Good Morning Sunshine

September 23rd marked the spring equinox here in the southern hemisphere, and with it came the rising of the sun. The week and a half prior to the sun marked a steady brightening of the atmosphere. Known in the photography world as the "magic hour", for weeks before and after sunrise we have a happy medium of sunlight, bright enough not to stumble around on the sastrugi, but not yet bright enough to warrant shades. The dark sky eventually shrinks to form a mere shadow of the earth. 

The photo above shows a panorama of the earth's shadow. The sun is behind camera, below the horizon. The Earth's shadow is visible anywhere, but especially so at the South Pole due to the flat ice plain that extends in every direction and the long duration of the sunrise/sunset. The photo was taken 8-10 days before sunrise. The curved earth's surface projects onto the atmosphere, the dark blue shade is lined with purples that brighten as the sun nears the horizon and the shadow shrinks.

Before the sun physically crosses the horizon, you can start to see the refracted image of the sun, depending on the atmospheric conditions.

The above shot shows the refracted image of the sun, you can see the wavy nature of the image created by the layers in the earth's atmosphere. At these times, if you are lucky, you can see the "green flash".

The Green Flash occurs when a layer of the refracted image separates, isolating some greens and blues above the main image of the sun. The picture above, taken through a telescope, shows the separated Green Flash layer. 

Sunrise also brings some other interesting atmospheric effects, such as the Sun Pillar shown above, a result of ice crystals in the atmosphere and some other science taking place while the sun is obscured behind the clouds. 

Unlike sunset, which was mostly obscured by clouds and storms after the sun crossed the horizon, the days leading up to sunrise brought some nice cloud formations like the one shown above. 

Per South Pole tradition, we also had a sunrise dinner. Unlike the sunset dinner and mid-winter dinner, sunrise was more informal - more of a cocktail party. The reason for this is that by this point in winter everyone hates each other too much to sit at the same table for two hours. Most importantly, sunrise dinner marked the reveal of the 2015 South Pole Marker. Each year, the winter machines builds the new South Pole Marker. At new years, they recalculate where the actual South Pole is and put a new marker at the correct position. 

The above shot shows the station machinist with the new marker he made. We voted on the design and his was the winner. The new marker will be installed on New Years 2015. Unfortunately, there is an inexplicable NSF policy not to reveal the new marker before hand, which is why it is pixilated. 

Shortly after sunrise the telescope broke again, here's a photo of the repairs for no particular reason. 

Other rays of sunshine:

• No, just because the sun is up doesn't mean it's warm all of the sudden. The temperatures won't regularly get above -50 F for another month, that's why there aren't planes yet.
• You can also see a green flash by staring directly at the sun for thirty seconds and then looking in any direction

Next Week in Pole: Spitefulness Versus Time in South Pole Winterovers - A Case Study

Twilight Ascends

Several weeks ago (I'm quite behind here) brought astronomical twilight, followed by nautical twilight and civil twilight. During this period sunlight slowly erased the stars from the nighttime sky, illuminating an ever growing region of the horizon with pink and purple light. 

The end of aurora season officially erases any reason for existing here, but it does illuminate the cloud structure, which is nice.

As people start to see the sun, they become aware that eventually, they will leave this place. There's a reason september is known as "Shopping September". All the paychecks we have accumulated are suddenly spent on items we'll receive upon returning hope, and weeks later forget about. People also spend a significant amount of time discussing and planning for the upcoming travel when they get off the Ice. 

Other notes:

• No more aurora, ever...

Next Week in Pole: Staring at the Sun. 

Emergency Response

In the event of an emergency during the winter, South Pole Station is pretty much on its own. The winter station is staffed with a doctor and a nurse and has a comprehensive medical facility that has in the past handled operations such as appendectomies. Although evacuations can be called in for an urgent medical situation (the last one was in 1999), it is very expensive and dangerous. Basically, a flight needs to be contracted from the flyers that are used during the Summer at McMurdo to service the field camps. From the time a flight is requested to when it is approved and makes its way from Canada to the South Pole takes about a month, after which the plane has to land in the dark on a runway lit by trash can fires (or at least I assume). 

Because of the remoteness of the station, all winterovers are trained to take part in emergency response teams (ERTs). The three emergency response teams are Fire Team, Medical, and Logistics. Each ERT meets about once a week to train in their specialty. 

Fire Team responds during an emergency drill

Fire Team is responsible for putting out small fires and clearing areas. However, because of the lack of any firefighting equipment besides bunker gear and fire extinguishers, in the case of a real fire the fire team would most likely just watch the building burn down. Medical team is responsible for first aid on the scene of an incident and for transporting injured personnel back to the medical lab, and are also trained to help the medical staff with injured patients. The logistics team is supposed to deal with making sure the necessary emergency response equipment is available on an incident cite and manages vehicle transport to the incident site. 

A patient is treated in the medical facility during an emergency drill

Every month there is an emergency response drill where fake incidents are staged an the ERTs practice their roles. 

Medical Team members package a patient for transport during an emergency drill

I'm a member of the medical response team, which I enjoy because we get to learn different medical tests/procedures each week. However, because of poor leadership our trainings haven't been very helpful the past few weeks. As it gets closer to the first flight out, people just stop caring as much. So although I did get to wound someone while practicing IVs, we probably will never learn X-rays. 

Other info:

• Another emergency response situation is if someone happens to be lost outside in low visibility windstorm. 
• We do actually have a cyanide antidote kit in medical
• We call the station doctor 'Doc' and I doubt if half the people on station know his real name
• This morning we had a meeting to discuss what to do if a plane crashes. Basically, we have no capability to deal with such a situation

Next week in Pole: The mystery of Nibiru and the South Pole Telescope!