MOSAiC

A few crazy days here with no time to write. Full speed from the moment I wake to the moment I pass out…. Dead tired. Polarstern has this central double stair way…. Up, up, up…. Down, down, down. It’s pretty steep and is quite a trudge for tired legs. Our last days have been spent focused on the build up of Met City, which will be a hub of activity for projects sampling the atmosphere out away from the influence of the ship. The Met hut, pre-fabricated, has now been assembled, has heat, light. This will be our home on the ice for the coming year, an outpost at the end of the ridge road that extends from the ship out along the outer wall of the Fortress. Met City has all kinds of fun science happening. The ARM program has spread out a bunch of instruments to measure radiation and precipitation. Ian Brooks (U. Leeds) has a couple of ground-based remote sensors for measuring wind profiles. Markus Frey (British Antarctic Survey) has rocket traps to catch blowing snow. We will be setting up more instrumentation in the coming days….. And we were visited by some colleagues from the Federov via helicopter. Tim Stanton, a collaborator on our NSF-funded ice thermodynamics and dynamics project, showed up with a team of installers to put in some ocean buoys. They are really an experienced group and it showed with their efficiency. Impressive to watch. Our Univ. Colorado Boulder / NOAA team has been working on our tower, getting the base installed was fun. Drilling holes in the ice to insert long 6×6’s along with some fresh water….. the fresh water will freeze quickly and solidly because the temperature of the salt water is about -1.8C. We put the base in and it was level in both directions. Added the water, and within a short time it was as solid as can be. Nice to have that in place.