Last sunset! (22 October 2022)


Scott Base's latitude officially make the transition to 24-hour sunlight today. We're familiar, of course, with our NZ summer days enjoying a lot more sunlight than in the depth of winter. As one heads further south towards Antarctica (and equivalently, northward into the Arctic) this difference between summer and winter daylight hours becomes more and more pronounced.
Eventually one crosses the imaginary line beyond which there is at least one day of 24-hour sunlight in summer, and one night of 24-hr darkness in winter, known as the 'Antarctic Circle' (or 'Arctic Circle' in the north). This is possible because the angle of the Earth's axis, relative to our plane of orbit around the sun, means that locations near the poles do not fall into the Earth's shadow within a >24-hr period in summer. Equivalently, they do not emerge from the Earth's shadow within a >24-hr period in winter.

Scott Base is so far south (latitude 77.85 S) that it gets ~4 months of continuous daylight in summer, ~4 months of continuous darkness in winter, and ~2 months of transition either side of each. At the extreme, the South Pole gets one 6-month long period of sunlight in 'summer', and 6 months of darkness over 'winter' with the sun circling around the horizon at the vernal (northern spring) and autumnal (northern fall) equinoxes.

Consequently, when viewed from Scott Base last night's sunset was the last time that the sun will dip below the horizon until late February. This means we have been treated to some gorgeous late evening light, turning the surface of the snow lovely shades of pink and orange, and generating long shadows across the flat white surface.

I've had a wee go at capturing the moment with some timelapse photography. Thankfully, I had three chances left by the time we arrived at camp… the first two failed because batteries run down fast in the cold. But on the third try I finally got the USB powerbank to keep charging the camera battery all night, with the aid of a couple of chemical handwarmers.

(I'll update this post with a photo of the last sunset next time I'm back at base)

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet the team

Image
We’ve got a team of 12 people heading to the ice this season to complete a wide array of interdisciplinary science, with platelet ice at the heart of all the activity. There’s also another five team members who have completed all of the pre-deployment certification just in case anyone is turned back at the last minute (for example if someone is injured or tests positive for covid). Who are these people? Here’s a wee intro to the main team, in alphabetical order: Adam : I’m a camera operator and film producer, specialising in remote and extreme locations. This year I’ll be working alongside Vanessa, collecting documentary footage for The Climate Canary. In my spare time I’m keen to take the underwater ROV for a spin! Brett : I’m a marine instruments technician, and this will be my 14 th trip to Antarctica. In the field camp I’m primarily responsible for overall running of the camp and recovering the oceanographic mooring we installed last year. I’ll enjoy creating a curling sheet s...
Read more

Woop woop! We got the mooring back!

Image
Updated 8-11-2022 with photos during a short visit back to Scott Base Happy days! A major and ambitious milestone has been achieved! Last season, when we were here to test the platelet coring system, we deployed a brand-new type of oceanographic mooring with an experimental design. A 'mooring' just means a string of instruments suspended through the water column and programmed to keep collecting data for as long as possible. This is standard operating procedure for ship-based oceanography but is rather a different prospect in our situation, primarily because we have non-permanent sea ice cover to contend with. It is usual for us to deploy a mooring, but to only leave it in the water for the period that we're actually in Antarctica conducting the science. We'll drill a hole in the sea ice, mount a tripod over it, then suspend a weighted line with instruments attached down into the water column. When we've completed the rest of the work, we return to the mooring sit...
Read more

3rd time's a charm!

Image
Just a quick note to say we have finally arrived at Scott Base. The flight was a little late getting away this morning as there were new rules in place as to what people could include in checked luggage. But otherwise, the flight was completely without incident. It was an absolute treat to be able to enjoy the view all the way in to landing on a beautiful, still, and cloudless day. Absolutely perfect weather to arrive to. Since arriving at Scott Base around 4.00 pm, we've already been busy with an arrival brief and tour (for those who are new). Then time to find our rooms and set up beds before dinner. A meeting with the Scott Base engineering leads to plan tomorrow's deployment of the container camp followed by a team get together and a tour of our extra containers. We'll be getting straight into training tomorrow morning so that we're all set to head out to the camp on Monday.
Read more