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Since the first flight over from Rothera in November and the arrival of our Base Commander, Steve Marshall, there have been many projects ongoing. Halley has become a very busy place and the calm winter months seem a distant memory already.
Air operations: With three of the four BAS twin otters at Halley at the moment, a lot of work has focused around the flying. It’s quite an operation with more people than you would expect needed for everything to work: pilots, airmechs, radio operators, a co-pilot, 5 people needed to raise fuel drums buried in the snow, a met team to give airobs and sometimes base members out at depots in the field to give airobs.
Paul Sharp, Rich Casson, Richard Borthwick and Dave Glynn have all spent several days at ‘Sledge Juliet’ a camp at about 600km South West of Halley at 78 degrees 58' South, 007 degrees 25' West where they were to give weather observations, often on the hour for long periods while the planes the flying. At Halley we also have a HRPT satellite receiver system which gives useful weather pictures for a large sector of the Antarctic, these are looked at by the pilots in the morning, and following a chat with the forecaster at Rothera, a plan is produced each day of where it is possible to fly.
There were many flights out to Sledge Juliet to depot fuel for an aerosurvey project over the area. Scientists David Rippin, Phil Jones, Paul Woodroffe and David Leatherdale (Pilot) spent several days in the field. Their twin Otter was packed full of scientific equipment.
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They spent several days in the source region of the Slessor and Bailey glaciers, recording the thickness of the icesheet using radio-echo sounding.
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On the 11th December we had a visit from the two German Dornier planes from the Alfred Wegener Institute. The six visitors stayed overnight and then carried on their journey which took them from Punta Arenas to Rothera, then Halley and then onto their final stop at Neumayer. They stayed in the summer accommodation building, the Drewry. Which has been becoming more and more buried in the snow.
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Phil Anderson and Neil Cobbett, scientists from Cambridge BAS, have been out collecting data from several places on the Continent. They have left loggers out at these sites for a year during which time access to them is impossible and now, finally, they are able to retrieve the data and begin to analyse the results. At each CLAMP site (Coats Land Antarctica Mesosphere Project) there is a 3 metre mast with two humidity sensors at different heights, temperature sensors, a wind vane and anemometer and these log to a logger box buried in the snow. There are three of these sites at intervals along the rise up to the Antarctic plateau and the results are very useful in the study of katabatic winds. Katabatics form when the air radiatively cools and (as cold air sinks) it begins to flow down slope from the high plateau down to coastal areas such as the Brunt Ice shelf. The data is also useful in studying the boundary layer between the snow and the atmosphere. Data has also been collected from the AGO (Automatic Geophysical Observatory) sites.
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Preparations have been under way for the arrival of RRS Ernest Shackleton which has sailed down all the way from the UK with lots of new people aboard, new wintering staff and summer contract workers. The ship will unload vital supplies onto the sea ice, hopefully at one of the nearby creeks. Gary Middleton and Andy McConnachie have dozed a ramp down from the shelf ice to the sea-ice at one of the nearby creeks, 'Creek 5'. Sno-cats and sledges will then be able to drive down from the shelf ice and pick up the cargo.
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Technical services have been working incredibly hard with the pre summer season work. Mark Godfrey explains what's been going on...
Unfortunately nearly all of the sea ice from around the Halley part of the Brunt ice shelf has all broken up in the recent storms, warm weather and ocean currents. The sea ice nearby has all disappeared and our poor colony of Emperor penguins has vanished from Windy Cove.
The adult Emperors will have been able to swim away but the chicks still had their fluffy down feathers. The feathers weren't due to moult into swimming feathers until about January/ February time so it is quite likely that the chicks didn't survive when the sea ice broke up. We were all amazed! Many winterers had only been to see them a few weeks before. We had even been walking around on an area which was now open water! It shows the amazing force nature can have and how cruel it can sometimes be. Luckily penguin chicks don't usually return to their breeding site until they are about three or four years old so it shouldn't mean an end to the colony at Windy. The times they return can vary considerably and sometimes chicks take as long as 9 years to first return.
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Unfortunately even though the sea ice has broken up from around Halley it has only
blown a few kilometers out and RRS Ernest Shackleton has been stuck in heavy pack ice for
several weeks now. The ship was due to arrive on the 16th December but we are still waiting
on it's arrival.
So Christmas at Halley was an unusually quiet one, with the busy relief period not yet begun.
Although this meant little work to be done on Christmas Day for the majority on base, it meant
there was no delivery of Christmas cards, presents, post or fresh food. But all was not lost!
The base was decorated from
top to bottom with tinsel and streamers galore. Chef
had saved a couple of turkeys and prepared a great meal and there were carols in the bar
on Christmas Eve, with the occasional made up line or two due
to a lack of a hymn book and forgetful minds!
This visible light satellite picture received at Halley shows the position of RRS Ernest Shackleton, stuck in the thick pack ice of the Weddell Sea, on the 26th December. Its position has hardly moved in the past two weeks. The dark area to the north is open water and a bank of cloud is visible stretching over the Shackleton to Halley. There have been many storms and both ship and base have been waiting for the pack to break but the winds just seem to compact it even more. Such a short distance left after the long voyage from the UK... so near and yet so far!!
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Love to everyone at home,
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