1. Where do you go to the bathroom?
This depends on where I am in Antarctica. Right now I am at McMurdo, which is a small town in Antarctica. Right now there are about 1200 people here, but nobody lives here permanently and most people leave before winter (remember winter here is during the summer months in Michigan). Here we have running water and plumbing and bathrooms like you have at home or at school in Michigan.
This depends on where I am in Antarctica. Right now I am at McMurdo, which is a small town in Antarctica. Right now there are about 1200 people here, but nobody lives here permanently and most people leave before winter (remember winter here is during the summer months in Michigan). Here we have running water and plumbing and bathrooms like you have at home or at school in Michigan.
The last couple of weeks, however, I was living out at a field camp near where we were collecting samples. At the field camp we had to use an outhouse (below)
The tough part is human waste has to be separated into liquids and solids, so we can only do one thing or the other. Not both at the same time. We end up sealing solid waste in "Poo Buckets" and liquid waste in "Pee Barrels" and these are transported out of the Dry Valleys by helicopter. The Pee Barrel is that orange barrel next to the outhouse in the second picture. The poo bucket is in that wood box with a toilet seat on top of it.
I'll talk more about the difference between life at McMurdo and life at field camps later.
2. What do you do if you run out of food?
We check in daily with the people at McMurdo who manage all of the science field groups in the area. When we are low on food we call in a request with the folks at McMurdo and the send the food out on a helicopter. When we go on day trips or anywhere far from a base camp we take an emergency kit with us that has dehydrated food in it. If we run our of food we just need to add boiling water to these dehydrated food packets and we have a meal that will keep us going. They pack enough food, a stove, and fuel in the emrgency kits to keep two people a live for 3 days. I haven't had to eat this food yet (except in my training when I fist got here). Hopefully I won't need to use the emergency kits while I'm here. This dehydrated food is similar to the type of food you can buy at outdoors stores for backpack camping. I have had it quite a few times backpacking in the U.S.
We check in daily with the people at McMurdo who manage all of the science field groups in the area. When we are low on food we call in a request with the folks at McMurdo and the send the food out on a helicopter. When we go on day trips or anywhere far from a base camp we take an emergency kit with us that has dehydrated food in it. If we run our of food we just need to add boiling water to these dehydrated food packets and we have a meal that will keep us going. They pack enough food, a stove, and fuel in the emrgency kits to keep two people a live for 3 days. I haven't had to eat this food yet (except in my training when I fist got here). Hopefully I won't need to use the emergency kits while I'm here. This dehydrated food is similar to the type of food you can buy at outdoors stores for backpack camping. I have had it quite a few times backpacking in the U.S.
3. What happens if you get sick? Do you have medicine with you?
I had to undergo an extensive check up and I had to get lots of shots before I came here. There are some medical resources here. We have first aid kit in the field and there is a medical doctor and a clinic at McMurdo, but we have to get airlifted back to New Zealand if anything serious happens. There are lots of people who are well trained in first aid to care for people who get hurt, but it's a long way back to a country with a real hospital.
4. Do you get to change clothes?
I get to change clothes a lot more when I'm in McMurdo. While I was at the field camp I only had 5 pairs of socks and three sets of long underwear for nearly three weeks. I was pretty smelly when I got back to McMurdo. I immediately changed into my regular clothes when I made back, and put my stinky field clothes in the wash. The dorms at McMurdo have laundry machines.
5. Is is negative degrees there?
The temperatures can be negative even during the summer. Right now it is -9.5 degrees Celsius, which is 15 degrees Fahrenheit . It has been below zero Fahrenheit a few days while I have been here, but it hasn't been too cold recently. I have been told that it will be much colder at a field camp I am going to at the end of this week at Beardmore Glacier. McMurdo is at sea level, but the camp at Beardmore Glacier is at a much higher elevation (I think 6000 ft), is much farther south, and is on a glacier, so I think those three factors will combine to make it pretty cold.
7 comments:
Dear Eric,
We read your answers to the first graders, and we thought your answers were very interesting! We went on the McMurdo website today. The webcam is working. We saw buildings that were blue, green,pink, white, and plain. We wondered which building you live in when you are in McMurdo. We also thought that the large round buildings are for water, and we hope you will tell us we are correct.
We wondered if your regular garbage, like paper, is also taken away by helicopter. We would like to know what your favorite part of Antarctica is.
Have a great day!
Mrs. Radner's Fourth Grade Class
Hi Mrs. Radner and class,
The blue building has a lot of facilities for the people at McMurdo. It is called "building 155" and it is where the cafeteria is located. It also has a store, a barber shop, laundry, and dorms. I am staying in a nondescript brown building in the back of the picture in a room with a bunch of bunk beds. I have a bottom bunk.
When I'm in McMurdo I spend most of my time in the Crary Science Building, which is a gray building in the back and to the right. We have a lab in Crary where we analyze soil samples and where we have freezers for preserving soil samples that we eventually ship back to our main labs in the United States. Crary has a lot of different labs in it that are used by a lot of different scientists. There are people studying geology, paleontology, glaciers, weather, astrophysics, and marine biology, just to name a few. We also have a library in this building where different scientists will give lectures about their research.
The round structures you mentioned do contain large amounts of liquid. Water was a good guess, but these are where fuel is stored and there are gas pumps connected to these tanks.
When we are out at field camps we have to pack up all of our garbage. We have to be very meticulous and sort everything for recycling and label the bags and then pack them up in a large box. This is then transported back to McMurdo by helicopter. At McMurdo all trash is also sorted very carefully because it saves a lot of money and resources in the long run to recycle as much as we can. Most waste is shipped (via plane or boat) off the continent back to the US or New Zealand.
There are so many amazing things about Antarctica that it's hard to choose one as my favorite, but I think hiking across the Canada Glacier is my favorite so far.
Flying over the mountains and glaciers to field sites and seeing so much of the landscape has been really amazing as well. I have seen lots of features created by the glaciers from the air that are similar to features in the landscape in Michigan. Michigan was covered by glaciers 10,000 years ago and many of the hills and lakes in Michigan were created by the glaciers that used to be there. It's neat to see the piles of rubble and rocks and soil (called moraines) near the edges of glaciers here, because it helps me imagine how a glacier might have excavated and deposited hills in Michigan 10,000 years ago.
Dear Eric,
We looked up the weather in McMurdo in Antarctica and it was about 21 degrees F. Guess what? For the next week, the low temperature in our city is also going to be in the 20's F. That means that our city is as cold as Antarctica, or Antarctica is as warm as our city!
Thank you for answering our questions. We were wondering how the gas gets down to Antarctica. Some of our class thinks gas comes through heated pipes from New Zealand, and some of our class thinks gas comes on oil tankers.
We looked at the pictures of the Canada Glacier and we thought one picture looks like Niagara Falls when it's frozen.
We were wondering if you could visit our class when you return.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Radner's Fourth Grade Class
Hi, Eric!
Guess what? We checked the weather on the McMurdo website and today, Antarctica is warmer than here! How about that! Also, they are predicting a snowfall over here. Are there snowfalls in Antarctica?
Have a good day!
Mrs. Radner's Fourth Grade Class
Hi Eric, this is Ilan in 5th grade from Hillel Day School in farmington hills, MI.
In my hebrew class we learned about deserts and your mom, Mrs.Sokole, taught us about the deserts in Antarctica and she did a great job of explaining. I have a couple of
Q's for you and here thay are. How was it seeing the penguins considering thats the only place you can seee them? Is there any body else with you and are they nice to be with? What do you sleep in and is it comfortable? here are a couple Q's i have for you and i hope you enjoy reading them.
Thank you!!!
Dear Eric
My name is Tori, from 5th grade at Hillel Day School. Your website is so cool. What does it feel like being in Antartica? I can't believe you are surviving there, and that you saw a penguin. I am interested in your blog because we learned about a dessert with sand, but I didn't know there was a dessert with snow until Mrs.Sokole showed us this website. Does Antartica have any other people than you guys there? Do you get scared at night time? Do you move were you sleep every night? Is it colder here then there right now? I think it is so cool that byou are in Antartica right now.
from,
Tori
Hi Ilan and Tori. Thanks for the questions.
I really enjoyed seeing the Adelie penguin because it was the first (and so far only) time I have seen a penguin outside of the zoo.
The people I work with are very nice. There are lots of scientists here studying lots of different topics, and it is very interesting to hear what other people are doing. Every Wednesday and Sunday a different scientist will take a turn to talk about their research. This past Sunday a scientist described his research on bacteria that eat rocks! They are looking for these bacteria on a volcano, under a frozen lake, in the ocean around Antarctica, and in streams that only flow during the warm months.
There are a lot of other people at McMurdo, but they are all here to keep the research station running. We would not be able to conduct research here without the support staff. McMurdo itself is a small town with firefighters, mechanics, cooks, janitors, and people that do all kinds of jobs that you would find in a regular town. McMurdo is different from a regular town, however, because there are no permanent residents or families here. McMurdo is by far the largest research station on Antarctica. The only other people you will find on the continent are researchers at other field stations or field camps.
When I am camping out in the desert or on the ice I sleep in a tent in a sleeping bag. It is quite comfortable and the tents actually get pretty warm. It may be below freezing out, but the tents warm up to the 40s or 50s, depending on how sunny it is.
Night time is not very scary because the sun has not set the entire time I have been here. The sun will eventually set in February or March, and then it will stay dark throughout the austral winter (which is summertime where you are).
I don't move where I sleep every night. When I'm out in the field I keep my tent in the same spot at the camp as long as we are doing research in that area. During the day we hike to our research sites and then in the evening we head back to camp. Then when we move camp, I move my tent. Right now I'm not out in the desert, but I'm staying in a dorm room at McMurdo research station.
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