Antarctic Report 4 – quiet week at 75 degrees south

BAS for BHF dont need DFS

This is the fourth in our series of reports from David Goulden working for The British Antarctic Survey.

A quiet week here at 75 degrees south. We managed to complete the mapping of the base this week and have been engaged in odd jobs around the base. The weather has been mild but we have had poor contrast throughout most of the week which makes working harder and slower as we can literally not see the ground in front of us or make out the horizon or sky.

Last week we moved into an annexe near the Drury Building. Life in the annexe has been more basic but ok. The bunks are larger and wider but the space outside the bunk is minimal to the extent that you have to take turns in the morning getting up and dressing. They heat up and cool down quickly due to the electric heaters – the same type we get in site accommodation. The unit has a lobby door to keep the heat in but we are plagued more by the ill fitting blinds that let the mid night sun stream in. I have modified my bunk to give me somewhere to put books and an alarm clock and it is not a bad spot to read or listen to music.

On Friday we built the outside toilet to out little annexe and cored a waste pit with an ice coring machine – this has large corkscrew auger bits approx 300mm diameter with what is effectively an outboard engine on the top of it. It’s a two man job keeping the unit under control once it is put to the ice!

One of the team here is building a gigantic ice sofa for a competition for the British Heart Foundation. It will be used for the summer photo this year and we spent Saturday afternoon carving the sofas arms and legs.

The supply ship Igarka is due in on the 26th December and so we had our Christmas dinner on Saturday. We were given the afternoon off and put up decorations and removed all the furniture from the lounge for a band to set up.

Lunch was at 1600 hrs and comprised a full spread with all the trimmings – we had crackers and glasses of wine and then headed out to the sofa for the photos. The whole base was ferried out in skidoos, sledges and box trailers with the skidoos speeding back and forth to collect and gather every one of the team much like the “little ships” of Dunkirk.

We were treated to hot mulled wine and then formed an orderly queue to climb the steps up to the sofa. I was tasked with pressing the self timer button on the camera and then sprinting the distance to the sofa and getting hauled up by Justin and Adrian within the 10 secs allowed.

We then headed back to the lounge where the bar opened and the night began. We were allowed an extra can that night. Five cans in total but a couple of us borrowed a skidoo to pop back to our annexe for some Hungarian moonshine called Perdinka  It must have been 80% proof and I think capable of removing tooth enamel. We also picked up a couple more beers we had hoarded during the previous weeks.

The band played 10 or 12 numbers through out the evening. It is amazing to see people in different circumstances and with talents you know nothing about. One of the young scientists only picked up the bass guitar earlier in the week!

We then had a carol service and went thorough some old popular carols. We fed on cold meats and buffet style food throughout the evening and I believe I stumbled home at about 0100 hrs looking forward to a lie in the next day.

Sunday was spent doing chores and reading before heading out to the 4km marker (3 barrels stacked on top of each other outside the boundary). The rest of the base settled down to the afternoon movie – The Great Escape!

We will have another week, I think, kicking our heels but the Relief schedule has gone up and I will be based on the edge of the sea ice helping load and sling the sledges with cargo. I have been told that this is a good job as you are in the thick of the action and get to stay on the ship. On the Relief for the RRS Ernest Shackleton I will be a sea ice driver’s mate which entails riding a skidoo behind the Challenger drivers with a safety line and gear to assist if the ice breaks up and the machine falls through.

The management spent much of the time week this flying over the coast working out where we would be berthing the ships and identifying a safe landing spot for us to work from. I believe we will be using Creek 3 and preparations has commenced in grooming the cargo road and putting in a ramp down to the edge of the ice for vehicle access. The field team will use ground penetrating radar to check for crevasses before we get down. I am sure more will be revealed at the Situation Report tonight.

The Known Universe by AMNH

This bit of vid shows the Earth in the context of the universe.

China in Who’s hands?

President Hu - Who made him leader?

There is an interesting article in todays’s Independent blaming China for the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit. The article quotes a source who was supposedly in the room when the heads of state were drafting the document who says:

“If China had not been in that room you would have had a deal which would have had everyone popping champagne corks…..”

“The Chinese were happy as they’d win either way. If the process collapsed they’d win because they don’t have to do anything and they know the rich countries will get the blame.

“If the deal doesn’t collapse because everyone is so desperate to accommodate them that they water it down to something completely meaningless, they get their way again. Either way they win. I think all the other world leaders knew that by that stage and were just furious that they couldn’t do anything about it.”

Why am I not surprised?

Protestors? - pah!

China was admitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001 after the United States dropped it’s veto. Since that time trade with China has grown very quickly and the Chinese economy has grown massively. The generally accepted view is that China is now OK as it has accepted capitalism. This is wrong. The regime in power in China today is not substantially different from the regime which drove tanks over unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square just two years before being admitted to the WTO.

The West too often confuses democracy with capitalism, they are not the same. It is possible to have a democratic government that is socialist. It is certainly possible to have a capitalist government which is non-democratic and China is the proof of this.

Both China and the West have gained from the flow of trade but we should consider that, having now allowed so much industry to move to China, we have become reliant on an authoritarian regime which cares for nothing but perpetuating it’s own existence. We should also keep this in mind when businessmen and political leaders talk of the necessity of allowing the free flow of trade to countries where there is “competitive advantage”. This competitive advantage is, very often, the absence of political rights,  civil rights and the rule of law.

China may have legitimate reasons for not being able to commit to the climate change targets discussed in Copenhagen but it’s impossible to tell. The Chinese regime is not elected and therefore illegitimate and cannot be said to represent the views of the Chinese people. When one deals with regimes such as China one must accept that their word is worth nothing.

During the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit Nuclear Forces Ronald Regan frequently used the phrase “Trust, but verify”. United States president, Barack Obama, seemed to understand this when, during a speech at Copenhagen he appeared to upset the Chinese by implying that verification was key to any agreement. The fact that this was mentioned caused the Chinese representatives to throw a hissy fit and refuse to attend various meetings.

Send in the tanks!

And that’s another thing, China too often uses tantrums as a negotiating tactic. We are told by Chinese watchers that this anger is related to the difference in culture. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the Chinese fly off the handle so often because they are not used to having to justify themselves.

I wonder how the Chinese regime would have responded to the demonstrators in Copenhagen? Rather than  explaining their position perhaps they would simply have sent in the tanks.

This should give us pause for thought.

We should attempt to disprove climate change

high tide or global warming?

Someone on the radio mentioned the great freeze of 1963 today. A bit of quick research on the net revealed that this was a bit of cold weather in the UK with record low temperatures which started at Christmas and lasted through to early March. I recall a hot summer we had in 1976 and, of course it’s a cliché, that people used to be able to skate on the Thames when it froze over.

These days all discussion of weather revolves around the subject of climate change. If we are sceptical and refer people to the winter of ‘63 or the summer of ‘76 to demonstrate that weather is variable then people will scoff and tell us that, of course, there will always be national variations but that the general trend will be warming.

It occurs to me that if we are supposed to accept that 1963 and 1976 are natural variations which have no baring on climate change then surely the effect of this climate change is minimal. Yes the average temperature may increase by a few degrees but if we’re saying that it’s still a lottery wether we get a cold winter or a hot summer then who cares?

I heard Nigel Lawson say that he had an estimate that handling climate change would take 1% of global GDP. This sounded a lot until he pointed out that 5% of global GDP had already been spent on handling the credit crunch. That puts it into perspective. Maybe his figures are wrong but the way the pro climate change lobby carry on you would think it would take 95% of GDP.

I guess I mean that all of the argument seems to revolve around whether there is global warming and whether the warming is man made. None of it seems to be concerned with the effect of the warming except for some vague assertions that “we will see more of this” every time we have a bit of extreme weather.

I am not denying climate change but I am aware that most people don’t understand it and most of the people that claim to have merely learned the scientific arguments in favour until they can recite them verbatim. And even these people seem to make no real effort to change their lifestyle other than insulating their loft or buying dodgy carbon offsets for their self indulgent international travel.

I recall that when Tony Blair was pontificating about the subject in 2007 he was asked whether he would refrain from taking holidays abroad and he scoffed at this. While he didn’t mind exhorting us to cut back he wouldn’t actually be doing anything that affected his own lifestyle.

We humans love a catastrophe. If it’s not nuclear Armageddon it global cooling and if it’s not global cooling it’s global warming. I wonder if anyone has considered that the earth might warm up a little bit but no real harm will be done?

One of the arguments made by climate change sceptics is that, as climate change becomes more of an issue, more funds are directed to the study of climate change and this produces more argument in favour of climate change.

Since the essence of the scientific method is to disprove an assertion, rather than to prove it, I would like to see a separate scientific body created with a mission to:

• Disprove the assertion that climate change will effect humanity in any significant way
• Disprove the assertion that climate change is man made
• Disprove that climate change exists

I am not arguing that climate change is a myth but that if a scientific body with such a remit failed then it would give more credibility to the climate change lobby than than a bunch of fanatics who regard climate change as an article of faith.

Oh, yes, and telecommuting. Instead of spending hours in our cars we should stay in bed an extra couple of hours a day and work from home. We’d be less tired, more able to think clearly and we’d cut down on the emission of an enormous amount of CO2.

Antarctic report 1 – Nunatacs, Blue Ice and 4 beers on saturday night

Ant-bloody-tarctica

A friend of mine claims that he has gone to work for The British Antarctica Survey. This may be true but I have not yet ruled out that he is sitting on a beach in Thailand sending me Emails. However, in a spirit of trust, I intend to publish his reports here and this is first detailed account of his arrival – Jonesxxx

After a few days in Cape town we are told that our flight on the Russian transport plane is to be brought forward due to bad weather in Antarctica – they need to get us in and out of the way asap.

The briefing for the flight is interesting – the plane has no windows and is set up for military use.There is a glass nose cone on the front identical to the ones you see in old war movies – they have set a web cam up that films the view from here and you are able to go up during the flight to look out the window!

We land at Novo air head ( a blue ice runway on the ice shelf) about 20km from the main base where we unload our equipment and wait for transport skidoos to move it to the main base. In between this we are taken to one of the mess tents where we grab hot drinks and food.The runway is literally blue ice and is 3km long; it serves as a consortium base for a number of the Antarctica treaty countries and is run by the Russians and the Antarctic Logistics Company International (ALCI).

You get great views across the shelf with Nunatacs piercing the shelf in the distance – these are the tops of mountains that are covered by the continental ice sheet and are thousands of metres high yet only a few hundred metres are visible.

We are told that we will not be flying out of here to Halley due to weather and rather than sleep in tents we are moved to Novo base itself. This journey is done in an old Russian tank like passenger vehicle and takes about 30 minutes.

Novo is set on the edge of the continent where the ice sheet has retreated and rock and mountains are visible. All 18 of us are housed in a new timber bunk room which they use in these instances. It does not feel very Antarctic and there is even a sauna (although coincidentally it is not in use at the moment!).

We spend the next few days exploring the base and surrounding area and walk in most directions including down to the sea ice and pressure ridge area. We see fantastic ice structures caused by the tidal and wave movements as they come up against the shore.

The food on the base is pretty poor and is survival food – the Russians see eating as a means of keeping the body sustained and not for enjoyment! At meal times we congregate in the mess area and watch Russian sit-coms and game shows and some of the guys play table tennis. The temperature varies from -5 to -7 and is not too cold except when the wind blows.

We are stuck here for a number of days waiting for the weather to break – bad weather here is essentially high and winds and poor contrast – it does not snow much (only 1.5m annually). On one of the days we are invited to the Indian base (Maitri) which is only 5 km away and so we take a trip out there and are shown around the base – they have built a wonderful conservatory and have a small multi faith temple in the roof space!

After a few days here we are told we will be flying tomorrow and are moved back up to the air head – we are a little dubious of this as we have heard that the first commercial flight will be arriving tomorrow and accommodation is required for the pilot and air stewardesses – we are sure the sauna will be miraculously working for their stay and that we will be housed in tents!

The air head is very busy that day as it has been effectively shut for 3 days – the Illuetian takes off for fuel drops and a Basler (DC10) lands along with a twin otter and the Boeing 737 with the day trippers. We sneak up to the edge of the runway to see the landings and take off’s and get battered by the jet wash in between. The first person off of the 737 (apart from the blond air stewardess!) is wearing shorts and a T-Shirt. I think they are American….

The Russian base and air head is littered with broken down plant/oil drums/tank tracks and refuse. The complete opposite of what I was expecting. Fuel drums and tanks are unbundled and there is evidence of large oil and diesel contamination where there is a graveyard of old machinery. This area is designated “Irretrievable” and beyond repair.

Our Balser takes off for the 3 hr flight to Troll the Norwegian base where we will refuel before the final 2hrs leg to Halley. Troll is everything you would expect from the continent – the runway is pristine and there is just one vehicle and the fuelling plant. The runway is surrounded by Nunatac and glaciers and looks fantastic. We have an hour stop here.

Simpson Building, Halley Research Station

We eventually arrive at Halley and are met by the base team and moved up to the Laws platform. We are allowed to shower for the first time in a week and are fed fantastic food cooked by the resident chefs!
The platform sits on jackable legs above the snow and can sleep 50 people. It has a common room, bar, library and workshops as well as a canteen area. It was built in situ by Christiani and Nielson and is wearing very well.

We are allocated bunk rooms. We have a window which is good but the rooms are not spacious. One of our first projects will be to build an accommodation annex for some of the construction team to move into which will allow us to move into the Drury building. Our team currently is made up of Galliford Try employees and BAS employees. The Galliford lads are working on the new Halley VI project and much of our tasks will be facilitating the smooth operations of this. We are the early input team (normally BAS do not operate here until late December. They then depart end of February). Along with the Laws platform there are the Simpson building, CAS lab, Garage and Drury and annexes.

We are inducted the next day and taught how to operate skidoos and Snow cats. I am teamed up with another guy and we are given a skidoo for the season.

The whole reason for building a new station is that the section of the Brunt ice shelf that the Halley V station is on will eventually break off. The new station will be situated about 30km South of here, still on the shelf but it will be able to be towed on large skis to a new location if required. The Brunt ice shelf moves off the continent itself onto the sea (where we are) and moves out further to the sea until it breaks off. It is approx 200m thick.

My first week has been assisting the construction of the new annex.We work from 0703 hrs to 1930 each day including Saturday. The average temperature is -15 deg and the wind has been strong most of the week. The moisture that we create freezes our overalls and gloves solid and makes things tricky but regular tea breaks help us thaw out. The kit we have is good – very warm boots and inner layers and padded overalls and top layers but this does not make it easy to work in.

My setting out and levelling skills have had to be resurrected and so far everything is in the right place. One of my jobs will be to survey the Bondoo (surrounding snow plains) so that accurate predictions can be made regarding the life span of the Halley V platform.

Because of the annual snow fall everything has to be either moved or jacked up on legs each year. The Laws platform sits on 30m of stilts that are now in cased in ice. Because of the construction of the new base the old base has not been jacked up for a couple of years and there are no extendable legs here at the moment to do so. Snow management is, by far, the most important activity on the base with teams of snow cats/dozers and 360’s. There is £4M worth of plant on site much of it custom built. Every single container needs to be moved each season.

The wind creates wind tails that are effectively large mounds of snow on the leeward side of any structure. Three to six metre tails can be created overnight in a storm and this means that the location of each piece of kit can directly affect another section hence the containers are spaced out at 90 degree to the wind.

Today is Sunday – my first day off and I hope to do some cross country skiing. Saturday night is curry night and we must dress smartly for dinner. We’re allowed 4 cans of beer as opposed the normal 2. So far all good – exhausted from working so hard – no sitting in front of lap top any more but I am sure in a week or so I will be less worn out. We have another intake of staff some time this week and new people to meet.

- David Goulden, Halley Research Station, Ant-bloody-tarctica

Tax and spin – The New Labour doctrine

This evening on the TV I saw an advert exhorting me to reduce my driving by 5 miles a day to cut carbon emissions. On the face of it this sounds like a good idea but they are, in fact, talking bollocks.

What shall I do? Drive to within 5 miles of work, park on the side of the road and then walk into the office? Maybe I should not go into the office one day a week? An excellent idea, I’ve blogged about the benefits of telecommuting before but this ad made no mention of encouraging that and, indeed, the government has recently announced a 50p tax on broadband connections so they can’t really claim to be making any meaningful moves in that direction.

This TV advertisement represents the New Labour response to everything: raise taxes but spin a story like you’re not.

Heavy Metal

Teleworking is a hobby horse of mine which I believe could make a major contribution to reducing CO2 emissions from cars. Every morning thousands of tons of metal leave Brighton and are sent racing up the M23 at over 70 miles per hour. The metal sits in south London and cools throughout the morning and then around 5pm it all hurtles back into Brighton again. Simultaneously a smaller quantity, but still vast weight, of metal makes the opposite journey.

Why? – So that the project manager who lives in Brighton can chat to his friends while he works.

Traffic

World Population Density

 

World Population Density

Trees Are Green

Artificial Trees pft! – More profit for fat cats.

This week there has been much talk suggesting that British scientists support the use of artificial trees to address climate change. The trees would work by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which would then be liquefied and stored underground using technology which is becoming known as carbon sequestration.
Carbon sequestration trials are currently underway to remove CO2 from the emissions from coal power stations, liquefy the CO2 and then pump it into exhausted oil wells. Many industry professionals are bullish about carbon sequestration – They would be, there are huge potential for profits to be made.

Even if carbon sequestration worked it would be a cop out because it would be passing the buck to the next generation and storing up trouble for the future. Before we consider storing vast amounts of CO2 underground we should recall that the British government still have no plans for the long term storage of nuclear waste!

We should also ask: Who would pay for the machines? Who will operate them? Who will be responsible for leaks from old buried CO2? What incentive will countries who do not operate CO2 sequestration system have to limit CO2 production? How much CO2 will be emitted to develop, build, operate and decommission the equipment? And lastly why spend millions recapturing CO2 rather than stopping emitting it in the first place?

The answer to CO2 build up is not bigger and stupider ideas it is to break the current economic model of over consumption conjoined with the acceptance that the world is humanities dustbin.

If we allocate the problem of over emission of CO2 to businessmen they will produce a profit driven solution. If we allocate the problem to engineers then they will provide engineering solutions such as artificial trees. If we allocate the problem to politicians then they will take an interim decision that gets them past the next election. The last time I heard a British government minister discussing nuclear waste he claimed that the New Labour government did have a policy for the long term storage of waste; the policy was to use short term storage until a policy for long term storage had been devised. – Yes, he actually said that! The arrogance and cynicism which leads a government minister to trot out such bollocks is staggering. Sadly I can’t recall who it was that said it.

Rather than relying on “professionals” to sort out climate change we could always do something ourselves.

We British complain that the Brazilians are cutting down huge amounts of forest every day but we don’t mention that England used to be covered in forest. Why not replant that forest? Sadly the space is now taken up with farm land, housing, shopping malls and Heathrow Airport but we could still plant trees on all the free land? The grass verges in the cities, the wasteland, everywhere, even parts of Heathrow Airport.

Trees are green

The professional statisticians will tell us that this will only absorb a small percentage of the CO2 required but this is a poor argument which we hear every time anyone makes any suggestion about ways to reduce or absorb CO2. It is not enough – of course it is not be enough – There is no one silver bullet.

I was talking to a friend last week and he asked me what I am doing to reduce my CO2 consumption. I lamely mentioned an insulated loft and recycling and he suggested I do more. I dismissed the additional measures as making too small a contribution but he made the point that if we all do everything we can then we will all become far more aware and this awareness will have knock on effects. It will motivate us to take the bigger decisions that are necessary.

When I was at school there was a campaign to save trees: “Plant a Tree in 73” followed by “Plant one more in 74”. A tree absorbs CO2 naturally and turns it into wood. Useful stuff wood, you can make chairs, tables and cricket bats from wood.

Maybe it is worth doing things individually. We may act one at a time but this can have an effect just as the trees in the English forests were cut down one at a time.

………..where’s my spade?

Road Kill

Rabbit

My route to work currently takes me over the South Downs and through some back roads and I frequently start out around 6:30 am. At this time in the morning the roads are relatively clear and one is not forced to dawdle. The site of the hills and the sky can be quite uplifting but this feeling does not always last as I seem to see more and more road kill.
Sometimes I just see a flattened lump in the middle of the road but other times it’s a large dead badger keeled over and lying with it’s paws in the air. Does a badger have paws? I don’t know. Last week there were two dead badgers close to each other and in the past I’ve seen foxes, pheasants, rabbits and deer.

This morning as I rounded a corner and accelerated, two large birds were ambling along the middle of the road with their backs toward me. They heard the sound of my engine and started to run. I flashed my lights like crazy and braked as they lifted off and to the sides. Thankfully I swept past with a couple of feet to spare.

Later in the day the traffic increases and we are just one of many rushing past ignoring these poor animals but early in the morning, at the beginning of a new day, it is deeply depressing to see the damage that our civilisation wreaks on wildlife.