January 17, 2006 – Lots of lab work and visit of Sedna IV

Today we all woke up tired from the long day of sampling yesterday. But there was work to be done. We have to process all the samples we collected yesterday, so I was doing that most of today. While I am running the gas chromatograph I have about two minutes between each sample and I use that time to process some of the data that we have already collected.  There is a lot of data to process!  The processing involves organizing the numbers,  making some calculations, and eventually making graphs so we can see what the data looks like.  What I learned today from processing some of the recent data is that at station E (offshore) the DMSP has remained relatively constant over the last week.  But at Station B, close to the lab, the DMSP has been steadily increasing.  Since DMSP is produced by phytoplankton, this probably indicates a bloom of some phytoplankton going on.  Although DMSP is degraded to DMS (the sulfur gas we are interested in), I was surprised to learn that the DMS is actually decreasing at Station B – even as DMSP is increasing.  This seems like a paradox, but it may be because the microbes are eating the DMS.  We have made measurements for how fast the DMS is being consumed, but we don’t have those data yet (some of this takes time).  I always get excited when we get new and interesting data – that is why I am a scientist.  Discovering things about Nature is totally fascinating!

It rained hard here most of the morning. This was the first time it rained a lot.  The temperature here is close to freezing most of the time.  This is not surprising since we are surrounded by water with floating icebergs in it, and there is a giant glacier right behind the lab.  But this is the Austral summer (seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere) and the temperature can get up to a balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit on some days.  So it rained, instead of snowed.  It did snow the other day, however, but it was a wet snow with big flakes, and it didn’t stick. One thing I have learned in only 10 days of being at Palmer Station is that the weather can change very rapidly!  See my Journal entry for yesterday (January 16) about the sudden change of wind when we were out on the Zodiac.  Did you know that you can check on our weather here by going to the following web site:   http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Palmer+Station.    If you want to learn even more about the conditions here you can go to:  http://4dgeo.whoi.edu/tsg/.  This site has some scientific stuff like measurements of the water properties (temperature, salinity etc) but it also has a web camera that lets you see what it currently looks like here. 

There already is a small private sailboat yacht staying in our harbor.  On that boat is a husband and wife team from Illinois in the USA who are sailing around the world.  What an adventure that must be! They are staying here for a few days, enjoying the calm of our harbor.  Late last night I noticed another sailing vessel coming into our harbor.  This was a bigger sailing ship.  It had three masts.  In the morning, I learned that this was the Canadian ship Sedna IV, and it holds 15 people who are part of a documentary crew.  They are filming a documentary about the Antarctic Environment and the research being done here.  They will stay in our area for over a week filming and interviewing scientists at the Station.  I had no idea that Palmer Station is such a popular place!