2011 Issue

37 What did we do? The University of Utah Math-Engineer- ing Antarctic Expedition was to measure the electrical properties of sea ice. In collaboration with investigators from New Zealand, we were able to join the K131 camp in Nov-Dec 2010, made up of 13 international researchers all studying the same patch of first year sea ice. First year ice means that this area normally thaws in the summer (we were there at the start of the Antarctic summer), leav- ing a channel that supply ships can use to reach McMurdo and Scott Bases. The ice re-freezes each year to a thickness of about 2.5 meters, providing a clean slate for sea ice testing each season. Our goal was to measure the electrical properties (complex resistivity, basically) of this ice as a function of depth, the amount of brine in the ice, the temperature, etc. Our hope was and is to be able to relate the electrical properties of the ice to its fluid transport properties (the brine and how it moves within the ice itself), thus providing fodder for a better model of how melt ponds form, since they are key factors in understanding and predicting climate change. Where did we go? Antarctica is on the southern tip of the world. It is the largest desert in the world. In spite of the fact that it is an entire frozen continent, it is actually so DRY that mostly the snow and ice just blow around rather than producing new snow. The landing was amazing! It was on the sea ice, the middle of the frozen ocean! The ice runway is used until late spring, when it is replaced by one further away on land. When the plane came Mission: To Ascertain the Electrical Properties of Sea Ice at Antarctica Dr. Cynthia M. Furse So there was amathematician, a physicist, and an engineer in Antarctica. The wind was howling a gale, the sky was clouding over, their hands were getting cold and stiff even in their big gloves, and the snow was covering their goggles so they could barely see. And what did the physicist say to the engineer? down on the ice, yes, it shimmied and skidded a little. The snow poofed up all around, and it was pretty amazing. When we got off the plane at McMurdo, it was cold and windy, but we were more than sufficiently dressed in our cold weather gear. The first night at Scott Base the thermometer said -17.1 °C (1.3 °F), but with all those layers, it didn’t really feel that cold, except perhaps on your cheeks if you left them exposed. You are not allowed to move around anywhere in Antarctica without wearing and/or toting your full complement of Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. McMurdo is run by the American support teams, so many scientists were headed there. We were with the New Zealand team, so we were headed for Scott Base We stayed two nights at Scott Base to get oriented, get our stuff together, and get our basic outdoor training completed. We loved Scott Base, with its family feel. It can support about 85 researchers, and around 65 were there when we were. We were all com- ing and going to differ- ent parts of Antarctica, all studying dif ferent things, and it was great fun to learn what every- one else was doing. And then we took a Pisten Bully (a fancy type of snow cat from Scott Base, around Hut Point, past McMurdo and the ice landing strip … to a slippery, shiny, wavy bit Figure 1: Setting uyp the Wenner Array Figure 2: Sea ice and frozen waves.