ANNUAL
SEA ICE RUNWAY
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During
spring, the Annual Sea Ice Runway is built about three miles
from McMurdo, and because of its much closer proximity to town,
operations transfer to this runway in October.
This is the runway that we landed
on when we arrived. The ice was around 15 feet thick. I had
expected to be jolted around at least a little bit or something
but our landing was so smooth that we kept looking at each other
questioningly, wondering if we had touched down.
This past Saturday I found out
that the smoothness of the ice runway actually sometimes causes
problems. I was at a Crary Lab party in Hut 10, a building with
some great views of McMurdo Sound, when I heard, "Hey.
There are penguins on the ice runway!" About a third of
the people just kept on doing what they were doing like - "Yeah.
Penguins on the runway. Whatever. No big deal."
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Sea Ice
Runway
Click
on the pictures to see a bigger view.
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The rest of us rushed over to the windows or outside to get a better
view. There in the distance were some black specks bobbing along.
What's the deal I wondered? I knew the person I was going to ask.
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These Adelie
penguins aren't actually on the ice runway, but they're "threateningly"
close. See the planes in the background??
Photo by special correspondent Alejandro Nieto
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Brian Talks Penguins
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Brian Kliesen is one of the helitechs
who helps load and unload the helicopters, makes sure that weights
are properly distributed on the aircraft, and looks out for the safety
of passengers. He's also been coming down to the ice for the past
four years and is one of those people that seems to have an uncanny
ability to answer completely random questions - or at least the ability
to come up with some convincingly plausible answers. "Think about
it from the point of view of the penguins," advises Brian. "You're
a little Adelie about two feet
high and you have a choice, the rough surface of the sea ice or a
nice, big, smooth runway. Which would you use?" The penguins
can actually waddle surprisingly fast, and they do this thing known
as tobogganning in
which they lie on their bellies and propel themselves forward with
their feet. They get on the runway, says Brian, and think 'Right on!'"
The sea ice that the runway is built
on is seasonal in nature, however, going from a maximum of 20 million
square kilometers in September to a minimum of around four million
square kilometers in February. Although the sea ice of the runway
doesn't melt through completely, "it gets all slushy and weak,"
says Andrew shaking his head, "bad for landing."
Sea Ice Maximum
in October.
Graphic by the NASA
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Sea Ice Minimum
in February.
Graphic by the NASA |
Andrew |
Andrew's
acting like he's thinking really hard about glaciers, but we
suspect that he's actually thinking about going into the kitchen
and getting another one of those freshly-baked cookies!
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