PALMER STATION SCIENCE MONTHLY REPORT September 2004 NEWS FROM THE LAB Sonja Wolter, Winter Assistant Supervisor The pace picked up at Palmer Station again in September as the crew prepared for the arrival of the first of the summer crew. According to the original schedule, the R/V LAURENCE M. GOULD should have been backing up to the pier on the 22nd, but starting in late August, reports came that the Gould was experiencing problems during its trip south from Louisiana following dry-dock maintenance. News and speculations floated around station until the definitive word came that the ship would be stopping in Talcahuano, Chile, for a dry-dock repair of a leaking sonar window. Ultimately this translated into an eleven-day delay of station opening. No one on station seemed particularly phased by this, and work carried on as normal. In the labs, preparations continued for the arrival of the grantees, including a thorough cleaning and buffing of the floors and continued work on the Environmental Room compressor upgrade. Though September was still boat-free due to sea ice, the wildlife sightings increased significantly. The birth of two Weddell seal pups on the ice in Hero Inlet brought some excitement to station, with many trekking over to Bonaparte Point to get a closer look. At the risk of sounding unscientific, the pups are “so cute, it’s painful”. Along with the Weddells, the Elephant Seals made their presence known again, and one station member reported a possible Leopard Seal cruising the inlet. Bird sightings included Antarctic Sheathbills engaged in behavior that could be interpreted either as fighting or mating rituals; Blue-Eyed Shags; Giant Petrels; Snow Petrels; Antarctic Terns; Kelp Gulls; and possibly a Skua. September brought 25.9 mm of melted precipitation, including approximately 41 cm of snowfall. The official records will show that the snow accumulated to a maximum of 90 cm mid-month, though this number seems a bit of a fraud; the snow only drifted to this depth on one day and drifted away to 75 by the following day. Temperatures ranged from +5.5ºC to –22.9ºC, the record cold for this winter. A solid layer of sea ice covered Hero Inlet for almost the entire month. Arthur Harbor and the surrounding areas were also well iced in, but in the space of a day, on the fifteenth, it broke up and blew out. With some southerly winds and colder temperatures it reformed quickly, though likely not as solidly. September winds averaged 10 knots for the month and gusted to a maximum 68 knots. The following projects conducted research at Palmer Station during September: G-052-P GPS CONTINUOUSLY OPERATING REFERENCE STATION. Jerry Mullins, Principal Investigator, U.S. Geological Survey The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. Throughout the month, 15-second epoch GPS data files were collected continually at station PALM, compressed, and transmitted to the USGS in Reston, VA. G-090-P GLOBAL SEISMOGRAPH NETWORK (GSN) SITE AT PALMER STATION. Rhett Butler, Principal Investigator, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. Station PMSA is one of more than 130 sites in the GSN monitoring seismic waves produced by events worldwide. Data files are recorded to tape and also sent real-time to the U.S. Geological Survey. Data acquisition on the DP computer was shut down gracefully prior to a planned power outage on 13 September, while the DA computer in the vault remained running and buffered data packets; these packets were transferred to the DP when data collection was resumed after power was restored roughly 80 minutes later. The outage may have exceeded the DA’s memory buffer by a few minutes, but no more. O-204-O A STUDY OF ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN VARIABILITY IN RELATION TO ANNUAL TO DECADAL VARIATIONS IN TERRESTRIAL AND MARINE ECOSYSTEMS. Ralph Keeling, Principal Investigator, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Air samples are collected on a semiweekly basis by the station physician. The goal of this project is to resolve seasonal and interannual variations in atmospheric O2 (detected through changes in O2/N2 ratio), which can aid in determining rates of marine biological productivity and ocean mixing. The results are also used to help determine the terrestrial and oceanic distribution of the global anthropogenic CO2 sink. The program involves air sampling at a network of sites in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Palmer Station is especially well situated for resolving signals of carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean. Samples taken from the station are sent to Scripps where the analysis of O2 and CO2 content takes place. O-264-O COLLECTION OF ATMOSPHERIC AIR FOR THE NOAA\CMDL WORLDWIDE FLASK SAMPLING NETWORK. David Hofmann, Principal Investigator, Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory continues its long-term measurements of carbon dioxide and other climate relevant atmospheric gases. The Palmer Station air samples are returned to the NOAA laboratory for analysis as part of NOAA's effort to determine and assess the long-term buildup of global pollutants in the atmosphere. Data from this experiment will be used in modeling studies to determine how the rate of change of these parameters affects climate. Air samples are collected on a weekly basis by the station physician. O-275-O DOE-EML REMOTE ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENTS PROGRAM (RAMP). Colin Sanderson, Principal Investigator, Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Measurements Laboratory The RAMP system is part of a global network seeking to characterize the quantity and distribution of radionuclide particles occurring both naturally and artificially in the atmosphere. One sample filter was exposed for the duration of each week, and a weekly schedule of calibration, background, and sample counts was maintained.  The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. During a planned power outage on 13 September, the batteries in the system power supply proved to be useless, so power was lost to the computer and converter/transmitter. The batteries were replaced with spares during the outage. The MCA battery kept it powered during the outage, so no counting parameters needed to be reset, and the outage was specifically timed to coincide with the beginning of a new count, so there was no loss of counting data. The sampling pump was off for the roughly 80-minute duration of the outage. O-283-P ANTARCTIC AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS (AWS). Charles Stearns, Principal Investigator, University of Wisconsin The Research Associate monitors data transmissions for the project. AWS transmissions from Bonaparte Point, Hugo Island, and Racer Rock were monitored using the TeraScan system, with only Bonaparte Point currently operational. AWS data received was also forwarded to UCSB for B032P (Smith). Several spare batteries were recharged and their capacities checked. A-306-P GLOBAL THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE RADIATION BELTS AND THE LOWER IONOSPHERE. Umran Inan, Principal Investigator, Stanford University The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. The Stanford equipment receives and records Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio waves in order to study natural ionospheric and magnetospheric phenomena, as well as to study the distribution of the lightning strikes that are a principle source of natural VLF signals. Broadband synoptic data was recorded on a schedule of three out of every 15 minutes each day, and broadband continuous data was recorded for at least six hours per day. Narrowband continuous data was collected for 12 hours each day. The entire system was shut down for the duration of a planned power outage on 13 September. Only six three-in-15-minute synoptic data files were missed, as the outage was specifically scheduled at a time of day when narrowband and continuous broadband data recording were idle. Low intensity LEP (Lightning-induced Electron Precipitation) events were observed sporadically in the narrowband data, and extra jpeg image files highlighting those events were prepared and transferred to Stanford. Throughout the month, fairly active magnetospheric conditions led to the burning of numerous additional DVD-Rs of broadband continuous data. Late in the month the supply of DVD blanks was exhausted, and data files were archived (redundantly) on hard drives for burning after a disc resupply is received. T-312-O TERASCAN SATELLITE IMAGING SYSTEM. Dan Lubin, Principal Investigator, Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. Throughout the month, the TeraScan system collected, archived, and processed DMSP, NOAA, and ORBVIEW-2 satellite telemetry, capturing approximately 30 passes per day. A weekly 85GHz SSM/I ice concentration image was produced and transferred to UCSB for B032P (Smith). Two more ice images of the area around 65S and 3E, at the very limit of the Palmer TeraScan’s range, were provided to the captain of the R/V NATHANIEL B. PALMER. This area is the likely target of a cruise scheduled for approximately this time of year in 2005. Ice images, both “visual” (visible and infrared) and microwave, displaying the northern extent of the pack ice on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula were provided to the captain of the R/V LAURENCE M. GOULD in preparation for and during the station opening cruise. The first SeaWiFS telemetry of the 2004/2005 season was captured on 03 September. T-513-O ULTRAVIOLET SPECTRORADIOMETER NETWORK Charles Booth, Principal Investigator, Biospherical Instruments, Inc The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. A BSI SUV100 UV spectroradiometer produces full sky irradiance spectra ranging from the atmospheric UV cutoff near 290nm up to 605nm, four times per hour, while the sun is above the horizon. A BSI GUV-511 filter radiometer, which has four channels in the UV and one channel in the visible for measuring Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR), is located next to the SUV100. Data from the GUV-511 instrument is made available on a daily basis on the project’s website http://www.biospherical.com/nsf/. Scheduled absolute calibrations were performed on 09 and 22 September, with the latter being the quarterly triple-lamp calibration. TIDE GAGE Tony Amos, Point of Contact, The University of Texas Marine Science Institute The Research Associate operates and maintains on-site equipment for the project. Tide height, seawater temperature, and salinity are monitored on a continual basis by a gage mounted at the Palmer Station pier. Roughly two hours of data were lost on 02 September due to an unexpected network server malfunction. METEOROLOGY The Research Associate acts as chief weather observer, and compiles and distributes meteorological data. At the end of the month a summary report is prepared and sent to interested parties. Weather data collected using the automated electronic system is archived locally and forwarded semimonthly to the University of Wisconsin for archiving and further distribution. Synoptic reports are automatically generated every six hours by the Palmer Meteorological Observing System (PalMOS) and emailed to the NOAA for entry into the Global Telecommunications System (GTS). Current weather observations for all Antarctic stations, including Palmer, are available on the web at: http://www.wunderground.com/global/AA.html. Multiple times throughout the month the PalMOS drifted into a condition in which it was not reporting ceilometer values; each time the power was cycled to the ceilometer, sometimes multiple times, which generally restored operation. As the month progressed, the duration of proper ceilometer reporting became shorter and shorter, and when, at the end of the month, proper operation would only continue for several hours, the reporting of cloud information was disabled in the automated synoptic messages.