A major challenge:
One of the main challenges of working in Antarctica is, surprisingly, not the cold. However, it is related to the weather. For a few days now my weather app has predicted that today would be a pretty sunny day, then it predicted a cloudy day with some precipitation, then it predicted snow/rain most of the day. Even the day of, the app may still get it wrong!
Here is my dilemma: this week I am taking down my experimental sites so we can start packing everything up. All I need is a 1.5 hour period with no precipitation so I can take one final set of carbon flux measurements before we remove the experiment.
This morning we had a magnificent sunrise.
I decided to take a chance - perhaps the app still got it wrong? Would I still get my 1.5 hours and be able to take my carbon flux measurements?
And after a morning meeting we quickly left to our field site at Litchfield Island. Then this happened (and I am not referring to the fur seals):
We came prepared though and we still managed to collect some data and our probes that measure soil fertility.
I see on my weather app that Friday looks good (and Saturday)… Perhaps plan the measurements and take-down on Friday then, and use Saturday as a backup? It is hard to plan here, but all we can do is try.
Besides, even when it is snowing - it is absolutely beautiful here. That makes us happy!
