Atmospheric Balloons

Yesterday afternoon, I had a very pleasant surprise. On my way back to the lab from my second phase of light-vehicle-driving-in-McMurdo training, I ran into Alfonso and his roommate Charlie. Charlie is from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and is working with a French team on characterizing various atmospheric parameters over Antarctica. They have been here for months launching balloons that take instruments up into the stratosphere to do things like characterize ozone reactions, calibrate radiation properties of the Antarctic atmosphere, etc. They were launching their 12th balloon in yesterday’s calm afternoon. It was fascinating and beautiful. I took some video:



Today has been a mix of MacOps coordination, snow school refresher training, how to build sling loads for helicopters, coordinating flights and gear, marking things off the lab supply checklist, looking for items we need ASAP and don’t know where they are, etc. In other words, a normal day for the beginning of a field season in Antarctica!

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