Tom and I arrived in McMurdo Station, Antarctica, last Tuesday. Since then, it has been a busy week, full of specialized training and preparing to depart into the deep field… We flew from Christchurch to McMurdo – 7.5 hours on a C-130 airplane operated by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. There were 38 passengers […]
Heading South, to New Zealand and Beyond
Greetings from New Zealand! Soon, we’ll report back from even further south. We’re headed to the heart of the Antarctic ice sheet, to collect measurements on the ground for the ICESat-2 mission. ICESat-2 is a NASA satellite, scheduled for launch in 2018, that will measure the height of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice in unprecedented detail. […]
Peek Inside the P-3 Flying Laboratory
NASA’s DC-8 is usually the aircraft flown from South America to Antarctica for the IceBridge mission’s annual research flights over the continent. But this year, the DC-8 was booked for a different mission, so NASA’s P-3 filled in. Since late October, the P-3 crew and instrument operators have been making flights out of Ushuaia, Argentina, to map Antarctica’s ice. The scenery outside is […]
SPURS-2 on R/V Revelle 2017 – Epilogue
We had an excellent and successful expedition.
Observing Biodiversity One Cell At a Time
Who or what lives down below us?
The Cottage Industry Chasing Ocean Surface Salinity
Who can provide NASA with actual sea-truth on the sea surface salinity?
Empanadas in Flight
In the nine-plus hours it takes to fly from Argentina to Antarctica, collect data over the continent and fly back again, people on board are bound to get hungry. There is a microwave on board, as well as some snacks and hot drinks. But there are no flight attendants, and there are no meal carts. NASA’s […]
A Sea Ice Gamble
“I don’t understand it. I haven’t been this perplexed about the weather in the Weddell Sea area for years,” said John Sonntag, mission scientist for NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission. Sonntag is a self-described weather geek. He is also world-renowned for his insight into the weather in West Antarctica. Instrument operators, flight crew, and various IceBridge […]
The Gravity of Larsen C
The Operation IceBridge mission flew its suite of airborne instruments over Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf and I caught a first-hand look.