Science Centres: Coasts, Oceans

IceCUBE

IceCUBE: Coastal Underwater Benthic Ecosystems - next field season October 2008.

2002–2003 field season

The 2002–03 field component of this year's research saw teams working at the USAP base at Lake Hoare in the Taylor Valley, at our established sites at Bratina Island and Cape Evans, and at the Italian base at Terra Nova Bay. At Lake Hoare we joined the large US team investigating the Taylor Valley Ecosystem. As part of the project we carried out work to describe the activity of benthic microbial communities in this permanently ice-covered lake. At Bratina Island we continued work on heat budgets of frozen ponds, while at Cape Evans and Terra Nova Bay we continued our studies of the biodiversity of the coastal marine ecosystem.

First data from weather logging station at Cape Hallett

As part of the preparation for Antarctica New Zealand's Latitudinal Gradient Programme (LGP) we have deployed a data-logging station at Cape Hallet, towards the northern end of the Ross Sea. This year we obtained the first data from the station; though a technical hitch meant that data retrieval was not complete. A team from NIWA will visit the site next season to attempt to finish the task. Preliminary data show that, as we would expect, conditions at the northern end of the Ross Sea are different to those at the southern end.

Compared to Scott Base, Hallett was on average a bit warmer, though extreme temperatures were just about as low. The big difference was in the wind data – Cape Hallett is slightly windier than Scott Base, and the prevailing wind is from the South. These winds seem to occur as 3-4-day storms, and were seen in both summer and winter. These data allow scientists to understand the likely conditions at Cape Hallett when they are planning their fleld programmes for the coming years.