Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 12/31/2007 - 13:35
Forums
South Pole Ozone Changes

Hi Ms. Bergholz!

 I have a question or two about your expeditions and research:
How physically demanding do you find these expeditions and how does this effect the amount of time during the day that you can spend collecting data? 
Does the weather/daylight hours ever effect your ability to do research or collect data? 
 
Thank you and good luck!!
 
Rosie K. Class IX
Marymount School New York 
Wed, 01/02/2008 - 10:58

Elke Bergholz

Dear Rosie, Thank you for your best wishes and for your questions.The balloon flights are not more physically demanding then other activities such as collecting CO2 from the Clean Air Sector. Working and walking outside is just harder in general and everything takes longer to begin with: with all the clothing, at -19 F (-35 F wind-chill) and at high altitude. So we take our time when we collect data outside. We need to do different tasks every day. Some of these tasks take place inside the lab, for instance the daily checks of all instruments and the Dobson readings. The weather can effect the data collections. For instance, if it is too windy, we could not do the surface ozone balloon flights because we were looking for data of an undisturbed air-mass above the snow. On the other hand, some air flask samples require wind of 5 meter per second and from a certain direction. If it is less than the required wind speed or if the wind is not from the right direction, we can not do that particular data collection.The weather has been good to do the stratospheric balloon flights.The daylight does not effect our data collection but more our sleep pattern. Most people have darkened their room so they can follow a normal sleep and work pattern. All the best, Elke Bergholz