there are frustrations in doing this
science and probably the greatest
frustration especially with polar
research is how long it takes well we're
focused on Pine Island glacier the one
place in Antarctica where things are
happening fastest and the changes are
the greatest the satellites have
directed us there but we have to get our
boots on the ground into the snow right
there to be able to make the
measurements of what is going on
underneath the ice to understand the
details of those processes so we can
predict what the future is going to be
we want to go back as soon as we can and
we're being held back by the need to
establish this helicopter support camp
and that's going to take at least
another two seasons to complete we
learned that we can't land with the
small airplanes that we were hoping to
use the surface is too rough and too
hard to safely establish our peel camp
with a fixed-wing aircraft you can only
work in Antarctica about three months
out of the year so already it's four
times slower because three months out of
every 12 you can actually do something
in the field so that's one thing that
slows it down the fact that we are so
far from McMurdo and having to wait two
years just to have the type of camp that
we have to have there so we can get
safely onto the ice shelf the scale of
the journey is is quite massive just
because this is a long way from McMurdo
that the major US base this is 1400
miles away but that final 400 miles
that's going to be this over snow
Traverse that's going to be very slow
and laborious so the scale of this is
like going from from McMurdo to West
Antarctica that's like flying from DC to
Kansas City and then getting on a very
slow lawnmower and driving at lon lower
speed from Kansas City out to Denver so
it does take some time well while the
people who are working on setting up
this camp are doing their thing we're
doing our thing which is science so
although we can't be at the Ice Shelf
itself we're looking at other satellite
data to learn as much as we possibly can
about the ice shelf before we go back
well one of one of the really neat
things about this project is that
because nobody has ever made these
measurements and this is such a
dramatically changing area that we're
going to discover something we just know
we're going to discover something
because nobody has ever looked
underneath this very active ice shelf
and looked at how the ocean is
interacting with the ice and how the ice
sheets responding so discovery is a sure
thing discovery is always the most
exciting thing about doing science I
mean I am just itching to go and is
really frustrating to have to wait but
we learn as much as we can in the
intervening time to be even better
prepared to do the science which once we
actually have the opportunity to be
there it does take time but the reward
is the discoveries that we make and the
the increase in knowledge and ability to
predict what these ice sheets are going
to do in the future and how it will
affect people worldwide that makes it
worth the frustration that makes it
worth the effort
you