We enjoy taking colleagues from McMurdo base up to our lab for the occasional tour. Arrival Heights is an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA). Permits are required to enter the area and the amount of time we spend in the ASPA is tracked. This status is primarily maintained to keep the region EMI quiet –… Read More

Yesterday, we received replacement pumps for our Sodium Doppler Lidar’s YAG laser power supply chiller. First, we set up a testbed in the Crary lab field staging party area to set the pump we received to 60 psi. We then installed the new pump along with a motor, two water filters, and one transformer back… Read More

The Polar Star arrived in McMurdo sound this week. The ship is driving around the channel breaking up the ice for cargo ships that will follow and bring supplies for the winter season. Watching the ship ram the ice is a lot of fun. After the ice breaks up, seals coalesce around the newly formed… Read More

One of the main challenges our group faces is predicting the weather. Specifically, predicting when the clouds will clear from the top of Arrival Heights and allow us to collect data. We operate in optical wavelengths that can’t penetrate through clouds, unlike other types remote sensing instruments like radar. So at the start of every… Read More

The most surreal experience since we stepped off the plane was counting down the new year wearing sunglasses in the bright sunlight. At McMurdo base, they hold the largest music festival on the continent- Ice Stock. The official festival merchandise (scrawled on a hand-made cardboard sign) was BYO T-shirt so that the carpenters can paint… Read More

Merry Christmas! From December 22 to Christmas Eve on December 24th, we had clear skies and collected 50 hours of data. Working with our PI, we also did training sessions on the principles of how different components of the system work. On the iron lidar, we identified ways to correct the laser spectra on the… Read More

Merry Christmas Eve! The sky is clear, so we are on! We have learned how to power on & run the Sodium Doppler and Iron Boltzmann Lidars. They are running and we have been collecting data for over 24 hours. We will continue to collect data until the sky gets cloudy, pausing only for a… Read More

Check out this NPR article featuring Ms. Rose McAdoo, a creative chef and artist. This NPR article describes a lidar cake made by her, which illustrates our lidar work in Antarctica. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/22/779463164/antarctic-research-takes-the-cake-in-these-science-inspired-confections Around August 28, 2019, Ian Geraghty and Zimu Li (two 2019 winter-over students) sent Dr. Chu this lidar cake photo. According to Ian,… Read More

Yesterday was our brightest day of sunlight. In the United States, it probably still is 12/21, and you are experiencing your winter solstice- the day with the least sunlight. It is strange having the sun so bright at night! Many cultures celebrate the solstice, so I will share how our team’s experience. McMurdo experienced a… Read More

We made it! Dr. Chu, Jackson and I are on the ice. We have had a few days to get trained and catch up on sleep, and are now busy working on our experiments. The flight down was a very crowded 8 hour flight. We were very lucky that we didn’t have a “boomerang,” where… Read More