Polar Nacreous Clouds & Ozone

Current Conditions
Temperature: -40F
Wind Chill: -48F

It has only been a week since the sun made its first appearance, and already it is staying up for 5 hours a day. It will be some time before we can see it from town because it is still very low on the horizon to the north, where the view is blocked by Erebus and the rest of Ross Island. I have the pleasant luck to go up the hill every day and so I have seen it several times so far. It's a big deal. People are ecstatic to go up with me for a glimpse.

Unfortunately, the return of light doesn't make us any less crazy. In fact, it may make it worse initially; some folks are having trouble sleeping again now that the light is back to influence their circadian rhythm. I've had a bit of insomnia myself. It is exciting to see the light again, though, because it means the end is near, and that lifts spirits. If only it could lift the constant fatigue.

The temperature took another drop and we've been steady at -40°F this past week. I suppose that's nothing compared to -90°F at the pole, but damn, it's still cold. The nacreous clouds have ceased for the time being, though I'm not sure why, the cold should help.

Nacreous clouds (otherwise known as Polar Stratospheric Clouds, PSCs, or Polar Nacreous Clouds, PNCs) form in the lower stratosphere, from about 8 to 15 miles up. They require the frigid temperatures that occur at this point in the atmosphere. As you travel up through the stratosphere, the temperature increases. It decreases again in the mesosphere and then increases dramatically in the thermosphere and on into space. "What?!?" you say, "space is hot?" Well, not really. Space itself is cold; it's a void. However, the particles up that high are not protected from solar radiation, which can heat them up to 4500°F. It's really more accurate to say that the particles in space are hot, unless they're in the shade, that is.

So, particles in the the lower stratosphere are generally about -70°F, but PSCs only form below -80°F, and the spectacular Type II PSCs that we see here form at the lowest temperatures, below about -110°F. Temps that low occur in the stratosphere only near the poles, and are rarer in the Arctic. In the Arctic, landmasses contribute to atmospheric weather flow by mixing in warmer air from lower latitudes. In the southern hemisphere, there is comparatively little landmass, so the air over Antarctica becomes much more isolated from the air swirling around the rest of the Earth. This is called the polar vortex. In the austral winter, this separation allows the Antarctic air to cool much more than Arctic air.

So, in that frigid air, PSCs form. Type I PSCs consist of ice as well as nitric acid and sometimes sulfuric acid. Type II PSCs are made of pure ice, so their nacreous, or mother of pearl, color is a result of diffraction of sunlight through ice crystals in the clouds. Because PSCs occur at high altitude, they are able to reflect direct sunlight to areas where the sun is still well below the horizon, making them appear extremely bright. So the up side is: they're amazingly beautiful.

I've done some more timelapse photography, primarily of nacreous clouds. I've put them all on surlyjam in high resolution, and I recommend downloading them from there (note: you'll need to have the XviD codec installed to play them). Here are a couple low-res teasers, though:

August 12

August 14

By far my favorite is the one from August 15th. The wind at Arrival Heights was blowing steadily over 50 knots, whipping up huge plumes of blowing snow that you can see flowing across the ice.

So that's the up side. The down side is that PSCs play a large role in ozone depletion, especially in the dreaded ozone hole. But before I go into detail, let me add in the disclaimer that it's not the clouds' fault, it's ours. PSCs are recorded in the diaries of early Antarctic winter-over groups over 100 years ago, long before the onset of severe ozone depletion.

First of all, what is ozone? Ozone is just oxygen, in a less common (and less stable) form, O₃ instead of O₂. It resides primarily in the stratosphere, and does a fantastic job of absorbing ultraviolet radiation from the sun, preventing us (and all the other plants & critters) from adverse effects like skin cancer and death. For example, reduced plankton populations in certain areas are suspected to be a result of increased UV levels.

What is happening to ozone? Most of it boils down to the chlorine (Cl) in chlorofluorocarbons, though other airborne emmisions like hydroxyl (OH), nitric oxide (NO), and atomic bromine (Br) perform the same role. These chemicals act as ozone depletion catalysts, which means they are able to break down ozone without being altered themselves. "One CFC molecule typically degrades around 10,000 ozone molecules before its removal, but this number can sometimes be in the millions."

How do PSCs fit in? Well, the chlorofluorocarbons have to be broken down into atomic chlorine in order to react with ozone. On the surface of the frozen cloud particles, chlorine gases are able to break down in a much greater way than they are normally capable. So the clouds aren't actually depleting ozone, they're speeding up the breakdown of more complex chlorine gasses. One of the more simple resultant gasses is chlorine monoxide (ClO). When the sun returns to the Antarctic, the light breaks ClO apart. Then this happens:

Cl + O₃ → ClO + O₂

Ozone gets turned into oxygen and ClO. The sunlight breaks apart the ClO, and the process repeats, and repeats, and repeats, and repeats. The single oxygen molecules left floating around are much more likely to become oxygen than ozone. Because the cold Antarctic air is isolated during the austral winter, the ozone hole forms. This is what the hole looked like one week ago, according to NASA sattelite data:

This picture is from a NASA website that has really good ozone hole information, including pictures and movies. Follow this link to see the formation and dissapation of the ozone hole in 2007. It is a great way to see how the hole forms over the winter every year and then blends in with the rest of the atmosphere when the sun returns to warm it up.

Answers for Lyn

Recently, a dear friend asked me several good questions (as well as a few sarcastic ones) that I felt were appropriately answered here. With any luck, she won't be too pissed off.

• Are you sick of telling people how you are/what you are up to because of all your blogging/emailing?

Not really. Don't do too much personal emailing these days, actually. The blog does cover most of it anyway. It's like a bulk email without the insensitivity. And people seem to love it. Some people, that is.

• Is it torture to hear about what we're up to here in Hood River over the summer?

Mmmm, yes, and no. I'm very jealous because I miss it so much, but it's good to have some measure of reality in my daydreams.

• ...or you don't mind hearing about all the fun we're having because you're also having a great time?

At this point "great" is waning to "good", which is degrading to "get me the $*@# out of here!"

• Would you rather hear about the goings on of the outside world?

High oil prices, Georgian invasion, global warming, republicans. No thanks.

• Do you get upset with people for not reading all your blogs which means they may not be the most informed people on everything you've been up to in the last 10 or so months of your life?

Well, it would have been easier to read them once a week as they came out, but now you'll just have to read them all in one fell swoop. Let me know if they're publishable as a book. Oh, and nice try, deftly squeezing this question into the middle so I might not notice.

• What's your most passionate topic of conversation these days?

Staring at the wall. Or travel. Yes, definitely travel. Travel, followed closely by staring at the wall.

• Are you still playing guitar like there's no tomorrow?

Haven't been playing much lately. I'm in a band that was a lot of fun for a while, but I'm a bit tired of it. We do overplayed classic rock covers. But I am excited to go back to acoustic format for a wine tasting this weekend.

• But if there IS a tomorrow, would you spend it naked? in bed? playing a guitar? eating avocado?

Yes, yes, yes, and YES! I would kill for an avocado right now. Kill. KILL!

• How do you feel about the situation in Kyrgyzstan?

Wow, at first I thought you just put a bunch of consonants together with "stan" at the end, but then I looked it up and that's actually a real country. Do you think when they named it they just put a bunch of consonants together with "stan" at the end? You may have a very lucrative future in toponymy.

Sun Up!!

It's back!!
Half of it, anyway. Maybe tomorrow it will come up full.

Sun Up?

Yesterday, Katie got a good laugh and applause for spontaneously singing "The Sun will come out Tomorrow" to everyone in the galley during lunch. I suspect she had been planning it for months.

Of course, Murphy hung clouds on the horizon to hide the sun from us on the day of its glorious return. Jerk.

One Watt !

Current Conditions
Temperature: -28F
Wind Chill: -39F

With only three days until sunrise, the mid-day light is becoming more and more like daylight. Today the photovoltaics (solar cells) out at Windless Bight measured one watt per square meter of solar radiation. Still a big zero for actual energy production, but one watt of radiation is a start!

What's even more exciting is the intense displays of polar nacreous clouds over the past week. Never have I seen anything more amazing. Thursday I stood on the roof of the Arrival Heights building and nearly came to awe-struck tears. Ok, ok, it was 30 below, blowing 35 mph and I could barely feel my face, so maybe the scenery wasn't the only factor, but I'm telling you, tears. Anyway, you get the idea, I'm not going to even try to put it into words, you're just going to have to imagine it from these pictures.

I took this shot from town on Tuesday at about 2pm:

This shot was taken by Dave Barud, 20 minutes later:

Town under a pink marshmallow sky, on Thursday from Ob Hill:

The chewy orange center of that pink marshmallow:

The real display requires a view of the northern horizon, which means leaving town, either to Hut Point by foot, or even better, from the window at Arrival Heights:

Needless to say, I've been spending as much time as possible up there. And just when I think I've seen the most beautiful sky in my life, the next day is even better. Friday:

And to the west, a backdrop for Salvador Dali:

It's unfortunate that cameras can't see things as the human eye does. They can't handle contrast, so the bright areas of a photo wash out. Here's a close up of one such area at a lower exposure:

So what you see in these photos as solid bright clouds, actually have a character all of their own, which is what really makes these clouds phenomenal.

This last shot is my favorite. I blended three exposures to get a more realistic representation of such an incredibly contrasted scene:

The wind was howling steadily at 60 mph yesterday at Arrival Heights. At times, blowing snow obscured the whole horizon. On the sea ice, I could see snow being whipped up into a frenzy as it was hurled westward across the sheet. It's probably hard to get perspective here, but those little islands in the lower right rise about 400 feet above the ice, so that wall of blowing snow on the left might be enough to hide, say, half of the Empire State Building.

Postscript: Brody just called and told me to step outside. Even as I write this, intensely bright nacreous clouds are filling the northwest sky. It must be time to check the equipment up the hill!

Return to Castle Rock

Current Conditions
Temperature: -33F
Wind Chill: -56F

The light has really started to make a return in the past week. At lunchtime it seems like regular daylight out there. I'm certain this is an illusion to eyes that have grown so accustomed to the dark, though, and true daylight will be a blinding curse when it comes. And come it will. Every day brings a noticeable increase in lumens and an extension of their time spent here. It is fortunate that I finally hiked up to Castle Rock two weeks ago, before the sudden onset of dawn. I wanted to climb it in the winter, in the dark. I guess that may not make sense to many of you, but then again, most of what I like to do seems to fall into that category.

Brody and I set out on a beautiful, calm, clear day. Clear from town, anyway; the northern horizon was a bit cloudy, and Erebus was obscured. But that's OK, because clouds make for a much more interesting horizon:

The hike out was the standard 3.5 mile uphill trek on styrofoam snow. Castle Rock itself was a little different this time, though. Having been without radiant heat from the sun, the exposed rock was covered in frost of varying thickness.

We took the standard route, the only route really, around to the back side, picking our way along increasingly precarious ledges trying to find the elusive rope. I began to wonder if they had taken it down, since we're not supposed to climb the rock in the winter. I have to admit that I was a little bit nervous at one point. Wearing nearly 15 pounds of clothing with 10 more on my back, mobility was considerably less than ideal, and I just didn't trust the purchase of my "trusty Vibram soles" at -20F. At least the wind was light.

Not to be deterred, we eventually found the bottom of a snow chute that we knew the rope crossed above, so after some backtracking and routefinding, we were safely along the ropeline. From this point the climb was much as before, except that we were climbing toward a field of twinkling stars instead of a blanket of fluffy clouds. We lingered at the top long enough to capture the pink light of pre-dawn illuminating our secluded ice world:

Soon our fingers and toes were numbing, so we had to get moving again. We scrambled back down the ropeline and realized our initial mistake in route; we should have started climbing immediately to find the rope, instead of traversing around so far. From here the trek home was eventless, and Brody snapped this one of my crusted face at the finish:

The following Sunday we hiked up Hut Ridge with RaJa. This time the weather was not so cooperative; the temperature was -30F and the windchill below -50F. We enjoyed nice views of the horizon, but only lingered shortly on this wind-sheltered hillside:

You can see the increase in light over just a week. Only 7 more days until sunrise!

The Way Things Work, Part III: Losing Sanity

Current Conditions
Temperature: -11F
Wind Chill: -37F

I noticed very early in the winter that most folks were markedly more tired and lethargic than normal, myself included. Shortly after the onset of fatigue came a strange mind-numbing quality to life in the cold dark. It's difficult to describe, but it's kind of like having a constant case of the "dumbs": words are fleeting, memory short, train of thought easily derailed - often catastrophically and for no reason. These have become the norm, so when you're having a bad day, you're really bad. Completely useless, in fact. I've had a couple during which it was an effort just to focus on simple tasks, or hold a cohesive conversation. It happens to everyone here, and the longer we stay, the more we're affected.

We're not actually dumber, though, just slower, really. I can still do things just as well (I think), but I get caught up in the (normally) mindless stuff. For instance, in researching this blog post, I caught myself repeatedly clicking my "McMurdo Station Intranet" bookmark and wondering why it was taking so long for "Wikipedia" to load. Or, I'd copy a term that I wanted to google and find myself many seconds later staring vacantly at a list of bookmarks and wondering what the hell I was just doing. I had a couple more examples, but I've forgotten them.

Mealtime conversations can be very entertaining. Our common lack of focus leads to endless topic shifting, sometimes mid-sentence. Stories are left hanging without conclusions due to the insertion of simple comments that spark new lines of thought or completely sidetrack the tale-teller. Sometimes, fifteen minutes and fifty topics will pass and someone may have the presence of mind to ask, "We're you telling a story earlier?" At the mercy of our own psychoses, we often just zone out and stare vacantly across the room, right through anyone or anything in the way. At a typical table of six, you can only reasonably expect four or five to be fully aware at any given moment. The others will come around shortly, but you may not notice because it's your turn in La La Land.

So what's the deal? There are many things at work here: darkness, cold, long work hours, monotony, isolation. Brody just beat me to the punch on this topic and wrote a great post that touches on all these reasons and more at Not All Who Wander Are Lost. I'm going to stick to the physiological, though, and leave the mental alone; after all, I'm an engineer, not a psychologist.

Darkness. The reasons are not fully understood, but it is well-documented that lack of sunlight causes mood variations, more specifically, it is closely correlated to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and clinical depression. The predominant theory involves serotonin and melatonin production.

Melatonin is a hormone that plays a large role in regulating the circadian rhythm, or biological clock. It is produced in the pineal gland under the influence of the hypothalamus, which gathers light information from the eye. Melatonin levels are high at night and the introduction of sunlight in the morning prompts the body to slow production. Essentially, sunlight "sets" your biological clock. The biological clock will run on its own without light input, though, so light acts as a calibrator, resetting the clock every day. Without sunlight, melatonin levels stay up and the clock runs a little haywire, causing fatigue as well as insomnia.

Serotonin, another hormone produced in the pineal gland, performs many activities in the brain, including an important role in modulating mood. Serotonin is often thought of as "the happy molecule" because low levels of it are believed to be a cause of depression, and drugs that prevent its breakdown (like MAOIs) tend to increase mood. Guess what we have... low levels.

Cold. When we're having a "winter moment", we tend to blame it on "T3". This is the nickname for Triiodothyronine, a hormone created in the Thyroid gland, which produces hormones that "control how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones." More importantly, thyroid hormones "increase the basal metabolic rate (the minimal caloric requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual) and thus increase the body's oxygen and energy consumption."

Part of the body's way of adapting to extreme cold is to increase its metabolism to stay warm. A 42-week study determined that metabolic rates are significantly increased in Antarctic residents who spend extended time here; "Energy intake increased approximately 40% throughout the study without a change in body weight."

In order to make this leap in metabolism, the body uses more T3. After running in this state of high T3 consumption for some time, the body begins to change. "Humans who live in Antarctica for greater than five continuous months demonstrate alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid [HPT] axis." The HPT axis is the biological system that controls the normal balance of thyroid hormones in the body. When the hypothalamus senses low levels of thyroid hormones, it produces TSH, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, which invokes production of T3 in the Thyroid gland. Another study done on Antarctic residents showed that T3 levels are low, while TSH levels are high. Basically, the Thyroid can't keep up. This is called hypothyroidism.

OK, so we have a mucked-up biological clock, a high metabolism and a thyroid hormone imbalance, but why do we feel so retarded?

In addition to controlling metabolism, T3 is "a neurotransmitter that regulates the action of serotonin, norepinephrine, and gamma aminobutyric acid [an important regulatory neurotransmitter]. If you don’t have enough T3, or if its action is blocked, an entire cascade of neurotransmitter abnormalities may ensue and can lead to mood and energy changes.”

Neurotransmitter abnormalities? That doesn't sound good.

"In extreme cold, T3 gets used so much to keep the body warm that the brain is left with a less than adequate supply of the hormone. This can cause the "Antarctic stare," common particularly among winter residents, forgetfulness and lack of focus, as well as increased anger, irritation and depression."

One of the T3 studies done here showed that Antarctic residents suffer a 13% decline in memory due to low levels of T3. A thyroid hormone supplement brought memory nearly back to normal.

Here are a few excerpts from an article I found on hypothyroidism:

Some of the most profound effects of TH imbalance are in the mental arena. Hypothyroid people sleep uneasily and do not get full refreshment from their sleep. During waking hours, they experience fatigue, apathy, and "brain fog" (short-term memory problems and attention deficits). These problems may affect their daily functioning and cause increased stress and depression.

Paradoxically, some substances labeled depressants such as alcohol or opiates can increase T3 levels by impairing the breakdown of T3 in the brain, thus lifting mood. This may be one reason why these substances are so addictive.

No...

Hypothyroidism also weakens muscles, including the diaphragm. As a result, breathing can become less efficient. Snoring may start or become worse. Fatigue sets in easily; in fact it never quite leaves a person with symptomatic hypothyroidism. Muscles and joints often ache. With respiration impaired and oxygen in short supply, exercise takes a heavy toll on the body, and muscles do not strengthen in response to exercise; nor does stamina improve.

I've started snoring. I know because it wakes me up, which is great for my already fitful rest.

The short of it is, adaptation to the extreme cold involves a severe increase in metabolism, causing the body's need for thyroid hormones to exceed its production capability, which in turn compromises the thyroid hormones' secondary purpose as a neurotransmitter. I found these listed as typical symptoms of hypothyroidism:

• depression

• bipolar spectrum syndrome, including bipolar I or bipolar II disorder, cyclothymia, or premenstrual syndrome

• inattentive ADHD or sluggish cognitive tempo

That's right, I live on an island full of depressed bipolar psychos with constant ADD and PMS. In short, we're fargin' looney-tunes down here.

In four weeks, normal people will return to the station and refer to winter-overs as "toasty". We'll be considered strange and misunderstood, but we'll have fun exaggerating our affliction in order to be avoided by those who have invaded our peacefully bipolar world.