The 300 Club

The past week marked a South Pole milestone: the 300 club. When the temperature drops below -100 ˚F, many people get into the sauna which is warmed up to 200 ˚F, and then walk naked to the South Pole, for a temperature difference of 300 ˚F. A better summary can be found here and an interesting article on the tradition can be found here. 

Some winters, the temperature never drops below -100 ˚F and the tradition isn't possible. Over a month past mid-winter, we were beginning to worry. To our relief the temperature did drop and about 15-20 of us participated this year. One polie stood at the pole with a camera and flashlight to guide the way, and the rest of us walked to the pole from the sauna in groups of 2-5.

Everyone's experience varies. For me, the sauna had superheated my body enough that I did not begin to experience discomfort until the walk back.

The path to the pole begins at what we call the Beer Can, the cylinder on one side of the station that also leads to the underground passages to the power plant / warehouse / vehicle facility. The main obstacle to get to the pole is the large drift that develops in front of the Beer Can over the course of the winter. The two NOAA people that work in the ARO building climb this every day.

The drift

Additional degrees:

• Unlike in the Atlantic article, we walked to the geographic south pole, not the ceremonial south pole 
• Fortunately the temperature stayed below -100 for half a day, allowing ample time for everyone to complete the walk, and bottoming out at -104.8
• Walking is better than running, which can cause you to inhale too much cold air and catch a cough
• Generally it only reaches -100 with clear skies and little wind

Next Week in Pole: Snowmobiles!

How to Catch an Aurora

Aurora at the South Pole are a big deal for some, while others are indifferent. It's all to easy to stop caring about aurora after seeing the first few. Nevertheless, those who like to race outside to take photos whenever aurora are active (like myself) have several tools to scan the sky and spread the word. Determining when aurora are active is important because the station is completely boarded up to avoid light pollution, so you can only check for aurora by going outside. Since people tend to avoid the cold as much as possible, some tools for catching aurora and spreading the word are necessary. 

First is the Aurora Channel on the radios everyone carries. Hand-held walkie talkies are supposed to be carried at all times. They contain channels for the emergency response team you are assigned to (such as 'Medical' or 'Fire Team'), work based channels (such as 'Comms' or 'Operations'), an 'All Call' channel for station announcements during emergencies, individual channels for specific people, and the Aurora Channel. The radios can also receive pager alerts, so mine receives an alert when something is wrong with the telescope. For the Aurora Channel, when people see a good aurora they will simply make a call over that channel and alert everyone who opted-in to the channel. 

The second tool that has been up since the start of the season is the MAPO Aurora Cam. This has been up since the start of the winter and is mounted around the MAPO building in the Dark Sector. Because it is just a webcam, the sensitivity is low. It is useful for seeing bright aurora, as seen in the photo. However, it would miss fainter aurora that aren't as nice to the eye but are still worth of being photographed. The photos are updated every 10 seconds or so and output onto the station intranet, and also rotate through the galley scroll. 

The MAPO Aurora Cam

This season a third tool was installed, which grabs the most recent NOAA space weather prediction center plot of the current auroral oval. This is also output to the station intranet / galley scroll. When there is high activity over the south pole, then supposedly there should be good aurora outside. However, auroras at the pole don't seem to correlate that well with the auroral oval, and sometimes photographable aurora are seen even when the oval activity is low. 

The fourth tool was just installed this week, and is the result of a project I've been working on. Because the MAPO Cam had low sensitivity, and couldn't detect fainter aurora, I refitted the station's very old Canon 1D Mark II camera to be used in an unused roof port. The roof windows are located on the mezzanine of the B2 Science Lab, and all but one house scientific instruments and aurora cameras that the winter Aurora Tech keeps in operation. Because no light should be output from the port, I draped a light shield around the port that contains the camera. Because of the age of the Canon 1D Mk II, it had to be linked to a 32-bit Windows XP computer, which uses canon software to remotely control the camera and send the files out. The camera takes a 30 second ISO 1600 exposure every 5 minutes (any faster time seems to overload the poor old camera) and the photos are posted on the station intranet and galley scroll. 

New Aurora Cam Station on the B2 Science Mezzanine

The Canon 1D Mk II looking out a rooftop window

Despite its age, the still shots provide a better picture of what the conditions are outside. In the picture the milky way is visible and a faint aurora can be seen forming on the horizon. Future polies should be able to easily reproduce the setup, although I'd recommended bringing down a better camera specifically for the purpose of aurora detection. 

Sample New Aurora Cam Shot

B2 Science

For further reference, I include a shot above of the B2 Science Lab. The section to the right is the SPT workspace where I work when I'm not at the telescope. To the left of that is the Ice Cube work space, and to the left of that is a large cubicle for the meteorology people. Not shown is an area further to the right where the Lockheed science techs work. This area is on the second floor of the station, allowing access to the roof through the mezzanine. 

Extras:

• Auroras are often spotted by smokers undeterred by the > 11,000 ft altitude and frigid < -70 F temperatures
• A 'Mastrubatorium' sign was jokingly taped to the aurora cam light shroud because polies in general are excessively clever and cannot contain themselves
• This year has only been average overall for auroras, and the sun will be headed into a solar minimum for future seasons
• Because of our position in relation to the auroral oval, the best auroras are between 10 am and 2 pm, with a secondary peak between 10 pm and 2 am. 
• This year has only been average overall for auroras, and the sun will be headed into a solar minimum for future seasons

Next week in Pole: Which direction does water drain at the south pole?

South Pole Recreation

Although the main past-times at the South Pole are alcoholism and Seasonal Affective Disorder, there are other ways polies can occupy themselves over the course of the winter. A recreation schedule is posted on the galley scroll and station intranet so that people can view the events of the upcoming week. I'm actually in charge of updating the schedule. 

The sample schedule above shows some of the ongoing activities and special one-shot events. Over the course of the winter sports like Badminton, Volleyball, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu have survived and are practiced on a regular basis. Early starters such as Soccer, Fencing, and Basketball died off. The gym at the pole is actually quite large, with plenty of space for a variety of sports. In the summer, there are more people around and Dodgeball is common. 

Besides sports, there's been a couple TV nights that have come and gone, such as Mad Men Mondays, Game of Thrones Wednesdays, and Always Sunny in Philadelphia Sundays. Having exhausted those episodes people are now on Tudor Tuesdays. About once a month a "Drive in Movie" event is held, where a projector is set up in the gym, filling the white screen seen behind the basket in the above photo. Chairs and pillows are brought in and people enjoy a big screen movie. 

Our resident German organized viewing of WWI documentaries and films, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great War, but for those seeking a lighter does of television there are Sunday Morning Cartoons. 

With only 41 winter-overs, finding someone to share in your hobby can be difficult, and I'm very pleased that the station machinist has continued to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with me all winter. Generally to train BJJ at the pole we go off of instructional DVDs that I brought down. There are sufficient mats to make a decent training space. I brought down a couple gis as well but because of the height difference we only train no-gi, although it did come in handy for the obligatory pole shot.

Other events:

• Really, outside of work most people just stay in their rooms and watch movies / TV
• The travelogues are a recent trend to get everyone excited about end of season travel
• Blues Dance didn't last, R.I.P.
• The galley scroll which rotates through pages such as the rec schedule, menu, weather, aurora cam, and gifs, is displayed on TVs visible in the galley (the one seen here is showing the upcoming internet passes)

Next Week in Pole: How many movies / tv shows can a polie get through in a season?

Independence Day

The past week in pole contained a celebration of America's independence. The VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility) threw a July 4th party. 

The main attraction was of course food and beer, but some winter-overs put together some special games. 

This included a pinata of King George III and Noodling.

For the unfamiliar, Noodling involves diving into a box of noodles to retrieve prizes. In this case our Noodling host (wearing the King George III crown) hid fish in the noodles, and participants had 30 seconds to retrieve a fish. Different fish allowed one to pick a prize from various boxes. Apparently, the noodles we were using had to be trashed because they were so old that they dissolved in water (something I've never heard of a pasta). In addition, we also had horseshoes. 

All of these games of course, were complimented by plenty of food and beer. 

Of course, not everything about the station is strictly american. There are three foreigners here - a german, canadian, and norwegian. Why only three? In the past, Raytheon had hired international contractors, but every since Lockheed Martin took over, only US citizens have been hired for the contractor positions (which are the majority). If you don't work directly under Lockheed's Antarctica Support Contract, you are considered a Grantee. Most grantees (like myself) work for the individual science instruments and are hired directly by the institutions that operate the science equipment (University of Chicago for the South Pole Telescope, University of Wisconsin-Madison for Ice Cube, and I believe Harvard for the SPUD/Keck telescope). 

More america:

• Don't hesitate to say 'MERica as often as possible in the vicinity of our resident Canadian, he really enjoys it
• No, no fireworks
• Patriotic movies were also shown all week on station, including Top Gun, Beer Fest, Independence Day, Rocky IV, and The Patriot
• Yes, we still have to pay Federal and State taxes while working here - the complexities involved in defining antarctic soil are a mystery to us all

Next Week in Pole: How much better would life be if we could have some pets on station