Prashanth, I’m going to answer your question under the Q&A page…

-Jeff

If we were to take a stroll to the nearby McMurdo Ice Shelf (which we drove over coming to the station from the runway) we would be walking ontop of compressed snow overtop moving ice. The ice shelves aren’t quite the rivers of ice that glaciers are, but they are dynamic structures. Evidence for this can be found in the calving off of large icebergs from many shelves around the Antarctic continent. At the station we are on the solid land of Ross Island. When we begin our work on the sea ice we will primary travel on “land-fast” sea ice that is not moving. Occasionally we will travel on sea ice that is not land fast and prone to movement, but it isn’t safe to spend a lot of time on this ice as it could drift out into McMurdo Sound.

so basically your somewhat walking way above moving ice?

That’s an interesting question, and depends a lot on exactly where you are trying to measure it. The wind at McMurdo leaves some places completely free of snow and piles it quite deep in other places. It doesn’t actually snow very much here, snowfall in water equivalents is around 20 cm and it snows even less in the interior of the continent. It is cold enough that it doesn’t all melt away in the summer however. The deepest drifts around us are several meters deep, but right next to the drift might be a patch of ground completely free of snow!

Bacteria, archaea, and some eukaryotes can make their own carotenoids. Other organisms obtain them by eating these (for example we obtain beta-carotene and similar carotenoids from carrots and other pigmented vegetables). You could say that these carotenoids are “caused” by the environment. Ultraviolet light or another stressor will induce the organisms to begin producing the carotenoids, as a defensive mechanism.

Prashanth,
The ride over was pretty uneventful. The plan has only a couple of windows, so there isn’t much to see. We spent the time catching up on sleep and reading. The climate is very different from that of New Zealand, since McMurdo is around 30 degrees latitude further south. It’s definitely spring here, conditions have been relatively warm (although that could chance at any time), but still quite cold. This morning there is a little wind as well, small gusts up to 15 km/hour. That isn’t much, but its enough to sting your face when you walk outside and to drift snow on the roads. Winds are caused by changes in pressure. Like all fluids air wants to move from a region of high to a region of low pressure (down the pressure gradient). The pressure gradient can be established by lots of different things. For example warm seawater can heat the air, expanding it, and causing it to flow (as wind) to reach equilibrium. The light wind we are experiencing today is probably the result of a passing front, or interface between a region of high and a region of low pressure. There are some special types of winds in Antarctica, and I’ll talk more about those if we experience them. The main land features on Ross Island are the twin volcanic peaks Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror. Erebus is an active volcano and is heavily studied. McMurdo is tucked into a small hillside however, and we can’t see these larger peaks. The main feature close to us is Observation Hill, where early Antarctic explorers made meteorological observations.