McMurdo Station, Antarctica September 21, 2016   It has been a frustrating week since my last blog post. Often fieldwork has its ups and downs and the last week has definitely been more downs than ups.   As I mentioned in my last blog post, the week before last Tuesday (13 September) we had flown… Read More

McMurdo Station, Antarctica September 14, 2016   Since last Wednesday (September 7th) Mark and I have done 21 SUMO flights on 5 flight days. For our first two flight days (September 7th and 8th) we were flying in the afternoon and early evening.               Starting on September 10th we… Read More

  McMurdo Station, Antarctica September 9, 2016   After more than a week of preparations and delays Mark and I were finally able to do some unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) flights over the past two days. Doing these flights is the reason we’ve come to Antarctica. The UAV that we use is called… Read More

McMurdo Station, Antarctica September 4, 2016   I’ve been in Antarctica just over a week now. We spent the first several days in various training classes and organizing the logistical support we will need for our work. That always takes about 4 or 5 days. Yesterday was the first day we were going to attempt… Read More

McMurdo Station, Antarctica August 29, 2016   After spending a week in Christchurch waiting for good weather for my flight to Antarctica I arrived at McMurdo Station on Saturday evening (August 27th). As you’d expect, flying to Antarctica is not like your typical commercial airline flight, although there are some similarities.   Just like for… Read More

Christchurch, New Zealand August 27, 2016   I’m heading back to Antarctica for my 13th trip to the southernmost continent. As on my previous trips I’ll be studying Antarctic weather. I’ll describe the research I’ll be doing in more detail in a future blog post but I will be using small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones,… Read More

30 January 2014 In an unusual turn of events for Antarctic fieldwork I wound up leaving Antarctica sooner than expected. Melissa and I were scheduled to fly north on Monday (3 February) but due to slushy conditions on the ice runway, due to the warm weather in McMurdo over the past month, the US Antarctic… Read More

28 January 2014 We started packing up our Tall Tower field camp on Saturday (25 January) and spent all day Sunday snowmobiling back to McMurdo. On Saturday we packed almost all of the gear and took down the large Arctic Oven tent that had served as our kitchen and work area and loaded this onto… Read More

25 January 2014 We finished the last of our UAV flights today so now is a good time for me to describe what it is that we’ve been doing for the last two weeks and show you some of the data we’ve collected. The focus of our research this field season is the lowest part… Read More

23 January 2014 Just a quick blog post with links to a couple of videos I’ve shot while at our Tall Tower field camp. The first is a video of the flight down to Antarctica from boarding the plane in Christchurch to stepping out into the bright sunlight and snow of Antarctica. You can find… Read More