Sea Ice Training & Site Reconnaissance

9/8/2015

By Peter Kimball

We went out on the sea ice for the first time yesterday. We went with Alasdair, a USAP sea ice expert, to learn about safety (especially vehicle safety) around sea ice cracks.

After learning about ice crack safety, we proceeded South across the sea ice to the edge of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and began looking at potential sites for our main field camp. We want to find a site on the sea ice that's close to scientifically interesting sections of the ice shelf (there are many factors), and near a place that our vehicle tracking team can get up onto the shelf safely with minimal detour.

Our vehicles performed well on the sea ice despite the cold.

We learned over the radio that the air temperature out on the ice was -41 F! Fun fact: -40 C and -40 F are the same temperature.

We had a beautiful day out on the sea ice, including views like this one back toward the station.

A view of McMurdo Station with Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror in the distant background. (photo: Peter Kimball)

2 Comments

Tom Kimball link

9/6/2015 01:55:04 am

We loved seeing the fantastic photos and reading your coverage. Amazed by the beautiful photography--keep it coming!

Julie Moor

9/8/2015 10:12:31 am

Peter,
Thanks for these fabulous photos and for the updates on the work. It is great being able to see Josh at work! It makes his dad and me feel a part of the adventure.

About the Blog

This is the personal blog of Peter Kimball and Evan Clark, following our deployment with the ARTEMIS long-range underwater robotic vehicle to explore beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Authors

Peter Kimball is an aerospace engineer and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.

Evan Clark is a computer scientist and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.

Kristof Richmond is a mechanical engineer and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.