May 8, 2017

The sky disappeared

Grant working in the 7m deep inclined trench in the floor of the drill trench.

This afternoon, the cloud cover over camp became so thick that the Sun disappeared and the sky got the same color as the snow surface and the horizon vanished. Everything was just white. This kind of weather is particularly dangerous for people driving vehicles. With no contrast, holes and snowdrift cannot be seen and driving speed has to be reduced to walking speed. As it also was snowing from time to time, visibility was reduced to a few hundred meter. A special safety briefing was given to the crew.
Otherwise work continues in the trenches, on the surface and in the main dome. Our cook is working long days and presents us with two lovely meals a day. Never underestimate the work effort of the cook.
In the drill trench, infrastructure was mounted inside the 7 m deep cut in the drill trench floor (the bottom is 15 m below the snow surface).

What we did today:

1. Mounted snowblower on Pistenbully 2 and removed snowdrifts around mechanics garage.
2. Installing beds and furniture in WP 3 and WP 4.
3. Work in the drilling trench.
4. Work on setting up tables at stations in the science trench.
5. Received instructions to adjust main generator setting to avoid future stop.
6. Work on radar connection and software and camp server and camp LAN.
7. Removed the inner cargoline (pallets on drums) to a new location on the fresh snow surface.
8. Running Danish and German snow sampling.
9. Japanese aerosol sampling and snow experiments in progress.
10. Eddy covariance unit now installed at the water vapour sampling site.

Ad.3: Core logging table aligned and circular saw mounted. Worked on electrical termination at antitorque. Worked on general trench infrastructure.
Ad.5: Together with PM Energy, we have analyzed the problem. There are two modes of adjustment that affect the frequency of electrical power: The RPM can be regulated by the speed controller and by a droop setting. The droop setting regulates how much fuel is injected under load. We feel confident that we can perform adjustment to avoid problems in the future.

Weather today: In the morning thin overcast, in the afternoon full overcast, snow and white out. Moderate wind became strong. Temp. -12°C to -18°C. Wind: 12 kt to 19 kt from SW. Visibility: To horizon in the morning, later down to 500 m.

FL, J.P. Steffensen