not indestructible.  They even have a hook on the back, which I used in the summer to attach a rope to and haul a sledge.  I did this several times when I was skiing with Dr. Weatherwax to different locations on the ice carrying equipment to calibrate fields of cosmic radiowave antennas.  I use one of the two pockets on the front bib to hold my UHF radio and the other to hold my music player.  These coveralls are made of a 100% cotton exterior shell, a 100% nylon internal lining and a 100% Polyester insulating interlining.  They are listed on the Carhartt website as style R02, and list for $110.  So, staying warm in extreme cold weather does not necessarily require extreme $$$.  In general, cotton is not considered to be a good material in cold weather because it absorbs water and stays wet a long time, but there is no water here at the pole.  When we are outside the ice never melts, even when it sticks to our clothes, and when we walk back into the station the air is so dry that the ice seems to turn into vapor without going through the liquid phase.

We have several options for ski boots.  My favorites for the winter are made by Karhu, model Convert.  They top my list because they are the warmest.  They look like sturdy walking boots, with good insulation, and have three pins in the Vibram sole to fit the bindings.  Although these are the warmest boots we have on station I still use our Grabber foot warmers and toe warmers.  These are small packs containing a mixture of iron, water, activated carbon, and salts.  When exposed to air, the chemicals in the packs react with the air to provide heat.  They last several hours.  I am not sure how effective they actually are at our temperatures.  While they definitely provide plenty of warmth at room temperature, it looks like either the reaction slows down when temperatures get colder, or the heat generated just isn’t enough to compensate the heat lost to the environment.  Nevertheless I still use them, as they provide at least some extra insulation.

Then comes the balaclava.  I have used a couple of them through the season.  The one I have now, from Outdoor Research, is made of Windstopper fleece, and is very good.  It has lasted the whole winter, through an average of 3 hours of use every day, and through multiple washes, and still looks like new.

After the balaclava, I put on my wool hat from Nepal, and then my Northern Outfitters 100% polyester fleece top.

The third and final top layer is the very famous red parka.  This is by far the most amazing and valuable piece of clothing that we are issued.  I have never, ever, felt cold wearing it, even at -100F (-73 C), and even with the strongest winds that we experience here at the South Pole, provided of course that I do not stand still.  My feet are actually getting cold before I can feel any cold through the red parka.  In the very rare occasions when the wind chill has dropped below -140 F (-96 C), I could just start to feel the wind through.  The red parka, originally designed specifically for the US Antarctic Program, is now also a commercial product.  It is called the Expedition Parka and it is made by Canada Goose.  It has an 85% polyester/15% cotton shell, a 100% nylon lining, and a 625-fill white duck down.  It has coyote fur around the hood.  When the parka is zipped all the way up the hood cannot be lowered, which means that it will not come off even in the strongest winds.    The hood protrudes several inches forward from the face in what we call the snorkel, so as to create a chamber of warm air around the face.  In addition, the edge of the hood has a metal frame which stays rigid even in strong side winds.  If the wind ever makes it into the hood, all I have to do is to close down the opening of the hood by bending the metal frame.  This way I lose a little bit of visibility, but I can fend off the wind.  This parka also has a multitude of internal and external pockets which I use to carry small tools, emergency flashlight, fresh batteries, pencil and paper.

After the parka come the three layers of gloves.  The first is just a pair of thin wool liner gloves – the blue glove visible on my left hand in the picture.  The second is a pair of leather mittens.   The lining is 65% polyester, 35% rayon, and the insulation is made of 3M Thinsulate material.  I use hand warmers in the mittens.  They work just as the foot warmers and toe warmers that I described earlier.  Hand warmers are very effective at keeping the hands warm.  I am not exactly sure why they seem to work so much better than the foot warmers, but I suspect that the hands remain fairly warm, so that the hand warmers do not have a chance to freeze.

Finally the bear paws, and I am ready to hit the ice.  The bear paws are gauntlet mittens made by the Illinois Glove Company.  They have a 100% wool shell with leather sewed to the inside of the palm and pile fur on the outside, and an insulating detachable insert.  I found them necessary when temperatures drop below -50F (-45C).

The ski equipment

The US Antarctic Program provides us with a good selection of ski equipment.  Every item comes in a variety of sizes.  I have tried most of the equipment available to find what works best for me.

The first combination available is skating skis and boots.  The skis are made by Fisher, model BC Country Crown.  The bindings are snap-in Fischer Autoflex 105 Profil SNS.  The boots are Fischer Combi 5000.  I found this to be the best combination for the summer.  I ski mostly Nordic style, but occasionally, on a good surface, I like to skate.  These skis and boots allow both styles.  The only problem with this set is the extreme cold, and I am talking about temperatures at or below -50 C (-68 F).  Around these temperatures feet get cold after less than one hour, the rubber in the bindings becomes rigid so that it becomes impossible to snap the boots into the bindings, and the boots become sort of brittle.  I broke the metal rod in the boot, where it attaches to the binding, with no apparent stress.  This is why, at the beginning of April I started experimenting with different skis.

This is the second pair of skis I used.  They are telemark skis, with metal edges, made by Karhu, model Lookout.  The boots are Karhu Convert, and the bindings are made by Rottefella.  The great thing about this set is the boots.  They are well insulated and much warmer than the boots in the previous set.  They also fit very well.  I have tried different sizes and none of them ever produced a blister or any discomfort.  I found the best fit in a boot two sizes larger than my shoe size, which allows room for the heavy socks, foot warmers and toe warmers.  I have been able to ski for up to 3 hours at temperatures down to -90 F (-68 C) before my feet started getting cold.  However, the skis are significantly slower, probably because of the additional friction produced by the larger surface area.  It took me about 30% more time to cover the same distance using these skis as compared to the Fischer BC Country Crown.  These skis, weighting 8 lbs with the bindings, are also much heavier than the Fisher skis, which weight just 4.5 lbs including the bindings.  Unfortunately, most of the Karhu boots that we have on station have cracks, either in the Vibram sole or in the top leather, or in both.  I believe the cracks are due to the cold.  While cracks in the leather are mostly an aesthetic flaw, cracks in the sole are a big problem.  My first boots had a small crack in the sole, which eventually propagated and resulted in the sole breaking and the boot becoming useless.  I took a second pair of boots and made sure they did not have cracks in the sole to begin with, and I have now skied more than three hundred miles in them with no sign of damage.   To prevent causing damage to the Vibram sole I do not skate and I try to move slowly when on rough terrain, but I suspect that a potential cause for the damage to the boots is the fact that we currently store them in an unheated building, so I am looking for a storage place inside the station to better care for them.

I found the best winter combination to be the lightweight, low-friction, Fischer skating skis with the heavy-duty Karhu Convert boots.  This however requires a different type of binding, of which there are only two on station: the Norwegian-made Rottefella Super Telemark three-point bindings.  These bindings have worked very well at any temperature down to -94 F (-70 C), as they are purely mechanical.  Now I can get the speed and the warmth at the same time.  I don’t think I will be too hot in these boots even in the middle of summer, so I vote this as the best kit for recreational skiing at the South Pole.

The ski trails

Here is a map of my ski trails.  All distances were measured with a GPS.

Before I close I want to pay a tribute to Steele, our very competent machinist, who braved the -82 F (-63 C)temperature and 16-knot winds on July 1 to take photos of me outside.  When not at the Pole, Steele lives in Tasmania, an island off the coast of Australia.  This is his second winter at the Pole, and he may come back next year for a third.  I first met him at Fire School in Denver back in September of last year.  He has made several parts and modifications for my various projects, is a true gentleman, and is a great pleasure to share stories with.  He is also currently building next year’s Pole Marker, which will be unveiled at the Geographic South Pole during the Pole Marker Ceremony on Jan 1, 2012.



Mid-winter

Several people have been asking me about skiing here at the South Pole, so I would like to first let everyone know that I am working on a new blog on Extreme Cold Weather Skiing, which I hope to publish within the next couple of weeks.  Today's blog, however, is on our mid-winter celebration, which we observed here at the South Pole last Saturday, June 18, three days ahead of the actual winter solstice.  This is the darkest of winter for us, with the sun sitting at a constant 23.5 degrees below the horizon, but it is cause for celebration because the sun is now slowly starting its trip back up towards us, even though it will be at least 6 weeks before we can even discern any faint glow at the horizon.  In good South Pole tradition, we celebrated with a sumptuous banquet and with a group photo on the ice.

Summer and winter solstices can easily go unnoticed to people living at medium latitudes, but they are a big deal here in Antarctica.  All the stations that remain open for the winter exchange greetings, typically accompanied by a photo of the winterover group.  Here is the greeting that we sent out.  We took this photo on June 13 under an almost full moon and using a long exposure, which makes the station behind us visible.  I am the fifth from the right, standing.

We shed our work clothes for the party and try to dress up a little.  Some of us have even brought suits and ties for the occasion.  To my right is Jens, one of the two Ice Cube Laboratory scientist, who has been looking all winter long for a single extra-terrestrial neutrino.  To my left are Bill, our electrician, and Kevin, our plumber.  We try to socialize in a more formal way than we usually do, with cocktails and appetizers.

From the cocktail table I particularly enjoyed the Blue Cheese Walnut Tarragon Dip, the Roasted Red Pepper Goat Cheese Pine Nut Dip, and the Crostini, but we also had shrimp and beef pate'.

We set up a very nicely decorated long table, we played some background music, displayed a fireplace on our large LCD monitor, and enjoyed some wine, too, including some from New Zealand and some even from Italy.  Before we started the meal the station manager read a letter that President Obama sent us.  In the letter the President praised our work in furthering our understanding of global warming and closed by saying "As you mark Midwinter's Day in Antarctica, I commend you on your commitment to discovery and innovation.  I encourage you to continue to use your talent and dedication to make the world better for us all, and I thank you for a job well done."

Our midwinter dinner consisted of a Salad fresh from our greenhouse, tossed with walnuts and mmarinated dry cherries, and a main course made of Glazed Duck Breast topped with a blackberry tarragon garnish (Top), Lobster and King Crab sauteed in garlic butter topped with a champagne sauce and served in a pastry shell (Right), Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil (Bottom), and Polenta Cakes baked with sundried tomatoes, capers, and Rosemary (Left) ... delicious.

It wouldn't have happened without our superbe kitchen staff: John, Bryan, Will (the chef), Jeremy, and Ashley, left to right.  Will and I have several things in common: his last job was in a French restaurant in Denver, Co, and I speak French, and, like me, he worked in the semiconductor industry, as chef at the Sematech cafeteria in Austin, Tx, which I visited several times, so it is likely that I ate some of the food he prepared even before I came here to the South Pole.  We also shared a room, with many others, for 13 days, in McMurdo, waiting for our flight to the Pole back in October - occasionally he saves me a bowl of oat meal if I sleep in and am late for breakfast!  Bryan works dinner.  He always makes sure I get plenty of vegetables, excep on Fridays, when he knows that I turn from vegetarian to carnivore and I like my steak rear.  Jeremy works lunch and makes great tofu dishes and indian food.  He lived in Japan for some time and speaks Japanese.  John was the baker in the summer, and made me panettone for Christmas, but during the winter he is responsible for managing our food supplies.  Ashley has the biggest smile on station and must be the happiest person I have ever met in my life.

I took this photo from the deck of the station, less than 1 hour before we started dinner.  It was two days after the full moon.  On the horizon the Ice Cube Laboratory (left), and the South Pole Telescope (right) are visible in the moonlight.  They are part of my daily ski loop.  The distance to the Ice Cube Laboratory is 0.67 miles (1.1 km).

I went out on June 21, the very midwinter day, and took this photo of me at the very South Pole (temperature -85 F, or -65 C).

Aurora Australis

We are only a few days away from the winter solstice (that will occur on June 21 here in the Southern hemisphere).  This is also the darkest of the polar night, yet the sky is all but dark.  We have been blessed this year with spectacular auroras.  Some are brighter, some more colorful, and some have more structure than others, but a day does not go by without auroras showing off in our sky.  I spend an average of 3 hours outside every day, and I would be hard pressed to remember a day when I did not see auroras.  Auroras are produced by charged particles (electrons and protons) emitted by the sun.  When these particles approach our planet, they follow the field lines of our magnetic field, and therefore move towards the polar regions, where the magnetic field lines concentrate.  Before they can reach the magnetic poles, though, at a height of about 300 km from the surface of the earth, they excite oxygen molecules, which then glow just like a fluorescent light does.  Because the particles coming from the sun move at supersonic speed, so do the auroras.  They seem to constantly dance in the sky, 300 km above us.  Some of them last 10 or 15 minutes; others last as long as one hour.  This has been a very good year for observing auroras, as the sun is approaching a maximum in its emission of particles: a maximum that occurs with a periodicity of 11 years.  The South Pole, located approximately 1,000 km away from one of the two magnetic poles of the earth, is one of the best locations on the planet to observe auroras, and that is why a lot of the scientific research that we do here has to do with observing auroras and correlating the observations with other celestial phenomena.
It takes good photographic equipment, a tripod, a lot of patience, and tolerance to the cold to take good pictures of auroras.  Lacking a good camera and patience, I thank Christy and Jens for letting me use some of their photos in this blog.  All the photos shown here are raw images.  Typical exposure times are about 10 seconds.

This is what most auroras look like here at the Pole: spanning a large portion of the sky, glowing green.  Notice the stars in the sky and the Atmospheric Research Observatory at the bottom of the frame.  This aurora happened on June 6.  Photo by Christy.

This aurora, on May 25, shows some interesting structure, twisting away at the far right, and with a hint of red color.  In the foreground are the pole marker on the right and the sign commemorating the arrival of Amundsen and Scott 99 years ago.  Photo by Christy.

I call this a lenticular aurora, covering a large portion of the sky in a round shape.  This aurora occurred only a few days ago, on June 9, and was part of a series of auroras that came on display almost continuously for a period of 12 hours following a massive ejection of particles from the sun called a coronal mass ejection (CME).  We were alerted to this event from observations of the sun made by NASA.  Typically, it takes two days for the particles emitted in a CME to reach the earth and manifest themselves as auroras, so we had time to get ready.  Photo by Christy.

This is a beautiful, bright, and colorful aurora that occurred on May 3.  On the left is the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.  Photo by Jens.

I was skiing to the Ice Cube Laboratory under a nice aurora, on May 2, when I met Jens, who was walking to the same building, but had stopped to take a photo of the aurora.  I like his photo because it gives a realistic representation of how a typical aurora brightens the surroundings.  In the background are, from left to right, the 10-meter South Pole Telescope, and MAPO, a building that houses two additional microwave telescopes.

Auroras happen all the time, in the summer and in the winter.  It is just that during the summer we cannot see them because the light from the sun overwhelms them.  A full moon, though, is not sufficient to blind some of the brightest auroras, as shown here on May 19.  Photo by Christy.

As I said, auroras move very rapidly.  In this sequence taken by Christy an Aurora is seen starting at the horizon, then move overhead.  All the photos are taken under the same exposure settings.  The time stamp below each photo gives an idea of the speed at which the aurora is moving.  Also notice how much brighter it gets as the aurora moves overhead.  The building on the right is NOAA's Atmospheric Research Observatory.

This is what an aurora looks like to the eyes of a research camera.  It happens to be one of the experiments that I am responsible for.  This image is taken by a high resolution, black and white, all-sky camera, that takes 180 degrees images of the sky through several color filters tuned to the particular frequencies of the light emitted by the auroras.  Because of the filters, this camera is mostly insensitive to other lights, such as the light from the moon, which appears as a yellow spot on top of the image.  In reality the moon is much much brighter than the aurora, but the trick with the filters allows the aurora to be clearly visible.  These images are publicly available on the website http://www.southpole-aurora.org/ where you can see the evolution of auroras at the South Pole hour by hour.  Another interesting website is http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm where, in the austral winter, you can see time lapse images of auroras shown as movies.  Those photos were taken a few years ago by Robert Schwartz, who is wintering here with us again this year.

Finally, a quick note on the weather.  Despite global warming, we had the coldest May on record here at the South Pole, with an average temperature of -62.6 C (-80.7 F).  Luckily it was not a windy month, so my outdoor activities were not impacted.  On May 27 the thermometer dipped for the first time below the -100 F limit, reaching a minimum of -103.4 F (-75.2 C), as seen in this screenshot from the weather page of our intranet.  The photos on our weather page changes every 15 seconds and serve us a reminder of the world that awaits us back when our time here at the Pole will come to an end only five months from now.

The South Pole Kitchen

One reason I would like to be a millionaire some day is so that I could afford a house with a large, professional kitchen, equipped with all kinds of appliances and utensils, all within easy reach.  Until that day I may have to keep coming to the South Pole, where I have at my disposal a million-dollar kitchen every week-end that I feel like cooking.  Not only is the kitchen available to us non-chefs when the cooks take their day off from Saturday evening until Monday morning, but we also have 48 other friends willing to taste our culinary specialties or experiments, and ... we also benefit from the precious advice of our friends the cooks and the chef.

So I have been testing my favorite recipes over the past several weeks, first in small batches, then in larger and larger batches, making fettuccine, gnocchi, breads, and apple tartts. 

All the utensils, appliances, pots and pans are hanging from the ceiling or stowed under the wide stainless steel counters.  The knives, the most important tool in a kitchen, are always sharp and put away in their wood block.  The bulk ingredients, such as flour, rice, beans, are stored in easily accessible large bins.  At the end of the kitchen are two walk-in refrigerators and one walk-in freezer.   You wouldn’t think that we’d need a freezer here at the South Pole.  In fact most of our frozen food is kept on an outside deck, currently at -60C (-76 F), but it is nice sometimes to have a warmer freezer that you do not have to wear extreme cold weather gear to get in.  The kitchen is also equipped with a state-of-the-art polyphonic stereo system that we can plug our computers, iPods, or MP3 players in.

We even have an Italian pasta machine, directly from Italy, just like the one I have at home.  Here I am making some egg fettuccine on March 27.  Although we have fresh eggs (6,000 of them, kept fresh throughout the winter by a thin layer of oil patiently applied by a score of volunteers at the beginning of the season), I used eggs from a carton, to save the fresh eggs for breakfast.  Those eggs from the carton worked very well.  I also used a mixer, seen in the previous photo at the near end of the counter, instead of kneading the dough by hand.  This is a great help when dealing with 3 lbs of dough.  I dried the pasta and kept it in the refrigerator for serving it the following Sunday, Apr 3.

The day before, on March 26, I prepared green fettuccine by adding spinach to the dough.  They were also dried and refrigerated for serving the following week-end.   Because the air here at the South Pole Station is so dry (relative humidity about 3%), there is no need for a drying rack like I use at home.  Instead, I just lay the sheets of pasta on the kneading table for 20 minutes, and they are ready for cutting.  Once cut, the fettuccine dry completely within an hour or two without sticking.  This makes things a lot easier.

Last Sunday, April 10, I saw that nobody was using the kitchen, so I turned on some Italian opera sung by Pavarotti and jumped in to make some pasta again.  Here I am cooking a sauce made with diced tomatoes from a can, frozen brown mushrooms, fresh basil from our greenhouse, garlic and olive oil.  The mushrooms come straight from our outside deck at -60 C and take a long time to defrost, so I have learnt to start the sauce well ahead of time.  The range is electric, as we do not allow open flames in the station for reasons of fire safety.

One of the most convenient features in the kitchen is an electric kettle for boiling the pasta.  It is fed water by a faucet right above it, seen on the far left in the photo.  Even 2 or 3 gallons of water will come to a boil in about 5 minutes, and when the pasta is ready to drain, all we have to do is to tilt the kettle directly into a strainer, whose effluent is directly piped to a sink in the floor.  How convenient!  The only caveat is that cooking the pasta at our 10,500 ft (3,200 mt) of physiological altitude takes about three times longer than at sea level.

Here is Joselyn ready to enjoy a bowl of pasta with freshly baked 100% whole wheat bread (I was told that it would be difficult to make bread at the South Pole because of the elevation, but I found that it is not true).  Joselyn is one of my oldest acquaintances here at the South Pole, having met her for the first time at fire school in Denver back in September.  During the summer she was our greenhouse caretaker; in winter she is our waste specialist.  In real life she is a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, most recently at Big Bend National Park in Texas, where she leads Ranger walks and talks, and where she also did field study for her Master in Biology.  She loves classical music.

  

Here is Dale, serving Mexican food on March 26.  I also met him for the first time for fire school in Denver back in September.  He is one of our two meteorologists.  He writes the South Pole weather forecast every morning for our internal website.  His dream job, if he weren't a meteorologist, is to be a sous-chef.  Well, here at the South Pole he can have both.  This weekend he will be serving an Italian dinner to the entire station.

 

Before I close this blog I wanted to give you an idea of what things look like outside.  This photo was taken 13 days after sunset, on Apr 5, right at the end of civil twilight, with the sun 6 degrees below the horizon.  There is still plenty of light to see the buildings and still some orange color in the sky.  The building to the very far left is the station, seen a half mile away from the 10-mt telescope. 

In this photo taken on Apr 12, there is still some orange color in the sky, and the features on the snow are still clearly visible, although it is getting darker.  On this date we could see about 20 stars.  On April 13, it was dark enough that I was able to see my first aurora, although in the twilight it appeared grey as opposed to green and red, as they will appear when it gets really dark.  On April 15 the moon will rise and will circle around us continuously for two weeks before setting on April 29, so we expect the sky to brighten up again.

Latest weather report and forecast as of April 15: a storm coming from the Transantarctic mountains has been hitting us for the past 24 hours.  It has been blowing a 20-knot wind, and the forecast is for it to continue at least 4 or 5 days, with wind gusts exceeding 30 knots.  The temperature is -56C (-69 F), but could rise up to -45 C (-49 F).  Visibility has been less than 100 ft, and massive snow drifts are forming all over.  This storm may put an end to my South Pole running ambitions.  We'll see what is left of my running paths after the storm abates.  Meanwhile, I have been taking advantage of the time indoor to study to become a Ham Radio Operator.