After nearly 20 years in the Arctic the Deming Ecosystem is undertaking its first Antarctic study. Shelly and I depart from Seattle on August 23rd, keep an eye on this site for information, pictures, and updates on our activities. Questions and comments from the public, and in particular from students, are strongly encouraged!
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wow!there is so much going on there…i wish i could have been there..!!what is the average temp of water?how many research centres from all countries combined together are there in antarctica?
Prashanth, I’m going to answer your question under the Q&A page…
-Jeff
how deep is the snow??
That’s an interesting question, and depends a lot on exactly where you are trying to measure it. The wind at McMurdo leaves some places completely free of snow and piles it quite deep in other places. It doesn’t actually snow very much here, snowfall in water equivalents is around 20 cm and it snows even less in the interior of the continent. It is cold enough that it doesn’t all melt away in the summer however. The deepest drifts around us are several meters deep, but right next to the drift might be a patch of ground completely free of snow!
so basically your somewhat walking way above moving ice?
If we were to take a stroll to the nearby McMurdo Ice Shelf (which we drove over coming to the station from the runway) we would be walking ontop of compressed snow overtop moving ice. The ice shelves aren’t quite the rivers of ice that glaciers are, but they are dynamic structures. Evidence for this can be found in the calving off of large icebergs from many shelves around the Antarctic continent. At the station we are on the solid land of Ross Island. When we begin our work on the sea ice we will primary travel on “land-fast” sea ice that is not moving. Occasionally we will travel on sea ice that is not land fast and prone to movement, but it isn’t safe to spend a lot of time on this ice as it could drift out into McMurdo Sound.
what causes these caretonoids?
Bacteria, archaea, and some eukaryotes can make their own carotenoids. Other organisms obtain them by eating these (for example we obtain beta-carotene and similar carotenoids from carrots and other pigmented vegetables). You could say that these carotenoids are “caused” by the environment. Ultraviolet light or another stressor will induce the organisms to begin producing the carotenoids, as a defensive mechanism.
Hi…I am Prashanth from PSBB Millenium School….It is great to know about antarctica from there!how was your ride to antarctica?what were the climatic changes you noticed?and can i know more about wind speeds over there?how is it caused?what are the main land features?
Prashanth,
The ride over was pretty uneventful. The plan has only a couple of windows, so there isn’t much to see. We spent the time catching up on sleep and reading. The climate is very different from that of New Zealand, since McMurdo is around 30 degrees latitude further south. It’s definitely spring here, conditions have been relatively warm (although that could chance at any time), but still quite cold. This morning there is a little wind as well, small gusts up to 15 km/hour. That isn’t much, but its enough to sting your face when you walk outside and to drift snow on the roads. Winds are caused by changes in pressure. Like all fluids air wants to move from a region of high to a region of low pressure (down the pressure gradient). The pressure gradient can be established by lots of different things. For example warm seawater can heat the air, expanding it, and causing it to flow (as wind) to reach equilibrium. The light wind we are experiencing today is probably the result of a passing front, or interface between a region of high and a region of low pressure. There are some special types of winds in Antarctica, and I’ll talk more about those if we experience them. The main land features on Ross Island are the twin volcanic peaks Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror. Erebus is an active volcano and is heavily studied. McMurdo is tucked into a small hillside however, and we can’t see these larger peaks. The main feature close to us is Observation Hill, where early Antarctic explorers made meteorological observations.
Thanks for the information …………….if possible just give us some information and pictures when you reach Antarctica …
HI I am Siddharth.R , a student from The PSBB Millennium School INDIA ….. if possible can u tell me the present temperature , and the wind speeds and i eager to know how the Empire and Adelie penguins get along with each other and if possible can you tell me something about the Multicolored snow algae and diatoms which are present in the coastal areas
Siddharth, thanks for your questions. We are still in New Zealand, hopefully boarding our flight to McMurdo in a couple of hours. If the weather holds we will be at the station this evening. The weather reports we have received indicate that temperatures have been swinging wildly. Currently it is -13 C and relatively calm. The biologists who study penguins will not arrive at McMurdo until later in the season. When they do I’ll ask them about interactions between Adelie and Emperor penguins. It is my guess that they don’t interact too much, as they maintain separate rookeries in specific locations. However in some places, like Beaufort Island within the Ross Sea, those rookeries are probably located close enough for the birds to notice one another.
If you remind me to do so after we start our field work I’ll post some pictures of various snow and terrestrial algaes at Ross Island and talk a little more about them. Algae are single-celled photosynthetic eukaryotes that typically, but not always, grown in moist environments. Often these environments are also occupied by photosynthetic prokaryotes called cyanobacteria which can add to the vibrant colors of these communities. Very often you will notice that algae in more extreme environments are colored red. Great examples of this are solar salt harvesting ponds and snowfields. In the latter the algae is usually seen as a thin red film across the snow surface. The red color comes from carotenoids, special lipid molecules that, among other things, help reduce oxidative damage to other macromolecules (such as chlorophyll and even DNA). They do this by interacting with harmful free radicals, which can be produced by ultraviolet light, metabolic processes, and other environmental stressors. The more stressful the environment, the more color we might expect the algae to have…
Hi! I am meetha reporting from INDIA… Can I know the biodiversity of south ANTARTICA….I would appreciate more info so that my students relish the info and get updated on…Thanks.
Meetha, there are a lot of places we could go with a discussion of Antarctic biodiversity. It is probably easiest to consider the diversity of macrobiology separate from that of the microbiology (roughly the organisms that can be seen without a microscope and those that cannot). On the macro side Ross Island, where McMurdo Station is located, is home to penguins (primarily Empire and Adelie), seals (Weddell, crab-eater, leopard), and a variety of seabirds. The waters of the Ross Sea are home to a variety of whales, including killer whales. With the exception of killer whales and leopard seals all seals, whales, and seabirds feed primarily (but not exclusively) on krill, a keystone species of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. This ecosystem is special because the food web contained within it is rather small, a typical food chain might be phytoplanktonkrillcrab-eater sealkiller whale. Contrast this with a marine food chain from coastal Bay of Bengal! I’ll put a couple of good resources for Antarctic macro-biodiversity below. Micro-biodiversity is a whole other issue. Since it is central to our project I think I’ll delay an answer until I can dedicate a whole blog post to it, but I promise I won’t make you wait too long! In the meantime a couple of good scientific articles can be found below. If you don’t have access to them let me know and I’ll try to email you a copy.
Here’s what the Antarctic Treaty says about biodiversity
Open access (free) scientific article on marine biodiversity in Antarctic
Two interesting articles on the biodiversity of Antarctic microbes:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.micro.53.1.189
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=219543