The Antarctic Sun, January 20, 2002 · 2009-07-10 · Antarctica is too warm this summer. Too warm for smooth roads and tranquil traveling, that is. Recent record-breaking summer

French and Italian workers construct one of two new buildings at Dome C, a new station beingbuilt on the high plateau. It is only the third permanent research station on the polar plateau,joining the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and Russia�s Vostok Station. The site waschosen to do research complimentary to that done at the South Pole. Read a full story on thenew station on page 7.

TheAntarctic SunJanuary 20, 2002www.polar.org/antsun

Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

Weather hampersPole construction

Page 4

�The water you�re drinking is1,000 years old.�

Keeping it cleanat the Pole

Page 12

I N S I D E Quote of the Week

- South Pole official to a distinguished visitor

Photo by Lucia Simion/Special to The Antarctic Sun

By Melanie ConnerSun staff

Antarctica is too warm this summer.Too warm for smooth roads and tranquil

traveling, that is.Recent record-breaking summer weath-

er pleases the soul, throws scientists a curveball and nearly cripples station transporta-tion at McMurdo station.

On Dec. 30, 2001, the temperature atMcMurdo reached 51F(10.5C), an all-timehigh for the station. The previous recordwas 49F(9.4C) during the mid-70s. Thewarm streak did not end there. In the firstweek of January the temperature reached50F (10C).

"It often reaches temperatures in the 40s

in the summer, but it doesn't usually stay inthe 40s for a long time," said Jim Frodge,meteorology manager at McMurdo Station.

Meanwhile, resident-workers atAmundsen-Scott South Pole Station areexperiencing a similar heat wave thismonth. Last week, the temperaturesclimbed to plus 5.4F (-14.8C).

"The last time it was above 0F was inJanuary 1985," said John Gallagher of theSouth Pole meteorology department. "It'squite rare to be on the plus side of zerohere."

In November, five daily high tempera-ture records were broken at the Pole and the

See Heat on page 11

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

Despite the recent streak of unusual-ly warm weather around McMurdoStation, the overall trend in Antarcticacontinues to be cold and colder.

While the rest of the world seems tobe warming, scientists doing Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) inthe Dry Valleys near McMurdo Soundfound at least some parts of the icy con-tinent were stillchilling in the1990s. The tem-perature drop setsoff a chain ofreactions in theDry Valleys, lead-ing to the kind ofmass devastationof invertebratepopulations thatwould have ani-mal lovers crying if the microscopicworms were large and fluffy.

"This is a fairly rapid response tothese changes," said Peter Doran, aLTER hydrometeorologist from theUniversity of Illinois, and lead author ofa paper the LTER group published Jan.13 in Nature online.

The LTER group�s findings triggereda lot of other headlines, with stories onCNN, the BBC, USA Today, theWashington Post and other media.

"It's caused a lot of interesting dis-cussion back in the states," said BerryLyons, project manager for the 28-member LTER group.

The discussion comes as the generalpublic tries to make sense of what seemlike contradictory weather reports. TheLTER produced 14 years of weather

See Cold on page 9

Heat wave melts ice, floods valleys

The Ice coolsas world warms

New dome in the neighborhood

�We don�tknow whythis part ofthe Antarcticis cooling.�Andrew Fountain,

glacialogist

The Antarctic Sun is funded by the NationalScience Foundation as part of the United

States Antarctic Program. Itsprimary audience is U.S.Antarctic Program participants,their families, and their friends.NSF reviews and approves

material before publication, but opinions andconclusions expressed in the Sun are notnecessarily those of the Foundation.

U s e : Reproduction and distribution areencouraged with acknowledgment of sourceand author.

Senior Editor: Kristan HutchisonEditors: Melanie Conner

Mark SabbatiniCopy Editor: Lynn Hamann

P u b l i s h e r : Valerie Carroll,Communications manager, R P S C

Contributions are welcome. C o n t a c tthe Sun at A n t S u n @ p o l a r.org. In McMurdo,visit our office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: w w w. p o l a r. o r g / a n t s u n

2 • The Antarctic Sun January 20, 2002

Under the sea

Science galoreNumber of McMurdo based scienceprojects: 7 8

Number of science projects at SouthPole Station: 2 8

Number of projects at Palmer and onresearch vessels: 2 5

Number of projects relating to the cosmos: 35; 20 at South Pole

Most studied subjects: Biology andMedicine, 38; 22 McMurdo-based,16 Palmer-based

University with the most projects:University of Washington; 8

Longest on-going project: The SouthPole Observatory, established in1957.

Scientist with the longest on-going project: Art Devries, fish antifreezeresearch at McMurdo Station, 40y e a r s

Source for facts: Robbie Score and NSF

Cold, hardfacts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

Across1) Grows on crystals4) The deepest creatures8) A wimp or one without a spine10) Extracts specimens from the sea11) Longer than a platform14) Something fishy here16) Huge pack hunters17) Sky scene plus ocean creature18) Less than 1km from the surface

Down2) Not only for the car3) Single-celled monsters5) Larvae nutrition6) Cities of microscopic unknowns live

here7) Shrimp-like creatures9) Evolved, cold-water mollusks10) Produces ice-binding molecules11) Has large spines on each gill-cover12) A Hollywood hit from the depths13) Associated with the ocean bottom15) Human contribution to ecosystem

Icebergs, icebergs and moreicebergs.

There’s not much to see herebut water and ice.

I guess. It’s my first time down here. Isuppose we won’t be seeing anything outof the ordinary way down here.

Hey grab your binoculars, there’ssomething out there!!!

answers on page 6

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

Somewhere in the rock record ofAntarctica, John Isbell expects to findclues related to what caused, or didn'tcause, ancient changes in sea level.

That could force other scientists torethink how coal deposits in theAppalachian mountains and other areas ofthe northern hemisphere formed duringthe Carboniferous and Permian ages, 360to 270 million years ago.

"Geologically, the environments andcontinents around the world are inter-linked," said Isbell, a University ofWisconsin sedimentologist working inVictoria Land on a National ScienceFoundation grant with Rosemary Askinand Anne Grunow of Ohio StateUniversity. "What happened here inAntarctica constrains interpretations ofwhat went on elsewhere."

During the late Paleozoic age the worldwas even more interrelated than it is today.All the continents were connected in a sin-gle land mass, called Pangea. What wouldeventually become Antarctica was situat-ed in the south polar portion of the Pangeasupercontinent, but it looked much differ-ent.

Within that period of time, theAntarctic region went from being coveredby an ice sheet to only having glaciers inthe high country. Glaciers lined the edgeof a huge lake, stretching from possiblywhere Ross Island now sits to SouthAmerica, Isbell said. It was a dynamicenvironment, with submarine slumps andslides along the lake bottom and icebergsfloating on the surface. The lake was grad-ually filled by large deltas and braidedrivers.

"There's evidence that it was cold,potentially still having glaciers in theupland for a relatively long time after thelake filled," Isbell said. "However, thelake may have been re-established severaltimes for short intervals of time due torapid melting of the glaciers that remainedin the uplands."

As it warmed, plants took root. In theBeardmore and Shackleton Glacier areasIsbell has found fossilized leaves, woodand even standing stumps. Those ancienttrees might have looked similar to onesfound today in Alaska.

"These were probably conical, narrowtoward the top," said Askin, a palynolo-gist. The trees' shape evolved to sharelight from the low-angled sun at thosepolar paleoaltitudes. "The trees had wide

annual rings, wider than found in trees inthe midwest," Askin said. "They musthave grown like crazy in the polar sum-mer."

As mindboggling as it is to think therewere forests in Antarctica, that wasn'tunusual. Through all of geological history,major parts of the Earth have been buriedunder ice during only four intervals oftime, said Askin said.

"Much of geological time was green-house conditions when, at least since landplants evolved, there were forests growingnear the Pole and animals scurryingaround," Askin said.

Though nobody knows what the tem-perature was in Antarctica then, Isbell saidthat the petrified trees suggest the sum-mers were frost-free, because the treewood had little or no frost damage.

Extensive coal deposits occur inCarboniferous and Permian rocks in thenorthern hemisphere. Scientists believethat these coals resulted from large-scalelandward and seaward shifts in the posi-tion of peat mires due to rapidly rising andfalling sea level.

Many scientists attribute Antarctica'sbig meltdown with raising the sea levels60 to 200 meters worldwide during thattime.

But Isbell believes the Antarctic andsouthern Pangea were innocent, at least

partially. The time period in which theseas rose and fell, 360 to 270 million yearsago, doesn't match when glaciationoccurred on Antarctica and elsewhere insouthern Pangea, from about 310 to 275million years ago.

"The Antarctic glaciation couldexplain the tail end of the sea level�s rise,but not the first 50 million years," Isbellsaid. "Right now there is no good explana-tion for the sea level changes during that50 million year interval."

Isbell has also found signs that indicatethat the final late Paleozoic Antarcticmeltdown occurred rapidly, in geologicalterms, over a period of 2 million to 3 mil-lion years. If all this is true, the sciencecommunity may need to look further forthe cause of the rapidly changing sea lev-els at that time.

"There's a lot of evidence for numerousrapid rises and falls in sea level during thelate Paleozoic, but if the data coming outof Antarctica is correct, then waxing andwaning glaciation is not the completeanswer, and ultimately other hypotheseswill need to be put forward and then test-ed," Isbell said. "Ultimately the study ofAntarctic rocks will change how we viewthe rest of the world during that time peri-od, and what we find out about that timeframe will help us better understand thepresent.�

Photo from John Isbell/Special to The Antarctic SunKeri Wolfe looks for rocks from the Permian age on Maya Mountain in the Dry Valleys.Wolfe works with John Isbell and they will use the samples to help unravel what happenedduring a transition from glaciated to green more than 270 million years ago.

January 20, 2002 The Antarctic Sun � 3

Rock collectors look back in time

By Mark SabbatiniSun staff

The new South Pole station won't be ready to house winter staffthis season after all.

A shortage of flights due mostly to bad weather this summerhas resulted in about 2 million pounds of equipment failing toreach the Pole. As a result, the housing facilities won't be ready foroccupancy this year and further problems are likely next year dueto the backlog of shipments.

There's also concern about some settlement occurring at thebase of the new facility, although officials are unsure of its cause.

The $153 million core facility, scheduled for completion in2006, will replace the dome that has been a landmark at theAmundsen-Scott South Pole Station since 1975. The impact of thelatest developments on short-term work is minimal, said JerryMarty, the station's National Science Foundation representative.

The plan for the new facility is to occupy sections as they'recompleted, Marty said. A new housing section was originallyscheduled to be occupied this winter.

"The purpose of that was not only to occupy the facility, but toreduce the number of people living outside the dome this year," hesaid. One of the reasons, he added, is the new station is more effi-cient when it comes to using resources such as fuel.

More than 50 of the 348 flights scheduled to the Pole this sea-son failed to arrive, Marty said. It is the second year in a row a sig-nificant number of flights have been grounded.

It's too early to know the long-term impact of the missed flightsand station settling, including whether the completion date of thefacility will be delayed, Marty said. Construction has stayed onschedule during previous years, but Marty said next year's situa-tion is "a true question mark."

One known impact will be shipping and availability of con-struction materials next year, since there is almost no time left thissummer for planes to bring in new supplies. Carlton Walker, thestation's construction manager, told a group of Raytheon PolarServices Company officials who visited the Pole recently that thestation will operate in 100 percent "need and feed" mode next sea-son. That means items will be flown in as they're needed, a poten-tial problem if flights are held up or there are mix-ups in ship-ments.

"I'll be fortunate to get enough cargo on the ground these twoweeks for two to three weeks (of work) next year," he said.

A portion of the new station has also settled three or four inch-es into the snow, Marty said. He said a couple of projects are beingheld up as engineers in the U.S. study the situation, but at themoment it isn't causing any overall delays.

"Man has never put these types of loads in Antarctica before,"he said. The cause will be studied further by engineers, but "to behonest, we're all scratching our heads" at the moment.

Weather throws kink into Pole construction

South Pole construction employees, above, work on a section of thenew station. The facility, scheduled for completion in 2006, willreplace the dome that has been a landmark at the Pole since 1975.

Photos by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic Sun

Have you logged onto the Sun�s Web site lately? If not, look what you�re missing:* A full-color 2002 calendar featuring the winners of our Photo, Poetry and Prose Festival* A full-length album from this year�s Icestock music festival* Answers to questions from people around the world about Antarctica* Our weekly crossword puzzle in an online interactive format (with hints!)

Coming soon:A special end-of-year

present to our readers* And lots more! See for yourself by going to www.polar.org/antsun

4 � The Antarctic Sun January 20, 2002

Flight delays hold up materialsfor the second year in a row

Vessels come to stationfor tours, emergencyBy Tom CohenourPalmer correspondant

Over six days last week,Palmer Station received oneyacht, four tour ships, one heli-copter and one British Navalresearch vessel.

The John Laing, a 72-foot(22 meter) steel-hulled ketchchartered by the British Army,arrived unexpectedly becauseof a minor medical emergency.Sixteen crew members were onboard. Their mission, primarilyteam building, includes sail-ing, cold weather survival andmountain climbing along theAntarctic Peninsula. They arealso collecting samples for sci-entists back in the UK anddoing a survey of historic sites.

Visits were exchanged between stationpersonnel and members of the John Laing.One of the two visitors wearing kilts quiteunexpectedly opened a case and produceda set of bagpipes. British officer MajorRichard Pattison's lively bagpipe tunesfilled the unusually still night air. Anyonewishing to learn more about their travelscan log onto their Web site athttp://www.BAAE.org.uk

The 237-foot (73-meter) Explorerarrived the day after Palmer hosted thecrew of the John Laing. Sponsored by Mr.Forrest Mars of the Mars candy company,the ship arrived with 75 high schoolers, 12teachers, and eight Mars family members.Brothers Forrest and John Mars enjoyedseeing Palmer along with their wives andfour of Forrest's children. Station cooksbaked brownies with M & M's for theoccasion. Information and photographs ofthe Explorer can be seen on their Web siteat http://www.explorership.com

With 450 passengers, the 578-foot(178-meter) tour ship Marco Polo mooredoffshore from Palmer Station. A delega-tion of station personnel traveled via zodi-

ac to meet her. Speakers presented a talkabout the United States Antarctic Program(USAP), station life, science conducted atPalmer and answered questions from theaudience.

Formerly known as theCaledonian Star, the tour shipEndeavor arrived at Palmerwith 98 passengers and crew.After hosting a station tour forthe Endeavor passengers, sta-tion personnel had the opportu-nity to spend a two-hour socialwith passengers aboard theship well known for its hospi-tality.

Another tour ship of enor-mous size was the 718-foot(222-meter) Ryndam, whichstopped just off BonapartePoint directly in front ofPalmer Station with 1,200 pas-sengers. Speakers from Palmerpresented two excellentPowerPoint presentations inthe 600-seat auditorium about

the work being done in the USAP, stationlife and science conducted at Palmer.After the talks,speakers answeredquestions from theaudience seated onboth the main leveland the balconyoverlooking thestage. Visible fromstation was thecaged tennis courton the ship's topback deck adjacentto the swimmingpool. The Ryndamcarries up to 1,400passengers, nearlyas many people asare deployed toAntarctica in theentire USAP pro-gram.

A few hours after the Ryndam depart-ed, a 296-foot (91-meter) Royal Navalresearch vessel arrived at Palmer with 120personnel. The HMS Endurance is a true

icebreaker assisting the British AntarcticSurvey and carrying out scientificresearch programs. Tours were providedto 45 Royal Navy visitors who in turn pro-vided tours of their vessel to station folks.

Congressional staffersstuck at the South PoleBy Judy SpanbergerSouth Pole correspondant

We're going to start calling our lovelylittle station at the bottom of the world theSouthern Most Motel 6 after the events ofthis past week. We had the pleasure of host-ing a passel of distinguished visitors (DVs)that got stuck here due to bad weather.

Eight members of the House Committeeon Appropriations escorted by Karl A Erbwere our distinguished visitors this week.They came to observe the installment of thenew El-Station time capsule and to tour theprogress of the new station. Quite a crowdgathered to watch the time capsule put intoplace. The contents of the capsule are a few

South Pole souvenirsfrom our store, vialsof the cleanest air onEarth from the cleanair sector, postersfrom the NSF andthe ANG, signed bythose organizationsand a poster of thenew El Stationsigned by polies, andlastly a book ofAntarctic pressreleases from lastyear. After the cap-sule ceremony theDVs then got a tourof the station. Amore intimate tourthan they'd plannedto be sure! The

weather socked in and our gracious visitors


around the continentPALMER

SOUTH POLE

McMurdo StationHigh: 50F/10.1C Low: -14F/-26CWind: 28 mph/45 kphWindchill: -20F/-29C

Palmer StationHigh: N/AWind: N/AWindchill: N/A

South Pole StationHigh: 5.4F/-15C Low: -14F/-26CWind: 39 mph/62 kphWindchill: N/A

the week in weather

British Army OfficerMajor RichardPattison plays the bag-pipes during a stop atPalmer Station.

Photo by Andres Martinez/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Photo by Tom Cohenour

Visitors from the House Committee onAppropriations help workers at theAmundsen-Scott South Pole Station bury atime capsule at the base of the new station,which is under construction.

See Pole on page 6


What winter Olympicsport could Antarcticaexcel at?

�Spryte joustingand boondoggling.�

Laura BonneauAssistant lab supervisor

at McMurdo Station,from Seattle, WA

�Curling, because nothing is funnier thanbig guys pushing littlepucks around the ice

with brooms.�Henry Malgren

Network engineer at SouthPole, from Austin, TX

�An ice coringcontest.�

Amy ChiuchioloGraduate student at

Palmer Station, from,Danvers, MA

became our honored guests. We had peo-ple camped out in the library, pool roomand gym while the winds blew and thesnow flew. Room service was not avail-able, but everyone seemed comfortable andhappy to be here socializing with the polies.

The season is coming to a close. Boxesand items safe outside during the warmerand calmer summer months are beginningto be put indoors or on storage berms, ourbrains are getting mushy, redeploymentmeetings are being held and the winter-overs are heading off to McMurdo for R &R. McMurdo has been going out of theirway to provide some great activities to keepthem out of trouble. Cosmic bowling, sur-vival school, classes and more. Thanks tothe folks at McMurdo for all the fun!

Whew! "Vat a Veek!," as my grand-mother would say.

The sea ice reaked its revenge on theicebreakers sent to cut through it.

Though the Coast Guard breakerschopped through the thick, second-year ice,the 17-mile channel to McMurdo Stationremains clogged with ice chunks, saidCoast Guard Commander April Brown.The strain of constant ice-breaking is show-ing on both breakers.

The Polar Sea, called out of the mainte-nance yard to assist the Polar Star, devel-oped a leak in the starboard propeller hub,Brown said. Booms were set up to containthe leak. Fixing it will likely require salvagedivers, who need to be flown in, Brownsaid. She expects the divers to arriveWednesday. If the hub is not fixed properlyit could damage the $2 million propeller,Brown said. The Polar Sea continues towork clearing the channel, but it cannot gointo reverse.

Meanwhile, the fuel tanker Gus Darnelland Greenwave resupply vessel are still ontheir way. The tanker is expected at the iceedge today, but because of the cloggedchannel and problems with the breaker itmay have to wait there until Tuesday, whenthe Coast Guard breakers can escort it in.Talk of using the breakers to ferry fuel fromthe tanker at the ice edge to McMurdoStation was dropped because the tankerpump is needed to move the fuel up the hillto the tanks, Brown said.

The Greenwave is still expected at theice edge by Feb. 1.

Pole From page 5

Answer to crossword from page 2

Photo by Lt. Edward Beale/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Sister ice breakers, the Polar Sea and Polar Star, both work to clear the channel toMcMurdo Station. Two breakers were needed this year to deal with extra-thick ice.

Breakers struggle with McMurdo sea ice

Correction: Trace Wright, one ofthe winning poets listed last week,was erroneously refered to as sherather than he. He recieved anhonorable mention for writing thepoem �A Day Down South.�

By Lucia SimionSpecial to The Antarctic SunDOME CONCORDIA - After manydays of bad weather conditions, the sunis finally shining again over Dome C, atiny village of white and green tents andorange containers at 75° 06' south and123° 23' east. Three flags are flying inthe wind blowing from South Pole,1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away: blue,white and red for France; green, whiteand red for Italy; and deep blue with 15yellow stars for the European Union.

In fact, Dome C is a speck of OldEurope lost in the very heart ofAntarctica. Located 3,200 meters(10,400 feet) above sea level, it's theplace chosen by France and Italy in 1993to build a new science station, the first tobe shared by two countries.

"There are actually only two perma-nent science stations up on the polarplateau," said Gérard Jugie, director ofthe French Polar Institute, whose head-quarters are in Brest. "Amundsen-Scottstation at South Pole and RussianVostok, located at 80° of latitude south.Concordia will be the third, but in termsof modernity it will be the second one,after South Pole."

Named "Concordia" by the late Paul-Emile Victor, founder of the French PolarExpedition (later to become the FrenchPolar Institute), the French-Italian station

has been under construction since 1999and will be inaugurated in 2004.

French Jean-Paul Fave designedConcordia in the late 1990s. It consistsof two elevated, cylindrical buildingswith 36 faces and three floors, connectedby an enclosed bridge about 10 meters(32.5 feet) long.

"This solution provides a clear sepa-ration between areas where noise is pro-duced and areas were peace and quiet arewanted by locating them in two well-separated buildings, the "noisy" and the"quiet," explained Fave who spent fourweeks at Dome C supervising the con-struction, together with the buildingteam manager Serge Drapeau from theFrench Polar Institute. Serge was flankedby a team of 10 building workers, halfItalian, half French.

Like the new South Pole building, theDome C buildings can be raised to stayabove the snow.

"The uplifting is supposed to be per-formed every 10 years," Fave said.

In 1994, the steel frame of one of thetwo main buildings was erected inFrance and three foreign experts wereinvited for inspection: Wayne Tobiassonfrom the Cold Regions Research andEngineering Laboratory (CRREL) inHanover, N.H., Don J. Taylor from the



A signpost at Concordia Station points the wayhome to cities in France, Italy and otherEuropean destinations.

Concordia - The new French-Italian station

Bienv

enu! G

radito!

Photo by Serge Drapeau/Special to The Antarctic Sun

This summer workers began enclosing the framework of the new French-Italian station at Dome Cwith insulated panels.

See Dome C on page 8

British Antarctic Survey andHeinz Kohnen from the AlfredWegener Institute inBremerhaven, Germany.

A joint venture between IFRTP(French Polar Institute) and PNRA(the Italian Polar Program run byENEA), Concordia's budget is 31million Euros ($27.4 millionU.S.), split 50-50 by Italy andFrance. Researchers and techni-cians from other European coun-tries are welcome, and during thesummer field season 2001-2002 inDome C it was possible to meetpeople from 10 different countries,including Russia, Switzerland,Sweden and Denmark.

About 1,200 kilometers (750miles) from both the French sta-tion Dumont d'Urville, and theItalian base in Terra Nova Bay,Dome C was originally selectedfor glaciological research. A sub-stantial layer of ice, 3,200 metersthick (10,400 feet), offers greatpotential for climatic reconstruc-tion of the last 500,000 years. TheEPICA project (European Projectfor Ice Coring in Antarctica),funded by the EuropeanCommunity, has been workingthere since 1999.

On Jan. 17 the drilling opera-tions reached 2,600 meters (8,450feet) below the ice and more than1,000 meters (3,250 feet) of icecores were processed by an inter-national team of 14 people direct-ed by Eric Wolff from BritishAntarctic Survey.

Dome C has other valuable characteris-tics that support the installation of a perma-nent scientific station, said Mario Zucchelli,director of the Italian Polar Program. Manyof them are the same reasons that Americanresearchers go to the South Pole. Dome C islocated inside the polar vortex where theozone hole can be detected in the australspring. Since it is far from any marine per-turbations, Dome C is an ideal place forstudying solid Earth geophysics, especiallyseismology. Being 3,200 meters above thecontinental crust, Dome C is protected fromany magnetic perturbations by anomalies inthe Earth's crust and is an ideal place forstudying magnetism, Zuchelli said.

Dome C is also a very isolated site expe-riencing severe climatic conditions,Zuchelli said. It will be an excellent site forevaluating techniques and procedures forfuture work on other planets.

Its isolation also makes it an easy placeto study small groups of people in condi-tions similar to those encountered in orbit-

ting space stations, Zuchelli said.The base is designed for 16 people year-

round, with double that many for a monthduring the annual change-over period. Thestation is supplied by regular Twin Otterflights and three times a year by a truck tra-verse from Dumont d'Urville.

Dome C is also a very good location forthe search for micrometeorites, tiny specksof comets fallen to Earth, with dimensionsbetween 25 microns and 500 microns,Zuchelli said.

But the happiest of all with Dome C arethe astronomers. Karim Agabi, French-Algerian astronomer, is in Dome C for hissecond season in a row.

"As a possible future site of astronomicalobservations, the Dome Concordia looksextremely promising," said Agabi.

Some of the reasons are obvious - highaltitude, very cold and dry air favoringinfrared astronomy, and long days andnights favoring a long time of integration.

"An additional interest could very wellbe the unique stability of the almost wind-

less local atmosphere, givingaccess to high resolution astro-nomical imaging capabilities inac-cessible anywhere else on Earth,"Agabi said.

Astronomy plans at Dome Cinclude instruments to measureatmospheric turbulence and photo-metric studies focusing on AlphaCentauri, a very bright double star.

"It could also provide the firstreal asteroseismological investiga-tion of two solar type stars, incomplement to the less bright starsthat space projects are aiming at,"Agabi said.

The site testing of theConcordia site is part of the world-wide campaign to qualify all thesites of large modern telescopesworldwide. The Alpha Centauriseismology is a very useful andimportant complement of the pos-sible space missions, which haveno access to that star, much toobright for the onboard camera.

There are lots of other goodreasons for astronomers to work atDome C, said Paolo G. Calisse, anItalian astronomer from theUniversity of New South Wales inSydney, Australia.

"The place is out of the auroralarea, is extremely dry and locatedat high altitude," Calisse said."Wind speed is by far lower thanat other locations, including SouthPole station. That should make theturbulent layer thinner, improving,in turn, the quality of potentialastronomical observations."

Calisse added that theUniversity of New South Wales,

which has been running an astrophysicalsite testing program at the South Pole since1995, last summer started testing the DomeC potential for astronomy in collaborationwith NSF-CARA. Many instruments atDome C will run parallel to ones at theSouth Pole, including cameras to automati-cally monitor cloud cover and a system sim-ilar to the AASTO, running at present at theSouth Pole.

"The idea is to supply the characteristicsof the two sites to the international astro-nomical community, and then use the infor-mation gathered to propose the constructionof a 2 m class infrared telescope at DomeC," Calisse said.

"We can also get free lesson of Frenchand Italian language," he said.

"Last but not least," said Calisse, whowas born in Rome and moved to Sydneytwo years ago, "at Dome C you can enjoythe best Italian-French restaurant of thecontinent run by Jean-Louis Duraffourg, aveteran of Antarctica."



Jean-Paul Fave, right, looks over his designs for the ConcordiaStationwith one of the builders. The two steel-frame buildingsweigh 275 tons. They stand on six legs on a platform of com-pressed snow. This season the first 25 external panels were putup.

Dome C From page 7

data from a station on the shore of LakeHoare showing the air temperature has beendropping 1.3F (0.7C) per decade on average.The Dry Valleys have an average annualtemperature of minus 0.4F to minus 2F (-18-19C), Lyons said. The temperature decline ismost pronounced in the southern summerand fall.

Moreover, the cooling goes beyond theDry Valleys, already unique because they areone of the only parts of the continent notcovered in ice. John Walsh, a climate scien-tist from the University of Illinois, looked at35 years of measurements from weather sta-tions across the continent. Taking intoaccount where the weather stations werelocated, he determined 66 percent of themainland has been cooling since 1966.

At the same time the weather data flies inthe face of the global warming trend, whichis an average increase in air temperature of0.01F (0.06C) every 10 years during the 20thcentury. That warming trend already takesinto account the colder weather data fromAntarctica, Doran said. On an even longertime scale, ice records collected this summerat Dome Concordia on the East Antarcticplateau show the temperature at the equatorwas 11F (6C) colder 170,000 years ago,according to Dr. Eric Wolff, chief scientistfor the European project for ice coring inAntarctica. Within that longer warming trendthere is plenty of room for smaller ups anddowns in temperature, including the recent

data from the Dry Valleys.The Dry Valleys data is also the opposite

of the 7F (4C) warming on the AntarcticPeninsula. But the Peninsula is the conti-nent's banana belt and follows different cli-mate patterns than the mainland, Lyons said.

"We don't really know why this part of theAntarctic is cooling," said Andrew Fountain,another co-author. "All we point to is that thesystem is complex. You don't get uniformwarming everywhere. There are places thatcool as the rest of the world is warming up."

Even the scientists who wrote the Naturereport were originally surprised by their find-ings. When the LTER group started workingin the Dry Valleys they expected to be watch-ing the area react to global warming.

"For years we were sort of in the mindsetthat global warming was affecting our sys-tem and we kept waiting for the warm stuffto come back," Doran said. "We kept think-ing the cold stuff was a blip in our system,but then we realized the cold stuff was therecord."

One of the things that distinguishes theLTER project, one of 24 sites funded by theNational Science Foundation in the U.S. andAntarctica, is that it involves scientists in anumber of disciplines collecting and compar-ing data over a long period of time. At theirannual meeting in Fort Collins, Colo., lastMarch, the diverse members of the Dry


Cold From page 1

Photo by Kristan Hutchison/The Antarctic Sun

Two field workers bringback ice to melt for waterat Lake Hoare. The frozen

lake and the valleyaround it have been cool-ing over the past decade,making life more difficult

for the microscopic plantsand animals living in and

around it.

�We kept thinkingthe cold stuff was a blip in our system,but then we realized the cold stuff was the record.�

-Peter Doran

See Cold on page 10


Valleys LTER group decided to pull togethertheir climate data and compare it to changesin their individual research. Like puzzlepieces, the climate data aligned with changesin stream and lake levels, ice thickness, andplant and animal life.

"We wouldn't have known this if we had-n't been doing long-term research," saidDiana Wall, another LTER co-author. "Ifwe'd stopped at three years we wouldn't havenoticed this."

The temperature drop came with adecrease in wind speed and clouds. In theDry Valleys, the wind tends to warm the tem-perature, so less wind contributed to the cool-ing trend. Fewer clouds allowed more evapo-ration and may have decreased the snowfall,an average precipitation of 4 in. (10 cm) orless. One way or another the soil became 36percent dryer. The soil-dwelling worms andother invertebrates suffered in the colder,dryer conditions, and their population hasshrunk 50 percent since 1993.

"All these animals turn off and on withwater," said Wall, who studies the micro-scopic worms, called nematodes.

Though nobody's starting a Save theNematodes campaign, the worms play animportant role in soil fertility around theworld.

"If we were in a temperate climate, somefarmer would be wondering what's goingon," Wall said.

With colder temperatures the glaciersmelted less in the summer, so the streamsshrank and the lake shores receded. The coldalso froze more of the lake water, creating athicker expanse of ice for sunlight to filterthrough to reach the water below. With lesslight, the microscopic floating plants in thelakes began to wither and die. LTERresearcher John Priscu found a 5 percentaverage annual decrease in phytoplankton

productivity in Lake Bonney since 1989."It's just like if you took a population of

humans and starved them," Priscu said."We're all going to slow down and emaciateand then eventually start to die."

Some pieces of the chain react slower thanothers. While the glaciers' surface melting orfreezing is an almost instant reaction to dailychanges of temperature and light, the glaci-ers� movement is driven by what the temper-ature was 1,000 years ago, Fountain said.

Despite the recent decade of cold, thethree glaciers he has photos of from the1970s appear to be advancing. They stillretain heat from a warmer time 1,000 yearsago, allowing them to move faster.

"It's the difference between pouring reallycold maple syrup vs. really warm maplesyrup," Fountain said.

Looking at the longer timescale, theeffects of a few degrees temperature on theDry Valleys can have even more dramaticeffects. Lyons said previous research by otherscientists and ice core records indicate thetemperature was probably warmer about3,000 years ago and Lake Vanda in theWright Valley was 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60meters) higher than its current level. Overseveral thousand years the temperaturedropped 1.8F (1C) causing the lake to shrinkto a 16-foot (5-m) deep brine pool. Since thenthe temperature increased 3.6F (2C) to bringthe lake level back up to what it is today.

Figuring out what is and has happened inthe Dry Valleys is only a first step, Lyonssaid.

"What we'd like to be able to do is makepredictions if the climate changes what willhappen down the line," Lyons said.

Based on paleo-climate records from theRoss Sea region, Lyons predicts a 1.8F (1C)change in temperature, if sustained, couldcause the Dry Valleys to truly dry up.

Cold From page 9

Magnified photo of a Scottnema lind-sayae, a type of nematode or micro-scopic worm, from the Taylor Valley.Cooling in the valley has caused thenematode population to shrink 50 per-cent.

Provided by Diana Wall/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Photo by Shad O�Neel/Special to The Antarctic Sun

The Taylor Valley,at right and left,cooled by 1.3F

during the 1990s,triggering a chain

of reactions.Researchers aren�t

sure why theValleys and other

parts of Antarcticaare cooling while

the world ingeneral iswarming.

Photo provided by LTER/Special to The Antarctic Sun

�All these animalsturn off and onwith water.�

-Diana Wall

temperature hovered about 5 degrees above normalthroughout the month, bringing the average up tominus 32F (-36C) for the month.

"But the real warm weather has been in January,"said Gallagher. "The average temperature so far forthis month is minus 8.7F (-23C), which is warmerthan it ever got during the past two summers."

Frodge and his team of meteorologists atMcMurdo Station are collecting raw data they willprocess and analyze in Charleston, S.C., upon theirreturn, where they will study the cause of the warm-ing blitz. It may turn out to be an isolated year, or rep-resent part of a larger pattern.

"There is no way at this point in time to know whatis causing this unseasonably warm weather," saidFrodge.

Regardless of the cause, both stations are shufflingand prioritizing flights at a time when all are hustlingto complete the station goals before they move intowinter-status in one month.

The biggest problems associated with near-zerotemperatures at the Pole are increased wind that leadsto decreased visibility and cancelled cargo flights,said Katy Jensen, South Pole Station area manager. Atthe South Pole, warm weather is associated with windand cloud cover, which keeps long-wave radiationfrom escaping into space.

"It's like having a blanket thrown over us," saidGallagher. "The days that feel warmest around hereare when it's sunny with light winds and the tempera-ture is around minus 15F."

McMurdo Station has other heat-related problems,where upper-40s means constant road maintenance,monitoring and conditioning.

"The warm weather has caused havoc on opera-tions," said Bill Turnbull, Antarctic TerminalOperations manager.

Runway crews groom Pegasus and Williams Fieldrunways day and night and hope to keep the runwayslightly covered with about one-half inch of loosesnow to prevent the runway surface from melting andturning to slush.

"It is very remarkable that we have been able tocontinue bringing in aircrafts from Christchurch,"said Gary Cardullo, airfield manager. "The airfieldcrews have been working long hours at both airfieldsto keep them open � It's really commendable."

While 11 of the 17 scheduled aircrafts have landedat Pegasus, incoming flights from Christchurch arerestricted to land between 11 p.m. and 11 a.m., whenthe runway is the coolest and reaches its full strength,said Cardullo.

The Pegasus runway allows C-130 wheeled-air-crafts to transport passengers to and from NewZealand, allowing the LC-130s to fly on-continentmissions to support science and South Pole construc-tion.

"Despite any setbacks, Pegasus is an importantproject," said Cardullo. "Those 11 successful flightshave saved 20 to 30 on-continent missions, withouthaving to use the LC-130s to fly north."

Typically, McMurdo Station transportation oper-ates with about 10 shuttle vehicles; however, the sta-tion has been limited to four large-wheeled vehicles -three Deltas and one Terrabus - since the heat wave

began in mid-December."Large-wheeled vehicles actually pack the snow,

but small tires cut through the crusty surface and getburied in the soft snow," said Turnbull, who said it isnot rare to be limited to Deltas, but this the longesttime he had ever seen.

"It has been tough. We can't use light vehicles, onlyDeltas," said Cardullo.

At a top speed of 18-20 miles an hour, the Deltavehicles are much slower than shuttle vans. It can takeup to 45 minutes to travel from McMurdo Station toWilliams Field in a Delta, compared to 30 minutes ina shuttle. The shuttle services coordinator makes dailyadjustments to the shuttle schedules, as well as prior-itizing passengers to accommodate for limited trans-portation.

Scientists in remote field camps at the Dry Valleys,60 miles northwest of McMurdo, are experiencingtheir own transportation woes as glacial runoff hassaturated much of the area by turning pathways intoimpassable rivers, streams and lakes.

"Last year the streams didn't always make it all theway to the lakes," said grantee Chris Jaros of theUniversity of Colorado - Boulder. "This year, youhave to wear gaiters to get around."

According to Jaros, the excess runoff forces themto travel around the water to collect the data from thestreams. To navigate the area, many scientists areresorting to using precious helicopter time to flyaround the once-walkable lakes of the Dry Valleys.

"Instead of walking for eight hours a day aroundthe water, we have to helo from place to place," saidJaros.

Despite the difficulty getting around, scientists arepuzzled and fascinated by this year's warm tempera-tures, as they consider the rarity of the flash flood likewaters in the Dry Valleys. For example, one smallstream that flows into Lake Fryxell was reported byscientists to flow at a rate of 38 cubic feet per second(CFS). Last year the same stream had a maximumflow of 5 CFS.

"The streams are putting a lot of water around thelake," said Jaros. "There is more water this seasonthan in the previous 10 years. They speak of the myth-ical years from the early �90s and I could hardlybelieve it, but now I'm seeing it."

Now Jaros enjoys a nightly water show as the sunhits a glacier between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

"It's like a flash flood, every night if the sun hits itright, you can see huge flows of water," said Jaros.

Diana Wall studies microscopic worms in the DryValleys and has never seen water "like this before." Shesaid she is already anxious to visit the Dry Valleys nextyear to see what resulted from the unusual water flows.

"We don't know what this pulse of warm weatherwill do to biology," Wall said. "It could have sparkedlife, because it's water and water causes life - butmaybe not."

Wall said she enjoys working in the warm sun-shine, but admits that the "science part" of her is notsure what the current natural experiment will meanfor the biological future in the Dry Valleys.

As Wall described it, "It's one of those totally unex-pected events, like a hurricane � I wouldn't want tomiss it."

Heat From page 1

�Wedon�tknow

what thispulse

of warmweatherwill do

to biology.�

- Diana Wall


The South Pole's only janitor gets hisday started these days with a case orso of wine.

froze over the winter, so I've been takingout a case and a half every day, thawingthem out and pouring them down thedrain," said Jeremy Sohlstrom, aMinneapolis resident working his secondyear at the Amundsen-Scott South PoleStation. "It's a Pole thing."

It is often the first of many odd jobsduring the day for Sohlstrom, who doesn'tdo bathrooms but may on occasion findhimself emptying chamber pots. He alsoputs in several shifts a week at the station'sstore and helps with various administrativeprojects, despite being the only personhired to clean up after 220 people. Bycomparison, McMurdo Station has 21 jan-itors to clean up after about 800 people.

But Sohlstrom's resume is hardly thatof an average janitor: he's spent his timeoff the Ice smuggling bibles into China,working for Mother Theresa'sHome For The Dying, and helpingspecial education and troubledyouths. So keeping the bottom ofthe world clean is hardly an over-whelming challenge.

"I like making the place lookgood," he said. "I love it here."

One of the reasons the stationhas only one janitor is everyone isassigned shifts to clean bathroomsand departments are given the taskof cleaning various indoor sec-tions of the station. Two janitorswere originally planned this sea-son, but one position was eliminat-ed so another construction workercould be hired to help build thenew station.

Several Pole workers said ifthere is only going to be one jani-tor at the Pole, Sohlstrom is anideal choice.

"He's one of the most quick-witted guys I've known downhere," said "Cookie" Jon Emanuel,a sous chef at the Pole. "Everytime I can I try to say hello to himjust to hear what he has to say."

Sohlstrom's also known for theoccasional practical joke, includ-ing an incident about seven weeksago when he used the station storemanager's e-mail address toannounce a variety of items suchas lilac-scented boot liners and replica

rock samples from Scott�s expedition hadarrived.

"It just bordered on believable," saidLouise Mercier, who manages the station'sstore and post office. "All of a suddenthese messages (from customers) startedpopping up on my screen."

The serious part of Sohlstrom's person-ality comes out in much of the work hedoes, if not always how he does it. Of par-ticular interest to him is ministry work.

Two years ago he spent a month smug-gling several hundred Bibles into China,where the government only prints enoughfor a tiny fraction of the population. Attimes he makes the mission sound like agame of hide-and-seek - changing clothesbetween trips during the day and pretend-ing not to understand the language whenquestioned - but there was the scare of get-ting caught twice near the border.

"Surprisingly it was less of a big dealthan I thought it would be," he said. "If wehad been caught deep in China with them

maybe something more dramatic wouldhave happened."

Sohlstrom's work for Mother Theresa'sorganization came shortly after she died in1997. He also spent two years after collegeworking in a residential treatment centerfor troubled youths, saying his favoritepart of the job was when kids lost controlof their emotions.

"I liked the challenge of dealing withthat and working through it with them andmaking it a productive time," he said.

Sohlstrom grew up in St. Cloud, Minn.,and moved to Minneapolis to attend col-lege at North Central University. He grad-uated with a bachelor's degree in psychol-ogy and received some ministry training.He hoped to be a chaplain in a juvenilecorrection facility, but the job he was seek-ing failed to open up.

He applied to work at the Pole shortlybefore his trip to China, calling once hegot there to see if there was an opening forhim. He was hired as a dining attendant,

working a rotating shift of twoweeks in the kitchen and one as ajanitor.

"As much as I enjoyed thekitchen, I enjoyed the janitorialwork more," he said. "I would seeprojects and I would have the free-dom to do it."

Sohlstrom spent last season offthe Ice, but said he decided toreturn this year because "it gets inyour blood." The Pole was, andremains, his first choice.

"I think it's so beautiful becausethere's nothing here," he said.

He said he's hoping to return inthe future, but is hoping his nextassignment will be in the commu-nications department or "somenice and warm office job."

"As much as I enjoy the job, Iwould like to climb the ladder alittle more," he said.

ProfileBy Mark SabbatiniSun staff

Jeremy Sohlstrom beginsa work day by pouringwine that froze duringstorage down the drain ofa bathroom sink at theAmundsen-Scott SouthPole Station. He is theonly janitor at the station,although he gets helpfrom other employees whoare assigned shifts toclean the restrooms.

Photo by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic Sun

Keeping the Pole tidyAt the bottom of the world there is only one janitor


"We had 75 cases of wine that

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The Antarctic Sun, January 20, 2002 · 2009-07-10 · Antarctica is too warm this summer. Too warm for smooth roads and tranquil traveling, that is. Recent record-breaking summer