Friday, December 1, 2000

Snowstake Runs

Many people wonder why the United States has a base located at the geographic South Pole. The reason for this is actually quite complicated. Primarily, it is political. A brief history of the station might help here.

In the 1950s, countries from all over the world converged on the Southernmost Continent to prepare for the International Geophysical Year of 1956-57. During this time there was a flurry of activity with bases springing up all across Antarctica to prepare for a year of unprecedented scientific research on the continent. The USSR announced its plans to build a base at the South Pole. Although any attempt to build a base at the Pole would be extremely difficult, the U.S. did not want their Cold War enemy to be the first to build a base at such a significant location. So they quickly made plans to send the U.S. Navy to the South Pole in 1956. The South Pole has been continuously manned by the U.S. ever since. There is speculation that if the U.S. ever abandoned the base that another country would be sure to move in and lay claim.

Even thought there is a political undercurrent, our main purpose for being here is the same as it was in the 1950s: science. For the most part there is no scientific significance to having a station at the Geographic South Pole as opposed to any other location in the middle of the Polar Plateau. However, the uniqueness of the Polar Plateau -- a high, flat glacier that covers most of the center of Antarctica -- definitely makes for some very interesting science.

The National Science Foundation provides grants for scientific study of all kinds at the South Pole. Astronomy, glaciology, atmospheric science, and seismology are just a few of the fields of research conducted here. Grants are given to scientists from universities, government agencies, and even private companies. Some of the projects involve hundreds of people from several countries and require the construction of permanent buildings here at the Pole to support the research. Some scientists stay here for a year or longer, gathering data and taking observations. Others come for a week in the summer, do an experiment, and leave. Still other experiments are overseen by researchers at universities but are actually conducted or monitored by science technicians employed by the same company for which I work (Raytheon Polar Services.) Most of this monitoring and conducting of smaller-scale experiments is done by the science techs, but there is one research project that is carried out by the meteorologists. And it is a good one: measuring snow stakes.

Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center is conducting ongoing research on the accumulation and drifting of snow on Antarctica's Polar Plateau. They have set up six lines of snow stakes that radiate out from the South Pole like spokes on a bicycle. Each line has 40 stakes planted 500 meters (547 yards) apart along lines of orange flags that extend outward from the station for a total distance of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). All 240 of these stakes are measured annually to gauge the accumulation of snow drifting and we meteorologists are the ones who get to do the measuring. This means several snowmobile trips out to the Polar Plateau and out of sight of the base. These trips are the farthest that anyone gets to travel overland away from the station and many people here are envious. Because I am a meteorologist, I was able to go on two of the six "snow stake runs" which we started doing last week.

On Sunday my boss Dar and I put on about as much extreme cold weather gear as we could and set out for the three-hour snowmobile excursion to measure the stakes. We were to follow flag line "B," which extends out from the station on the 110° E line of longitude, toward Indonesia. Before I came to the South Pole, I was among the small group of Minnesotans who have never even touched a snowmobile. I found the machine easy enough to use, and actually quite fun to ride.

The actual job of measuring the stakes is not nearly as exciting as the journey itself. Every 500 meters we stopped and measured the height of the poles. Every 250 meters we pulled out and replanted the stake marker flags and intermediate flags so they would be visible to next year's crew.

By pole 16 the station had completely disappeared below the horizon. The only thing in sight now was Dar's snowmobile ahead of me and an endless landscape of nothing but snow and sky in all directions. We were in a completely different world; a world that must be akin to the one experienced by the first astronauts to zip across the lunar landscape in a moon buggy.

I thought about Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott. This is how they saw Antarctica. This is what the Pole looked like when they were here that summer in 1911-1912: miles and miles of nothing. No rocks, no trees, no life of any kind except for the daft human beings who dare to venture past the edge of earthy habitability.

We continued on along the flag line measuring snow stakes along the way. Every once in a while we would radio our location back to the base, but soon were out of range. When we got to stake 40, the last of the line, I stepped off the snowmobile and walked a short distance from the flag line toward the unending white horizon. It occurred to me that there was a very good chance no person in the history of human civilization had ever stood in the exact same place where I was standing. I took a few more steps and now there was certainty that one of my tracks was the first ever made on that very spot. We were in the middle of a vast, untouched, white wilderness. I could travel in most directions from here for over a thousand miles and not come across an animal or any organism of any kind. It was a strange feeling. It was a strange landscape. It was a strange situation. I looked over at Dar, fully dressed in his ECW wearing his trademark red jacket with the United States Antarctic Program patch on the breast. This is somewhere I never dreamed I would be: a scientist taking data in the very center of Antarctica.

It was a beautiful day. The skies were mostly clear with temperatures only around 15 degrees below zero -- quite mild for the Polar Plateau in November.

We stayed at the end of the line for a while, sitting on the snowmobiles in awe of the sheer nothingness that surrounded us. We poured some hot chocolate. It had been in the thermos for less than two hours but was now barely lukewarm. I also brought along a turkey drumstick left over from Thanksgiving. It was partially frozen, but quite tasty and seemed fitting refection for the occasion.

If the journey out was exciting, the trip back was amazing. Not having to stop or look out for flags, we were able to go faster and follow our tracks. Although the landscape in general is nearly completely flat and devoid of significant physical features, the wind carves the snow into sastrugi of varying shapes and sizes, some nearly three feet in height. These sastrugi were our main hindrance to higher speeds on our snowmobiles. Going over the wind-carved snow mounds the wrong way could spell catastrophe. The expression "the middle of nowhere" had a particular relevance and importance here.

Soon the station was back in sight and as sad as it was to leave such a magnificent and peculiar world, our journey was over.

However, I was able to trek out again one more time the following Wednesday. It is mainly meteorologists who have the privilege of taking these trips, but for a few of the runs, other interested Poleys augment the team. For my second excursion to the Plateau, Stephanie Rowett, the station Waste Management Specialist volunteered to come along.

The two of us sped out again on the snowmobiles and repeated the whole process, this time on line "F," following near the 10° W meridian towards Africa. Wednesday was an even more spectacular day than Sunday. We stayed at the end of the line for a while this time, drinking hot chocolate and basking in the sun for a while. Except for a few minor problems with one of the snowmobiles, the trip was a success. Unfortunately, these trips are only made once a year. Too bad I won’t be here next summer.