Turning the heat up

Our Fosdick Mountains team is still in McMurdo playing the wait-for-good-weather game until we can get an aircraft in to the field site. The Fosdicks are roughly 750 miles from McMurdo across the Ross Sea. They are a coastal mountain range and are thus subject to severe storms and long stretches of bad weather. What has come to be known affectionately as "The Great Storm" pinned down the G097 crew in 2006 and ruined most of their camp. The most famous "casualty" of that storm was a Skandic skidoo that was carried a few hundred feet by the winds.

Overview of Fosdick Mountains (satellite imagery from Polar Geospatial Center).  We will be working mainly on the north side of the range.

Dr. Jo-Ann Mellish's B470 crew invited us out to help them collect infrared images of seals as they haul out of the water through holes in the sea ice. 

The Fosdick crew in infrared while out helping G470 collect imagery of pupping seals

Seals hauled out.       NMFS 15478  

Detail of Weddell Seal and blowing snow. NMFS 15478

Weddell seal and blowing snow with Royal Society Range in background. NMFS 15478

We've been keeping busy in Mactown but the time is coming for us to get out! I remain optimistic. Every day for the last week Chris Yakymchuck (phd student) and I have been scheduled on the Basler aircraft for put-in to our camp. But each day we've been cancelled due to weather. We've been coming up with a variety of ways to increase our chances of good weather. This morning Chris shaved his head to appease the weather gods. Photos soon to come and we'll find out how that worked tomorrow, our next shot to leave town.