Science!

Okay, it is WAY past due for me to talk about the REASON I am getting paid to be here and to do and see all of these amazing things: Science! I have been waiting until I have better pictures for this post, but it's not really happening that way, so I'm just going to go for it.

The United States Antarctic Program has an annual budget of about 450 million USD, 3-4 million of which is designated for Palmer Station (difficult to tease out Palmer's budget from that of the Lawrence M Gould and Nathaniel B Palmer research vessel budgets), and all of which is funding secured from the federal government by the National Science foundation to ultimately support research in one of three areas:

1) Understanding the Antarctic continent
2) Antarctica's role in global systems
3) Antarctica as a platform for science

The third of those areas encompasses much of the research that was going on at South Pole...all those telescopes, which weren't studying Antarctica at all, but that South Pole provided the perfect setting (high, dry, minimal light pollution).

The science going on at Palmer is much more focused on the first two areas of research--particularly marine biology/oceanography. There are research groups here conducting long-term studies of whales, birds, krill, bacteria, and other creatures they've been tracking for decades and have already been able to observe reacting to the planet's changing climate. In one of the experiments happening on station right now, a group is simulating future climate change in our aquarium to see how various Antarctic species will react in the future.

In general, the scientists here spend a lot of time on the water in Solas, Zodiac, or RHIB boats: going to nearby sites to count penguins or other birds; doing ocean transects; biopsying whales; collecting samples of small oceanic flora and fauna, and so on.

Often they bring back samples to the station aquarium for study or experimentation. Pictured here, Antarctic krill (essential food for penguins and whales)...

And all kinds of sea flora.

We have a team of divers on station right now, too. Of course they have INTENSELY insulated suits to protect them, but still: going out for 15-30 minute dives in Antarctic waters is pretty bad-ass.

And most weeks we have a science lecture given by one of the resident grantees (who are always coming and going, so there's always fresh blood and new projects happening) to educate us about the really cool things they are doing and studying down here. It's fun to learn about it, to interact with the scientists daily, and to be a tiny part of the enormous machinery of human kind seeking to better understand our planet, how we're impacting it, and the future consequences of our humanity on the rest of the species on Earth.