22 June 2017 Launching a Weather Balloon

Launching a Weather Balloon

During my first few days here, I was lucky enough to see a weather balloon launch. I wrote about it in one my journal entries. Unfortunately, the weather was poor that day, so I only got to watch the launch rather than launch it myself. Last night, I did get the opportunity to launch one. Heather, one of the science technicians here, did the preparations and let me actually launch it. I was amazed by how much force the balloon had.

PolarTREC science teacher Steve Kirsche launches a weather balloon at Summit Station.

The balloon that I was able to launch made it up about 20 miles before it popped. By looking at the data it sent back, it hit a low temperature of -60 degrees Celsius on its way up. It was a real treat to be able to do this launch!

The Big House

Over the last week or so, I've tried to show you the major buildings that are on Summit Station. The last of the buildings is called the Big House. It is what I would call the hub of the station.

The Big House is a raised building at Summit Station that acts as the center of activity for the station.

The station manager's office is located in the Big House. Additionally, there is a large area with tables where everyone goes to eat. This area is used for meetings and social events such as movies, game playing, trivia night, and more. In the evenings, you often see many of the people who live in tents hanging out in the Big House. It gives them a warm place to be.

On the station there are very few showers and laundry facilities. Due to power restrictions, these two activities are only available infrequently. The general rule is one load of laundry per week and two showers per week. The Big House has a shower and a washer/dryer available.

Meals are also served in the Big House. The chef cooks lunch and dinner every day except Sunday. Residents are on their own for breakfast and there are leftovers from the week available to eat on Sundays.

Food at Summit Station

The food at Summit Station is surprisingly very, very good!! The chef, Kathy, does a wonderful job making varied but tasty meals. As you can imagine, getting food all the way up here can be a logistical nightmare. Kathy does a good job of planning ahead to ensure that we have enough food. Since there haven't been any flights in here in a couple of weeks, the station is getting low on fresh food, but there should be a plane coming tomorrow which will bring more.

In the picture of the Big House above, you can see a door to the right of the building. This leads down to an underground storage facility that has been cut out of the snow about 15 feet down. This is where most of the food is kept. It is very cold down there (in the neighborhood of 30 degrees below zero). And, this cold is just naturally in the ice - no power is used to keep it cool.

This cold storage room is located about 15 feet underground where the temperature is about -30 degrees Celsius.

The ice core samples that our team collected are currently being stored in this underground storage. They have to be kept at -20 degrees Celsius or colder, so this was the perfect spot!

Polar Profile

Name: Heather McIntyre

Job Title: NOAA Science Technician

Heather McIntyre works as a NOAA science technician at Summit Station.

Home: Durango, Colorado

Length of Time Working in Polar Regions: Heather has worked in the polar regions for 2 years.

Length of Current Assignment to Summit Station: Heather is currently in the middle of a 5 month assignment here at Summit Station.

Job Description: Heather monitors and repairs a wide variety of scientific equipment that supports long term science experiments.

Favorite Part of Working at Summit Station: Heather says her favorite part of working at Summit Station is that every day brings new, unexpected challenges. Also, living at Summit Station means that she can live comfortably in such a harsh environment.

Hardest Part of Working at Summit Station: Heather says that the hardest part of working at Summit Station right now is that it means she is unable to experience the great summer activities that she would be doing back in Colorado.