From One Desert to Another

Summer chugs merrily along in Tucson, as today marks the 8th consecutive day of temperatures over 100 degrees. This is, admittedly, above normal for the city in late August, but not insanely so. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the world McMurdo station sits at 10 degrees. A larger swing in temperatures on the Earth is hard to find. But one thing both here and there have in common is lack of precipitation: both are deserts. Tucson sits in the Sonoran Desert, home of the saguaro cactus, roadrunner and Gila monster. Here’s one now:

Side note: they are curmudgeonly creatures

McMurdo finds itself – along with the rest of Antarctica – insulated from a lot of moisture due to the southernmost jet stream, which surrounds the continent. While Tucson gets on average 12 inches of rain a year, McMurdo gets only 8. Of course, since most of it is snow and since snow is much less dense than rain, this 8 inches of water corresponds to roughly 80 inches of snow. I have been told I might be expected to do shoveling from time to time.

The other similarity between the two deserts is sun exposure. In Tucson, the high altitude the sun reaches in the sky, especially in summer, as well as the endless cloud free days provides ample opportunity to sunburn. Antarctica has to be trickier, and so manages its increased UV exposure via the large hole in the ozone above it.

Green is good, purple is bad

But it’s not for the similarities that I’m heading there. Tucson has been a great experience all around, and completely foreign compared to the east coast. The mountains loom over the desert floor unlike anything Pennsylvania has to offer, and in them is escape from the oppressive heat and ecosystems that are simultaneously familiar and yet still… western. Roaming through the wilderness of the Catalina Mountains weekend after weekend my first two years always brought great views, interesting discoveries and, from time to time, harrowing experiences. The monsoons that roll in every July are fun to track building from south and are even better to watch boil and rage all around. Of course it’s best when they’re actually where I am, but you can’t argue with the lightning shows that can be seen even a dozen miles away on the other side of the city.

Just a typical afternoon monsoon

Oh, right… and the sunsets. I really can’t do justice describing them here. If you’ve seen them, you know what I mean and if you haven’t, just take my word on them, ok?

And now, after 5 years of Tucson Arizona, it’s time for something completely different.

Back on Track

There was probably a whole hour between my last post and this announcement which details the NSF’s procurement of a Russian icebreaker. Funny how the timing went, but then again there really wasn’t much time left to make an announcement: now the hiring managers and travel department at Raytheon likely have to jump into gear issuing specific deployment dates and the accompanying travel arrangements – flights, hotels, transportation.

And on this end there’s a lot to do as well… but for right now there’s simply relief that I can actually start doing those things that need doing. Among other things, moving all my stuff into storage, buying the clothes and supplies which I currently lack and changing the mailing address for all the little things that still get physically mailed in this digital age. A month to do it all, as well as make more progress on my research, but it will all fall together quickly.

Tick Tock

It’s now into Day 11 of the post-deadline wait. 11 days since we were told we’d be told something, and since that silent day… silence. I know that WINFLY – the first few people to travel to Antarctica post-winter – has successfully deployed, but that was scheduled to happen regardless of the outcome to the icebreaker dilemma. No, the icebreaker was always first and foremost going to affect mainbody deployment.

One wonders how long they can go on with this silence. Research teams that have been planning to travel to the continent for months – or years – are in a holding pattern, holding their breath. I imagine there are quite a few graduate students whose theses depend on the data they expect to be getting this season. There’s probably experiments whose funding can’t make it to next year should they be denied this year. And I am sure that there are dozens of workers like me who are sitting restlessly at home, at work, or at a coffee shop, obsessively clicking refresh on their browsers to no avail.

What is going on behind the scenes? What is the sticking point that prevents a decision, whether yay or nay? Is the asking price for the icebreaker too high? Does the NSF not have the authority to release the funds without authorization from… who? (I shudder to think it might be some committee in Congress) Are they simply finalizing the cutbacks that must be announced?

The thought that this job, which was offered and accepted, physically qualified for and all but set in stone, could be lost for reasons beyond anyone’s control save for the Swedish government and the NSF, is an unpleasant one. That it is a job unique in the world, and not likely to cross again my life’s path is even more so. There’s an experience here, and there’s a story, but my appreciation for it will not come for a long time should the outcome be a setback.

Though if I knew, right now and finally, that I was not going to deploy, it would suck, absolutely, but it would also be a relief to have an end to the waiting. I can not, and will not, move forward until I know where I’m going to be 6 weeks from now, and the difference in answers is 9000 miles. I am still confident that I will be going, but such confidence will make it that much more of a kick in the shins if it proves unfounded. For now… more waiting, more silence and the steady ticking away of days.

Taking my Leave

Still waiting for an announcement from the NSF on whether they got an icebreaker. The original tentative deadline that was set for making a decision was 5 days ago, and since that time there has been an utter silence from everywhere. The Antarctic message boards have been dormant since early Tuesday, all the speculation leading up to the deadline ceased. The only posts to come after the deadline appeared to be from veteran employees noting their complete lack of surprise on the delay. The USAP website has been idle since the end of July. No emails from my hiring managers. It’s like a wild west town before a shootout, or a bad neighborhood at 2 AM, or a zombie-ravaged city. Choose your ominous silence scenario.

All this delay means that they have something they believe is available, but which hasn’t been and isn’t near being finalized yet. The question I’d want to know is how confident they are they can get this something. But to speculate on that, I’d need to know how important obtaining an icebreaker is. Clearly it’s important. But is it really, really important? Because if it is, then even if they don’t have a lot of confidence that they’ll get the icebreaker, they will pursue their options as long and as hard as they possibly can. On the other hand, if it’s not soooo important and they are resolved to go along with the contingency plans – unpalatable though they may be – then they would only delay making an announcement if they thought they were close to a breakthrough. So I imagine there’s a continuum there of confidence and importance, and the ultimate deadline they absolutely have to announce by.

Alas, I am a lowly contract employee and not privy to such discussions. Meanwhile, the world continues to turn and other deadlines approach. With the semester starting Monday and the RA grant already long past due, today is the day to either enroll or take a leave of absence. Though it makes me uneasy to do so, I chose to take the leave. If I were a cynic, I might shake my head at myself for taking such a risk in a world bent on making examples of people naive enough to take dumb risks. So be it. Mid-level confidence, but high importance. And it would be disingenuous not to include this: I called my interim hiring manager today, and he seemed to think that even in a worst case scenario, our department would be minimally affected. Especially based on the uncertainty I picked up in his words the first time we talked a month ago, I take this as a positive sign.

So, I see your sandbagging on a decision, world, and I raise you the potential for self-induced unemployment.

The Wait…

Right now I should be making plans to go to Antarctica. I should be holding a one-way ticket to New Zealand. I should be supplementing my cold weather gear, planning a last second excursion back east, and slowly becoming aware of the immensity of this journey to the end of the world. But, things don’t always go as they should… and this is one of those times.

Instead, I am playing the waiting game. It’s a boring game. And the reason I’m playing this game is because of a boat… or should I say because of the lack of a boat.

The bottom of the world is, believe it or not, a cold place. It’s a place where people are not really meant to live. That doesn’t stop us, though (nor should it). But it means life down there is completely dependent on the outside world. For food, for materials, for fuel. And a lot of these supplies can be flown in easily enough. But one thing that can’t be efficiently flown in is fuel. The amount of fuel needed for making electricity, powering vehicles and producing life-sustaining heat is much too great to be brought in by plane. It has to be shipped in something like this guy, which has roughly 1000 times the fuel-carrying capacity of a C-130. It’s either 1 ship or 1000 C-130 flights. One is reasonable, one is not (after all, the Berlin airlift was a long time ago).

That’s not a problem by itself. What is a problem is all the ice that lays siege to McMurdo, even in the summer. Typically there’s miles and miles of ice between the base and the open ocean, and to cover that span, an icebreaker is needed. Here’s one such icebreaker. In fact, it’s the very icebreaker that has been used to create the channel to McMurdo for the past few years. It’s owned by Sweden, and they want it back in the northern hemisphere this winter because, apparently, ice in the Baltic Sea caused all kinds of shipping problems last year.

Well, what does the U.S. have in its fleet? 3 ships. Two of them are over 30 years old and either being decommissioned or repaired. So by 3 ships I really mean 1 ship. It’s the USCGC Healy. Unfortunately, it’s not only dedicated to the Arctic, but also probably not heavy duty enough to do the job.

Where does that leave the NSF (the ones who obtain the icebreaker)? Scrambling to find a replacement. And it leave me waiting, because without an icebreaker, fuel can’t be supplied to McMurdo. Without fuel, all operations have to be cut back so that fuel can be conserved until January of 2013, which is the next time a resupply could conceivably occur. And if operations are cut back, it means I might be out of a job.

There are some reasons to hope, however: there are several leads toward finding a replacement, including using the aforementioned Healy along with a second additional icebreaker, or chartering an icebreaker from the Russian government. Even if they don’t get a replacement, I’ve heard it said that the reduction in personnel could be around %50, but that it would not be even across all areas. Research would be hit hard, especially those that go out into the field using C-130’s. Probably construction projects as well. But one way or the other you need to have transportation to and from the airfield (especially if more supplies need to be flown in instead of shipped in), so it could be that my division is not as severely affected.

For now, I wait. When I was informed of the situation a month ago, I was told that they did have a date by which they hoped to make a decision and inform all those involved whether they should expect to be going to Antarctica or not. That date was yesterday…