A couple weeks ago Dr. McWaine and I participated in one of my favorite annual events, the opening of the new Antarctic season. As usual, I spoke at the evening reception hosted by Antarctica NZ, sat with the Mayor and Mayoress at a diplomatic corps luncheon hosted by the Christchurch City Council, attended a wreath-laying at Scott’s statue, and read a passage from scripture at the traditional “South to Antarctica” church service.

I enjoyed catching up with my Antarctica NZ friends Lou Sanson, Ed Butler,and Rob Fenwick. I learned quite a lot talking with the departing scientists as well as the American air crews that ferry U.S. and N.Z. personnel, equipment, and supplies southward. I had fun with the verbal jousting with Mayor Bob Parker that defines our relationship (and sometimes startles innocent bystanders). And of course I was delighted to catch up again at the opening reception with Lady June Hillary, one of my favorite folks.

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Today is Earth Day. While researching a couple of ideas for a suitable blog post, I came across an interesting article by Lily Whiteman on the National Science Foundation website about how everyday folks can function as citizen scientists in ways that significantly advance the cause of environmental protection.

Lily provides a smart, creative, and eminently practical answer to the sometimes frustration-inducing question, “What can I do to help?” Although largely drawn from from her experiences in the United States, the efforts that Lily describes can be mounted anywhere. Rather than paraphrase, I’ll reprint Lily’s article below.

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Novel Answer to That Perennial “Earth Day” Question: “What Can I Do to Help?”

Groups of “citizen scientists” are making pivotal contributions to research on the Earth, its place in the universe, and other natural phenomena

April 19, 2010

Earth Day invariably triggers discussions about the enormously complex state of the planet and begs the equally daunting question, “How can one person make a difference?”

But just one person can indeed chip in as a “citizen scientist,” who helps the scientific community unravel the mysteries of where Mother Nature is today and where she is headed.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds groups of these concerned volunteers who collect data and share their observations and insights on a scale that full-time scientists simply cannot accomplish.

“Volunteer citizen scientists are helping to generate new knowledge about biodiversity, the weather, stars and galaxies, and even the molecules in cells,” says David Hanych, an NSF program manager. “The significance of their contributions is supported by various lines of evidence.”

As citizen scientists contribute to science, they also learn about the natural and human-made worlds, as well as the nature and methods of science, adds Hanych. NSF supports citizen science projects because they advance discovery and promote learning.

Groups of citizen scientists provide boots on the ground in all 50 states and internationally. Joining citizen scientist groups usually doesn’t require any previous scientific training or background — just curiosity and a willingness to carry out relatively simple tasks, such as monitoring backyard rain gauges, observing the brightness of stars, or taking pictures of local lady bugs, to name just a few examples.

Although citizen science projects have existed since the 1800s, the number of projects has increased dramatically during the past decade. The increase is partly due to the availability of Internet resources that are making it easier to form and to manage citizen groups and transmit data from citizen scientists to the scientific community.

The ranks of citizen scientists include families, retirees, entire school classes — and even prison inmates who want to do their part to make Earth Day more than a holiday. And regardless of the backgrounds of citizen scientists, studies show that the data collected by them has been reliable and valid, Hanych notes.

The contributions of citizen scientists have also been valuable in terms of the volume of data they provide and the originality of their insights.

For one thing, citizen scientists provide strength in sheer numbers. For example, the USA National Phenology Network, which monitors the timing of seasonal events such as spring blooms, currently engages more than 4,000 volunteers across the United States. Since 2008, these volunteers have contributed one million records to the NPN database — far more data than researchers could collect themselves.

In some cases, citizen scientists are the sole sources of important types of data. Henry Reges, the national coordinator of the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network, which feeds information about precipitation to the National Weather Service and others, says even a single real-time report of major precipitation from a volunteer in an area that is otherwise not monitored can speed the issuance of potentially life-saving flash flood warnings.

Sometimes too, citizen scientists offer new perspectives that can catalyze major breakthroughs. Last year, for example, scientists who were having difficulty piecing together the structure of an important enzyme from an AIDS-like virus consulted a group of online gamers who were aficionados of the computer game known as Foldit.

Foldit allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. The result: the gamers generated models that helped the researchers refine and determine the enzyme’s structure within just a few days; these models helped the researchers advance their work designing anti-AIDS drugs. (This article describes this Foldit success.)

Here is a sample of citizen science groups that have received NSF support; they illustrate the wide range of interesting and important activities taking place across the United States — not only on Earth Day, but every day.

• The USA National Phenology Network brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit groups, educators and students to monitor the impacts of climate change on plants and animals in the U.S. Many scientific papers on changes in the timing of seasonal events have been based on this group’s data.

• Project Budburst engages the public in collecting data on the timing of the leafing, flowering and fruiting of plants in the United States. Data generated by Project BudBurst was recently used to help validate models of the timing of cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. and the mid-Atlantic states in the presence of climate change.

• Projects sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology help researchers better understand birds and their habits via varied programs involving inventories of the abundance and distribution of birds over large distances; analyses of how birds are affected by climate change, urbanization and land use; the development of new methods for identifying birds; and advice for individuals for converting their backyards into bird-friendly habitats.
  • Much of the data included in the Department of Interior’s annual State of the Birds report for 2011 originated from Cornell’s citizen science programs. The report helps public agencies identify significant conservation opportunities in various habitats.

• Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team collects data on beached birds found on more than 300 beaches from the north coast of California to Alaska in order to help monitor ecosystem health.

• The Lost Lady Bug Project recruits residents of geographical areas throughout the United States to submit photographs of lady bugs from their local areas in order to help scientists determine how and why the ranges of various economically and ecologically important species of lady bugs are currently rapidly changing.

• The Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network measures and maps rain, hail and snow levels throughout the United States. Users of this organization’s data include the National Weather Service, meteorologists, hydrologists, emergency managers, city utilities (water supply, water conservation and storm water), insurance adjusters, the USDA, engineers, mosquito control, ranchers and farmers, outdoor enthusiasts, teachers, students and local residents. Learn more about this group from its animated introductory video.

• Citizen Sky Program solves mysteries involving the cyclic dimming of a particularly bright star known as Epsilon Aurigae, based, in part, on nightly observations of the star’s brightness that are recorded by citizen scientists using everything from the naked eye to high-tech equipment.
  • The editor of Sky & Telescope discussed the importance of contributions made by citizen scientists to the development of recent new insights about Epison Aurigae in two video interviews, as well as the particular importance of recruiting citizen scientists into astronomical research during periods of shrinking research budgets. In addition, the March 2012 issue of Sky & Telescope features an article covering this topic.

• Einstein@Home (Web site) uses donated time from the home and office computers of 250,000 volunteers from 192 countries to help process the enormous amounts of data that are generated in the search for various astronomical phenomena. The program has helped scientists discover about one new pulsar per week throughout 2012. (This press release, which includes a video, describes the discovery of a pulsar by citizen scientists.)

• Quake Catcher Network links the computers of volunteers into a network that sifts through seismic signals and helps determine whether detected motions represent earthquakes or cultural noises, such as slamming doors and the motions of large trucks. Recently, the Quake-Catcher Network detected a tremor 10 seconds before the shaking reached Stanford University’s campus. Read about it here.

• Sustainable Prisons Project: Forges collaborations between scientists, inmates, prison staff and others to enable inmates to conduct ecological research and conserve biodiversity. An NSF press release features the Moss-in-Prisons project at Cedar Creek Corrections Center, a medium security prison in Littlerock, Washington and an NSF video entitled Science Behind Bars is posted here.

“New projects exploring many fields of science are currently on the drawing board,” says Hanych. “NSF plans to continue supporting those that actively engage members of the public in timely scientific research and measure the impact of the projects on participants and their contributions to science.”

– Lily Whiteman

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If you are interested in the concepts that Lily describes, please check your local library or bookstore for Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research, a new book by Richard Louv, Janis L. Dickinson, Richard Bonney, and John W. Fitzpatrick. Also, the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment will publish a special edition in August devoted to the topic of citizen science.

Online, you can find more information about existing citizen science projects and ideas for starting new citizen science organizations at Citizen Science Central, www.Citizen-Science.org, and www.CitizensForScience.org.

Take ownership of Earth Day. We can all do far more than we imagine, if we actively imagine. And then act.

Today is my last day in Antarctica, and I am not at all happy about leaving. It has been an exhilarating week of exploration and adventure, and I really don’t want it to end. Not that the stacks of paper and the scrums of insistent people awaiting my return aren’t eerily analogous to towering walls of glacial ice and prowling pods of killer whales. But I’ve fallen in love for the second time with the unforgiving majesty of a place where man hangs by his fingertips rather than rules with an iron fist.

Unlike my last trip, we don’t have to scramble to the airfield to outrun an approaching blizzard. It’s a glorious day, crystal clear and blindingly bright. So Mike and I packed in a leisurely fashion, filmed a few final interviews with scientists (which we’ll edit into a video blog post next month), and then climbed into a pickup truck to make our way back to Pegasus along the ice highway across the Ross Ice Shelf.

As we passed White Island (below), the fata morgana was particularly pronounced. Commonly seen in polar regions, the phenomenon is a mirage caused by thermal inversions that distort distant images.

Here, the fata morgana makes White Island appear as though it has been lifted up from the ice. The step that you see between the ice and the island’s slope is actually a mirage. It doesn’t exist.  The same effect made the airplanes at Pegasus appear to be sitting upside-down from a distance.

And of course, Mt Erebus dominated the landscape. The photo below was taken several miles out onto the ice shelf, looking back at Ross Island. The small dark peak at the lower left is Observation Hill, with McMurdo Station and Scott Base nestled to either side.

As we approached the runway, I smiled at the smaller planes in the Air McMurdo fleet. The craft at left is one of my favorites. Unfortunately, the opportunity never arose to hitch a ride.

Our timing was perfect. The C-17 and our pickup truck arrived at Pegasus simultaneously. The pallets that you see lined up in the photo below are cargo that the C-17 will carry back to Christchurch along with approximately 80 passengers 

While the ground crew prepared to unload and then load the plane, I chatted with my friend Gary, who runs the airfield. He has spent more than a decade on the Ice and is an extraordinary source of practical information and humorous anecdotes.

The incoming flight was carrying about a dozen Kiwis en route to Scott Base. You can see the orange and black Antarctica NZ parkas at the head of the line below as the C-17′s passengers deplaned.

Among the flock of Kiwis was my friend Lou Sanson, CEO of Antarctica NZ (below, at left). We wished each other a Happy New Year and chatted about our trips, recent events on the Ice, and news from Wellington and Washington.

Once all the cargo was loaded, I reluctantly said goodbye, thanked my NSF hosts, and turned to board the C-17 for the flight back to Christchurch.

Because the season is rapidly drawing to a close, outgoing flights are now carrying large numbers of departing scientists and staff as well as cargo. That’s Mike in the white baseball cap, at the lower right corner of the photo.

And that’s me in the cockpit, all kitted up in case called on to assist. I’m looking a bit intense because I’m listening to the pilot explain the gauges. We were blessed with an especially gregarious and engaging US Air Force crew, and I knew immediately that it was going to be a great flight.

After the necessary safety checks, we taxied to the runway, roared down the ice, and soared into the crystal blue sky. We banked north and headed toward Mt Erebus, which was emitting more smoke and steam than I had seen all week.

Our flight path took us directly over Erebus’ crater, low. The captain dipped the left wing so that we could see straight down into the crater. I was thrilled at the orange glow through the steam, my first live glimpse of magna inside a volcano. So thrilled in fact that I was slow with the camera. The shot of the rim below is the clearest shot that I got.

Beyond Erebus we passed over a sea of many thousands of ice blocks and bergs, often arrayed in swirling patterns or eccentric geometric shapes.

As on my prior flights, one iceberg stood out as my favorite (see below). It almost appeared to be breaking apart as I watched.

We continued to ascend to about 30,000 feet. After flying for a half hour across the Ross Sea we approached the ice sheets and glacier tongues projecting from the coast of Antarctica’s Victoria Land.

In several places there were vast expanses of gleaming flat whiteness, with fractures in the ice zigzagging to the horizon.

I was again mesmerized by the beauty of the mountains, glaciers, and bays that passed beneath us. Below are just a few of my favorite scenes, captured with my pocket camera as we flew north.

As we left Antarctica behind and soared over the Southern Ocean, I paused to count my blessings and give thanks. I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to experience Antarctica in such an immediate and intense manner.

I am also deeply grateful to the National Science Foundation for its smart, effective stewardship of American activities in Antarctica, and for the collaborative way in which it engages other nations’ programs. It is no easy task to run such extensive operations at the ends of the Earth, or to preserve a sincere focus on scientific advancement and environmental protection in the face of economic challenges and pressures.

And of course I am grateful to the US Air Force and the New York Air National Guard for the professional, efficient, and engaging support they provide to the US Antarctic Program and to Antarctica New Zealand. Current operations on the Ice simply would not be possible without the service those intrepid airmen and airwomen provide.

I’m dead tired, windburned, and sorely in need of a long hot shower. But I’m nonetheless grinning from ear to ear. It couldn’t be otherwise. I’ve again had the adventure of a lifetime. And that adventure has put the hustle and bustle of daily life back into perspective and renewed the spring in my step.

I’ll sign off with three of my favorite quotes, which nicely capture my thoughts after a week on the Ice.

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” 
- John Muir (Scottish-American naturalist, founder of the Sierra Club, and pioneer of the American system of national parks).

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.“ 
- Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe of Native Americans.

“Treat the earth well:  it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
- Native American proverb.

My Embassy colleague Mike accompanied me to Antarctica this time. Mike is an economics officer, and he also handles the Embassy’s science, technology, and environment portfolios. US interests in Antarctica are based on promoting three core objectives: scientific advancement, environmental protection, and peace and stability, and our permanent stations are research facilities. Thus, what occurs on the Ice falls directly within Mike’s work.

Because Mike had not been to the continent before, I thought it might be interesting to hear (and share) his thoughts and impressions. So, I asked him to do a guest post for me, and he readily agreed. He came up with the topic and selected the photos. And, as you’ll see below, he had help from a few collaborators. Mike, take it away.

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ML: Thanks, Ambassador.

I never in my life imagined I would have the opportunity to visit Antarctica.  As I looked out the window of the C-17 winging my way to the world’s driest, coldest, windiest, and fifth-largest continent, I strained to see in the distance a mountain — or I should say volcano — that first piqued my curiosity about this remote land.

Growing up, I had a love of all things volcano and spent endless Saturdays in the back yard molding clay volcanoes and concocting mixtures of baking soda, vinegar, and red food dye to create the eruption. (My mom always wondered what happened to all her baking supplies when it came time to bake goodies.)

I also voraciously devoured all the books about volcanoes that I could get my hands on at the small public library in Bozeman, Montana.  I recall coming across a book that described Mount Erebus, a volcano in Antarctica named after the primordial Greek god of darkness.  How could a volcano exist in such a cold place on the bottom of the world?

My reading encounter with Mount Erebus only sparked my appetite to learn more about Antarctica. Ross, Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton, and other Antarctic explorers soon became part of my boyhood imagination.  I could scarcely conceive that I would one day see the same stunning vistas that greeted these intrepid adventurers as they explored and traversed the southernmost continent.  To me that is really the essence of science…satisfying that insatiable, exciting, childlike curiosity about what makes the world tick.

Motivated by my own childhood learning experience about Antarctica, I decided before leaving home on this trip that I was going help “facilitate” a similar epiphany for my own four kids, who range in age from six to fourteen.  When I corralled them to quiz them about what they knew of Antarctica, they reacted as they normally do to “another one of dad’s hair-brained schemes.”

In the end, I was able to extract a question from each about Antarctica. I promised to talk to the experts down here and answer the questions by doing a guest post on the Ambassador’s blog.  I figure maybe someone else just might be interested as well.

My straight shooting six-year old, threw out the first question:  “Dad, how big is Antarctica?” That’s an easy one, but the tricky part is figuring out how to put the answer in terms she can relate to.

The short answer is 13,829,430 square kilometers (5,339,573 square miles).  That’s 51 times bigger than New Zealand and 1.4 times bigger than the United States.  Of course about 98 percent of that area is covered by ice that averages about 1.6 kilometers in thickness.  To boot, the Ross Ice Shelf is about the size of France.

My eight-year-old deep thinker came out with the next question:  “How do people survive the winter in Antarctica?” I asked for help on this one from my new friends at the National Science Foundation who have worked at McMurdo throughout the Austral winter.

According to most estimates there are only about a thousand hardy souls who hunker down in various facilities throughout Antarctica in winter.  At McMurdo, the peak population in the austral summer can swell to as many as 1,500 people, which includes scientists, technicians, and support.  That number dwindles significantly to about 200 in the austral winter. At the South Pole Station, about 50 winter over, plus another 40 at Palmer Station.

They get through by planning ahead, storing enough food, being careful about about safety and clothing, and making sure that they have the right kinds of emergency equipment and personnel, including doctors and repairmen. And, although it is dark and cold, they keep busy conducting research and making sure the facilities run.

My eleven-year-old technophile son, as I predicted, tossed me a question completely out of my league:  “How does McMurdo Station get its power?”

McMurdo is primarily powered by diesel-driven generators, but the United States has been steadily moving to more environmentally friendly energy sources.  In January 2010, the US and New Zealand inaugurated the operation of a shared wind-turbine farm that now provides electricity to both McMurdo and Ross Stations – just another example of our extensive, continuing cooperation on Ice. The turbines now provide 100% of Scott Base’s electricity and about 20% of McMurdo’s.

After threatening my cantankerous teen-aged daughter with being grounded for week, she also coughed up a question:  “Okay, so like what country does Antarctica belong to?” Finally, a question a policy wonk like myself can sink his teeth into.

Actually, a number of countries, including New Zealand, have made sovereignty claims over certain regions of Antarctica, but these claims are not universally recognized. As a matter of policy, the United States and many other countries don’t recognize territorial claims on Antarctica, and instead view the continent as a boundary-free common space for everyone.

The issue of territorial claims doesn’t keep us from getting along though. In fact, we all get on very well on the Ice, particularly Americans and Kiwis.  American and Kiwi scientists have been working in Antarctica for more than 50 years, and that science and technology partnership has been the bedrock of our bilateral relationship.

That’s it for questions today. I’ll be answering more directly with school classes when I get back to New Zealand. Now, my kids will probably never confess that they read my blog, and there is even less of chance they will admit to having learned something. But I’m sure they did.

As for me, visiting the Antarctic is the experience of a lifetime.  It rekindled in me a thirst for that process of experimental investigation … also known as science.  It’s a shame that so many of us grow into adulthood and forget that indescribable joy of assembling your first bug collection, recreating the solar system on your bedroom ceiling with fluorescent stickers, or figuring out the best way to create static electricity to shock your siblings.

Seeing the cool and exciting work that the US National Science Foundation scientists are doing in the Antarctic made me think. Since when does science have to be about slogging through some dry analytical paper instead of building a mud volcano in the back yard … or climbing into a real one to see what it’s up to?

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Thanks, Mike, for sharing your thoughts and answering a few questions.

If anyone reading my series of Antarctica posts has questions about the continent, the various science projects there, or bilateral US-NZ cooperation on the Ice, please let me know. I’ll ask Mike to do another Q&A post next week when we’re back in Wellington.