Late evening sun over ABN camp The Australian Airbus A319 on arrival at Wilkins aerodrome (70 km from Casey) The ABN team doing group picture at the polar circle Casey’s distance indicators One of my cargo boxes following transportation to Antarctica… Natural snow and ice sculpture in the vicinity of Casey station “Survival” training on the slope of Law Dome Explanation on how a polar toilet works… The Basler and Twin-Otter aircrafts Thoughts about australian food, together with Simon and Trevor… Midnight light over Casey bay David chats with locals which walk over his sampling lines Our “firn air” cargo ready to be airborned from Casey to ABN Individual equipment for sleeping in the Scott tent The kitchen-living room tent : the only warmed spot of the camp Dinner all together Drilling in action, with the firn air bladder suspended on the left The drilling tent where we worked together with David, Tas and Chunlei Snow dogs over the Scott sleeping tents Snow drift building up with bad weather Cleaning of the SARA laser spectrometer optics by -15°C… Andrew Moy starts the analyses of water isotopes in the field using a Picarro The Danish dream team for the main drill : Simon and Trevor Mark Curran, the expedition leader, logging a new core Nearly fully closed bulles at the bottom of the firn The ABN camp seen from the skiway Weather is not very good, but the Twin-Otter is back to catch us up Back to the coast with the Basler After-dinner walk around 11pm at Casey Will the fog lift up so that the Airbus could land on the Wilkins icy skiway ? Some work on the firn air bladder, together with David The two ABN firn air suckers, David and me… The full team of the first round at ABN Late evening sun over ABN camp The Australian Airbus A319 on arrival at Wilkins aerodrome (70 km from Casey) The ABN team doing group picture at the polar circle Casey’s distance indicators One of my cargo boxes following transportation to Antarctica… Natural snow and ice sculpture in the vicinity of Casey station “Survival” training on the slope of Law Dome Explanation on how a polar toilet works… The Basler and Twin-Otter aircrafts Thoughts about australian food, together with Simon and Trevor… Midnight light over Casey bay David chats with locals which walk over his sampling lines Our “firn air” cargo ready to be airborned from Casey to ABN Individual equipment for sleeping in the Scott tent The kitchen-living room tent : the only warmed spot of the camp Dinner all together Drilling in action, with the firn air bladder suspended on the left The drilling tent where we worked together with David, Tas and Chunlei Snow dogs over the Scott sleeping tents Snow drift building up with bad weather Cleaning of the SARA laser spectrometer optics by -15°C… Andrew Moy starts the analyses of water isotopes in the field using a Picarro The Danish dream team for the main drill : Simon and Trevor Mark Curran, the expedition leader, logging a new core Nearly fully closed bulles at the bottom of the firn The ABN camp seen from the skiway Weather is not very good, but the Twin-Otter is back to catch us up Back to the coast with the Basler After-dinner walk around 11pm at Casey Will the fog lift up so that the Airbus could land on the Wilkins icy skiway ? Some work on the firn air bladder, together with David The two ABN firn air suckers, David and me… The full team of the first round at ABN
December 2013 – January 2014
Location : Aurora Basin North , Antarctica ; 71°10’S, 111°22′ E, altitude 2701 m
Mean annual temperature : -43.5°C
Team members 2013-2014 : Chunlei An (PRIC, CN), Malcolm Arnold (AAD, AU), Jenny Carlisle (AAD, AU), Bloo Campbell (AAD, AU), Jérôme Chappellaz (LGGE, Fr.), Mark Curran (Antarctic CRC, AU), David Etheridge (CSIRO, AU), Tony Fleming (AAD, AU), Mana Inoue (Antarctic CRC, AU), Sharon Labudda (AAD, AU), Joe McConnell (DRI, Reno, USA), Andrew Moy (Antarctic CRC, AU), Meredith Nation (Antarctic CRC, AU), Noel Paten (AAD, AU), Trevor Popp (CIC, DK), Simon Sheldon (CIC, DK), J.P. Steffensen (CIC, DK), Tas van Ommen (Antarctic CRC, AU), Feiteng Wang (PRIC, CN). A team of 6 other persons substituted us in early January (including Olivier Alemany from LGGE).
Activities : The IPEV scientific traverse reached first ABN from Dumont d’Urville, to establish a skyway for the aircrafts. Once the camp setup, we reached ABN by air from Casey station, to conduct three ice core drillings. They reached 103, 115 and 303 m, the latter providing a record of roughly 2000 years. On the 115 m drilling, we performed firn air sampling.
My work in the field : I was in charge of the firn air sampling experiment, together with David Etheridge and Tas van Ommen. I was more specifically in charge of continuous measurements of the sampled gases using a SARA laser spectrometer and a LiCor spectrometer.
