Personal experiences wintering on the Antarctic continent
|
Looking across the frozen sea ice from Broka Is, west of Mawson. |
From those who simply fly over, to those who winter multiple times, we all learn something from our interaction with Antarctica. It is quite different to what we see and experience anywhere else in the world. The Southern Ocean entirely surrounds Antarctica, and due to this geographic isolation and the height of the continent, it gets colder than anywhere else on Earth. It is also the windiest and driest continent. Summer in Antarctica means long days and midnight sunshine. Temperatures still only rise above zero in isolated places near the coastline. |
|
Paul Gigg, Dave Shaw and Pene Greet with an emperor penguin carcass at Auster rookery. Australian Antarctic Division biologist Graham Robertson had asked them to collect as many as possible for use in research. About 6 to 8 females, out of approximately 12 000, die during egg laying. (Photo: Paul Myers) |
Flying over Antarctica you see large-scale things. If you visit Antarctica by ship you see another world in the pack-ice; icebergs, seals, penguins, whales, and birds of the sky. A ship can take you many places - penguin and other bird rookeries, historical huts, or places of scientific interest. You can see the world around bathed in summer sunlight or buffeted by storms of swell from an intense low breaking up impenetrable pack-ice. Antarctica is a land of snow and ice. You soon learn to distinguish the subtle differences of white and blue which indicate differences in snow and ice types. You learn to recognise patterns in the ice; on a small scale the glistening of ice crystals in sunshine or the ferny fronds of a snowflake, to the large scale, as viewed from a helicopter, of the broken sea-ice and the flow lines on glaciers and crevasses. Summering or wintering at a research station is a different experience again. Time and access to places is limited. All these experiences are different as is every wintering group. |
|
Pene and Paul hold up in a blizzard |
In Frost Bytes, we describe elements of two winter groups and how wintering in Antarctica has affected our lives, both in day-to-day experiences while we were down there; and also how those experiences have gone on to change our lives in the longer term. |
