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Mt Erebus, smoking, as seen from the snow school camp.
The McMurdo Halloween Party in the gym.
An ozonesonde that we just helped launch from Crary Lab. It will measure ozone up to 25 km above the surface (stratosphere).
Cape Spencer: We took an afternoon trip to Cape Spencer on the ice shelf. It's about 25 km south of McMurdo, near White Island. The A-Star helicopter that dropped us off is seen here heading back to McMurdo. We'll get picked up later, I hope.
Jeff on the automatic weather station (AWS) tower. Our mission was simple: dismantle the tower and bring the instruments back! It stopped working some time ago. Another AWS is further back.
Matthew Lazzara (UW/SSEC), who arranged the trip to The Ice.
Mt. Erebus as seen from Cape Spencer.
Our ride home, a Bell 212 Huey.
Heading to South Pole: The aircraft of choice is the LC-130. It carries lots of cargo and some passengers, and it has skis, which you need to land on the ice sheet at South Pole. It's on wheels here in McMurdo, with the skis up.
The cockpit of the LC-130.
Passengers in the LC-130 on the way to South Pole. (Matthew is standing in the back portion of the picture.)
This and the following few pictures are of the Transantarctic Mountains between McMurdo and South Pole.
The LC-130 after it landed at South Pole. At these temperatures (-60F) it creates a contrail on the ground, so no cargo can be loaded. They do a "combat off-load" of cargo, which means they push it out the back as the plane is still moving, because you can't safely drive a loader up to the plane through the contrail. (The contral isn't blowing snow, it's basically a cloud.)
The dome, which is the original South Pole Station. There are small buildings inside the dome that have offices and sleeping quarters. The dome will be dismantled in the next few years.
Jeff and Matthew at the entrance to the dome.
The new South Pole Station. The dome is off the right side of the photo. The new station is under construction. About half of it is operational.
The NOAA Atmospheric Research Observatory a short walk from South Pole Station.
It was really cold! (-61.6 degrees Fahrenheit actual temperature). Weather and flight information is shown on monitors at both South Pole and McMurdo. The altitude shown isn't the actual altitude, it's the pressure altitude.
Matthew and Kathie Hill, a Raytheon Polar Services Meteorology Coordinator, at the geographic South Pole. Kathie arranged for our trip to South Pole Station.
Jeff at the South Pole.
The famous Antarctic explorer R.F. Scott built this hut during his "Discovery" voyage of 1902. The point of land is now known as "Hut Point". The hut was intended to be used to hold supplies for his later expedition to the South Pole. His base camp was at Cape Evans, also on Ross Island.