Wednesday, December 19, 2007

December 18, 2007
WAIS Divide field camp, Antarctica

Time: 11:11 am
Latitude: 79.467° S
Longitude: 112.085° W
Temperature: -12 °C ( 10.4 °F)
Wind speed: 74 km/h (46 mp/h)
Wind Chill: 0 °C ( 32 °F)
Clouds: cloudy
Wind direction: S to E
Relative Humidity: 80%
Barometric Pressure: n/a
Precipitation: n/a

Special Note: This posting is being submitted by Scott Battaion, Media Coordinator at the Wright Center and fellow WAIS Divide Outreach Program (WDOP) educator, currently at the Corvallis field station in Montana.

Zach sent an email to let me know that he has arrived at the WAIS Divide field camp in one piece. Conditions there are a bit severe right now and he has very limited access to the Internet (that's why I'm posting today's blog).

After several days of waiting in McMurdo, the weather cleared up enough to get a plane out and the team jumped at the chance to head to the drilling site. Zach said when they touched down the wind was kicking some strong gusts and it was snowing pretty hard. With the weather being as it is everyone is in for the long haul. Fortunately, all is well at the camp and everyone is just waiting out the weather as they prepare to get down to some serious ice coring business.

Stay tuned for the next update...

2 comments:

MischMom said...

Are there any updates as to whether or not the last three team members have safely landed at the WAIS camp?

zach said...

Hi Sue-

Zach's email was very short--just long enough to say that he and the team made it to the field camp and that Internet access was sketchy. He may be posting an update with more information soon.

-=Scott