Yesterday was VLF - Very Low Frequency. And if you didn't listen to those on yesterday's journal, you should. Today is HBF - Happy Birthday, Freddie! Yay! Freddie turns 11 today. What?! Who is Freddie? He is Lisa's son. You read all about his grandfather the other day - Freddie Crockett, Antarctic explorer. We risked life and limb to go out in front of Palmer Station's webcam (did you know there is a webcam? Actually a couple) Anyway, we literally have 40mph winds today. So you can imagine, climbing up a hill and unfurling a great big sheet that read 'Happy Birthday, Freddie!' in the sleet/rain/snow/wind. Kristin was the smartest one, she wore her fishing pants. I did not and was soaked after a few minutes up there. But it was Great! How many kids get a birthday greeting like that? Lucky guy!
Here we are in front of Terra Lab with out big painted sheet wishing Freddie a happy birthday!
You can sort of tell how the wind was blowing our coats and hoods over our heads as it takes six of us to hold the sheet up so Freddie could see his birthday greeting. Too bad you can't see how drenched we are getting. Ahhhh, very refreshing.
Since we are so close to Terra Lab, let me slip another project or two in here. Scripps and NOAA have some air quality monitors. They monitor Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen, and Argon levels. NOAA's is mobile and can be taken out to other locations and collects air to be analyzed. The one pictured here is from Scripps is a little more precise. The air is collected from an intake valve on the roof of Terra Lab. The air is passed through a tube that is filled with these silicate beads. The tube is sitting in a -50 C bath. (Much colder than the water we jumped in a few weeks ago!) That gets rid of any moisture in the air so that no moisture is passed into the collection vat. Voila! They are looking for changes in CO2, O2, and Argon concentrations in the atmosphere in relation to the carbon cycle and climate change.
Here is the apparatus for the air monitor project. Not too exciting to look at. But let's see how it works...
Here are the locations where there are other global sampling stations; Alaska, California, Hawaii, Samoa, Australia, and Antarctica.
Here is the silicate-filled tube that the air passes through as the tube sits in a very cold alcohol bath. This process allows all moisture to be extracted from the air.
The demoisturized air is then transferred into this collection vat for analysis.
Okay, so that was a sneaky way to get a bit more of Terra Lab in here. But don't think we are done with it. I still have a few more projects to talk about . Including the machine that monitors any nuclear explosions in the atmosphere...