The Sounds of Antarctica? Flying in the Cold? Your Questions, Answered

20:04 Hi everyone we have made it to the Thwaites Glacier! 18:50 We’re here to answer some more of your questions. (19:10 Alt – Your questions keep rolling in and we’re here for it.) 18:54 This time we thought it might be fun to show you some of the answers. QUESTION 1: HELICOPTER FLYING 0:17:08:08 – 00:17:37:23 Okay. We are in the helicopter hangar of the Araron. ((To answer a question from Camille.)) Camille asks. I’m curious about the impact of the subzero air temps and their impact on the flying conditions for the helicopters. RAY: Camille, we have someone who could help answer that. This is Dan Adams, one of our helicopter pilots. So, Dan, what’s the impact of the cold? 00:16:01:09 – 00:16:22:18 DAN ADAMS So, believe it or not, the cold air that we get down here actually tends to help the performance of the helicopter. DAN: The low pressure systems we have here, particularly in this, weather we’ve been having, tends to create the opposite effect by decreasing the pressure. Low pressure systems, thinner air. 00:16:22:20 – 00:16:35:12 DAN: And that cooler air makes the pressure higher again. 00:16:35:14 – 00:16:39:18 RAY Yeah. Yeah. How cold has it been in the air so far? 00:16:39:20 – 00:16:58:15 DAN So flying around on a few thousand feet, we tend to find it’s around minus five. 00:16:59:03 – 00:17:03:09 those are degrees Celsius. 00:17:03:10 – 00:17:04:02 Correct. Yeah. 00:17:04:03 – 00:17:06:12 Sorry, Americans. QUESTION 3: ANTARCTIC SOUNDS 00:20:30:19 – 00:21:09:02 So, So many of you have asked about the sounds of Antarctica. 00:21:09:02 – 00:21:42:07 So, for instance, Henry Brandon asks, can you hear the ice breaking against the hull while underway? 00:23:03:15 – 00:23:49:03 RAY When the ship is breaking through sea ice, you can definitely hear it. It’s very loud against the hull here. On the lower decks, it can sound like being inside a washing machine. 23:45 So outside this porthole is a great view, but also a great soundscape. 00:24:55:03 – 00:25:26:21 Penguins do make a sound. They do squawk. Sort of much more loudly than you’d expect. When we’ve been close by with the penguins on the sea ice, they are a startlingly noisy presence. Sound up: Squawk! 22:10 Wendy Gibson asks what is sound like near the glaciers? 00:25:26:23 – 00:26:02:16 When we’ve been lucky enough to be near the glacier in the last few days, it’s been astonishingly calm. It is peaceful beyond imagining. The sea is as flat as class. The ice is drifting, but not chaotically. It is a remarkably calming place. When the weather is right. And it’s silent. 00:24:55:03 – 00:25:26:21 Penguins do make a sound. They do squawk. Sort of much more loudly than you’d expect. When we’ve been close by with the penguins on the sea ice, they are a startlingly noisy presence. Sound up: Squawk! QUESTION 4: SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS 0:07 We’re out on the deck here on the Araon. To answer a question from Gary Auten. 11:09 Gary asks ‘specifically, what will the scientists be measuring? With what devices are they doing the measurements?’ 18:22 Well, we’re out here because At the bottom of this rack here, which the workers are setting up, is sort of the foundational device of a lot of oceanography. 33:14 It’s called a CTD. CTD stands for conductivity, temperature and depth. (alt Frankenbite: At the bottom of this rack here he workers are setting up//aCTD) 46:18 With conductivity, you can figure out the water salinity. The salinity and temperature are sort of what scientists study to understand what’s going on in the water 01:13 Thwaites is melting from below. It’s the water that’s melting plates. So scientists really need to figure out what’s going on with water at a CTD like this one is what they use. 1:52 CTD is still just the beginning. (((There’s a lot more instruments and a lot more different kinds of measurements happening on this expedition.)) 2:20 we’ll be covering much more of the science as the expedition continues. END