There is something in the air

Today on 7 December we have launched our 10^th balloon with the new system and we got as usual good data on the vertical distribution of temperature, humidity, wind and pressure up to 32 km altitude (however, it needs to be said that humidity is only reliable up to around 10 km). All launches have been good until now and we are happy that we are able to create a database of the meteorological and dynamic conditions in the higher atmosphere around Princess Elisabeth station. To launch such a weather balloon it is necessary to be with two. One prepares the radiosonde which measures and transmits the data and the other holds the with Helium filled balloon until launch. At some days the wind has been very strong and it was not always easy to hold the balloon until the sonde is ready and is fixed to the balloon. During strong winds at launch time, the balloon bounces back and forth and tries to escape …

All the instruments we have set up are used to follow the evolution of aerosol (particle) properties around Princess Elisabeth station. Most of the time the conditions are relatively constant and not much special is happening. But, yesterday – we went to check routinely our instruments – we saw that the particle concentration was increasing. From the normal baseline of 200-300 particles/cm³ during summer it went suddenly up to 6000 / cm³. It happened during strong winds from eastern directions and contamination by the station can surely be ruled out. It is more probable that this was linked to the approaching of a major cloud system. The lower cloud level was decreasing when the particle concentration went up. When the concentration reached maximum and thereafter, the cloud level was increasing and the clouds even move away. The instrument from Leipzig told us that the concentration of particles being able to form clouds has not much increased during this event. So, there are some questions for us to be answered, how clouds, the whole lot of particles and particles, which can form clouds, are linked. That’s why we are here. This morning the concentration of particles was again at the usual level around 300 / cm³. And no strong winds anymore.

And, yes, also in the far region of Antarctica, St Nicolas does not forget the well-behaved.

Instruments back to operation and Antarctic Day

 

On December 1^st, the Antarctic Day is celebrated. On 1 December 1959, the international Antarctic Treaty was signed by 12 nations (inlcuding Belgium). The treaty set aside the vast Antarctic continent exclusively for peaceful purposes, serving the interests of all mankind. The Antarctic Treaty became the first institution to govern all human activities in an international space, i.e., a region beyond sovereign, national jurisdiction. Each year the parties to the Antarctic Treaty gather together to discuss any issues, e.g., related to Antarctic tourism, environmental protection or best-practices in operating research stations. Today, around 30 countries are full members to the Antarctic Treaty. Celebrating Antarctic Day each year was initiated on the occasion of 50 years of the treaty in 2009. For example, school classes have been working before on the thematic of Antarctica and then sent their drawings with researchers or staff to Antarctica. These drawings are then mounted, displayed, or similar (depending on weather and wind conditions) at several research stations. There are also many chats via skype of school classes with researchers or staff people, bringing daily life of Antarctica nearer to the public. Also at Princess Elisabeth station several skype sessions were organized, including one with me with a primary class in the UK. It was both fun for them and me.

On instrument side we have not been lazy in the meantime. Quentin and I set up nearly all instruments. 6 instruments in our little container for measuring characteristics of atmospheric particles, 5 instruments on the station’s roof, which will measure total ozone, UV radiation, attenuation of light by particles, cloud and precipitation characteristics. More information on these instruments can be found here. One instrument in the container is not starting up anymore. The reason is not absolutely clear at the moment, but it does not look good. We also have some trouble with our loved sunphotometer robot on the roof. It should track the sun for its measurements. Although we tried hard to mount and orient it correctly, it prefers to point either in the morning or in the afternoon some azimuth degrees aside of the sun. As it has been very windy yesterday and today (up to 12 m/s), we have not been able to do more trials. So, the sunphotometer is waiting for the next fair weather day for further servicing. Setting up the ozone spectrophotometer allows us to follow the evolution of the total amount of ozone over the whole atmospheric column. Actually, a remainder of the yearly ozone hole is partly moving above our region of Antarctica. Therefore, total ozone is reduced and ultraviolet radiation from the sun is increased. This UV radiation can cause skin cancer and therefore it is important to protect yourself, even if we have only small parts of our skin exposed freely. I put a graph of the UV index on 26 November. It reached very high values around 9 that day, meaning that unprotected skin will be burned in around 15 minutes. 

Quentin and I installed also a new system for the launch of radio sondes. These sondes will measure temperature, humidity, wind and wind direction and pressure up to around 22 km. These data will give more information on the dynamics of the atmosphere above us, on transport processes, and will also serve forecasters and modellers of the weather in East Antarctica. Our goal is to launch each day one balloon. The image shows Quentin just launching a balloon yesterday at very windy conditions.

Journey to Princess Elisabeth Station and first works

Our flight to Antarctica took place indeed in the night of 18 to 19 November. At 23h30 Cape Town time the usual Ilyushin took off for the 5h45 flight to Antarctica. The flight is more or less straight southwards, 4200 km, to the Novolazarevskaya Air base. The flight is organized by ALCI (Antarctic Logistics Centre International), an organization supported by the nations operating stations in and around East Antarctica and especially in the Dronning Maud Land area. From Novo it would still be around 2000 km to South Pole. 
 

Quentin and I and the Ilyushin at unload at Novo and our pile of cargo

In order to get to the individual stations, there are two small Basler propeller aircrafts. They can carry around 2.5 tons of passenger/cargo combined. As we were 13 persons and had quite a lot of cargo, we had to split into two groups. The lucky ones (including me and Quentin) had a flight the same day afternoon. Nevertheless, we had to wait 9 hours at Novo because the Basler aircrafts were first flying to other stations. Which stations are served first or later and when exactly depends mainly on weather (at Novo and at the respective station), distance, and the obligatory resting times for the pilots. In the beginning of the austral summer season, the weather is relatively unstable, i.e. fair and bad weather for flying changes often and flight plans change by hour. At Novo there is not much to do. You are assigned to containers which are nicely furnished with beds, heating and (European norm) power plugs for the laptops, tablets, smartphones and other gadgets people have nowadays always with them. There is also a large special container for taking the meals or to have a hot coffee with biscuits. Most of us slept most of the time. 
  

The Basler aircraft at Utsteinen air strip

Before departure, we had to load the nearly two tons of cargo into the Basler and off we went. It is a 1h45 flight from Novo to Princess Elisabeth Station, for the 450 km distance. From the plane the vast stretches of white, sometimes the cracks of the glaciers and sometimes some rocks sticking out can be admired. The specific shape of the mountains around Princess Elisabeth made it easy to recognize that we were approaching our final destination. At 17h30 local time, i.e., CET time as in Belgium, the Basler landed at Utsteinen air strip. Quick welcome, unloading, transfer to the station (still 2 km away) and there we are. The Basler returned immediately – they had another flight to do that day from Novo. On that Wednesday we had the introduction to the station and Quentin and I had time for a first look on the instruments which have been at the station during the unmanned period. 

The crevasse where we made the usual training.Beautiful.

 
The next day, we made a first planning of the work we will carry out the coming almost four weeks. Around noon, the group left behind at Novo arrived. After lunch, our group of 13 was summoned for the usual field training. As weather was perfect – almost no wind, blue clear sky, ‘only’ around -20°C, crevasse training was programmed. This means that everybody of us is going down –secured with a rope- in a crevasse and the others are trained in the different methods to get somebody out of a crevasse. There is no large crevasse in the near vicinity of the station and therefore it is a 12 km drive on skidoos (snow mobiles) to a ‘suitable’ one. Dealing with ropes, knots, carabiners, taking snow mobiles to help is on the menu. It was good to do a bit hand work at these cold temperatures. On Friday morning we had another training, now on the snow mobiles. After an introduction on the mechanics (and in particular what the scientists as suspected non-adepts of mechanics should better avoid to do), we drove out for some rides on slopes. Up and down, ever more steep. Have confidence in your skidoo and behave smoothly on your skidoo, that’s the message. 

 Skidoo training and a balloon launch

In the afternoon we had finally time to look more in detail to our instruments. We restarted some of them, checked others, and also made a radiosonde balloon launch. These balloon launches serve to know the vertical distribution of temperature, humidity, pressure, wind and wind direction, what is very useful for interpretation of the meteorological dynamic conditions. Saturday, Sunday and today, Quentin and I were busy with starting up instruments, testing them, and doing more balloon launches. I will write next time more on the individual instruments, not all of them making us completely happy. However, we are lucky with the weather. No storm in sight, what means that we can go on undisturbed with our works outside and on the station’s roof.

GO for another season at Princess Elisabeth station

Cape Town - View to Robben Island

View on Camps Bay Beach near Cape Town

 

Since one week Princess Elisabeth station is opened for this season’s Belgian Antarctic Research expedition. The first team arrived on Sunday, 9 November at Utsteinen and has been and is working on bringing the station back to full operational status . The second team with 9 scientists, the doctor, a field guide, a journalist and a teacher (whose class won the IPF Polar Quest competition) is already in Cape Town, waiting for the flight into Antarctica. Most probably that flight will happen tomorrow night, with take-off on 18 November 23:15 local time. If everything goes well, everybody of us will be at the station already on Wednesday. Otherwise, some of us have to stay one night at the Russian Air base at Novolazarevskaya. 
From the nine scientists 5 are from the ICECON project, one is the InBev-Baillet Latour Fund winner (BENEMELT project), one is working on the SMEAIS project, and two are for the atmospheric research programme of the Royal Meteorological Institute – Quentin Laffineur and I. The first thing we will have to do upon arrival at the station is to check the status of the five instruments which were staying there over the austral winter months. They have been operational until mid-May and were literally in the freezer afterwards because of a general power outage of the station. We will check if they have encountered any damage, do necessary tests for proper operation and put them back into operation if these tests are positive. In the air cargo travelling with us, there are four more instruments which will be re-installed by Quentin and me. One is the good old sunphotometer, which is returning for its seventh consecutive measurement season (it travels always back and forth because of its necessary yearly calibration in Europe). The second instrument is the Brewer ozone spectrophotometer which had to be brought back last season because of necessary repairs concerning its power module and for a calibration. The nephelometer had also to be repaired and will hopefully run again continuously, including the austral winter months. And finally, as last season, we will have a cloud condensation nuclei counter of the TROPOS institute in Leipzig, Germany. 
The first two mentioned instruments will be installed on the station’s roof, and the latter two in the southern scientific shelter. For a description of all our instruments, have a look at the link to the right (BELATMOS project description). In addition, we will check all instruments of the HYDRANT project, dig one or two snow profiles as usual, and we will install a new radiosonde ground station for launching radiosondes. The radiosonde programme is a collaboration of RMI with the International Polar Foundation and the institute for ‘Wald, Schnee und Landschaft’ of the ETH Zürich, Switzerland. We will surely write more on this later. Altogether, this makes up for a nicely filled programme for the around 30 days of our stay at Princess Elisabeth station and I am happy that Quentin of our Ozone-UV-Aerosol group of RMI accompanies me this season.