APECS India: August 2018

Monday, August 27, 2018

[IPRNmail] Former Australian Antarctic Division chief scientist Pat Quilty expires

Former Australian Antarctic Division chief scientist Pat Quilty dies

August 27, 2018 12:24pm

LONG-serving former chief scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division Pat Quilty AM has died.

The Australian Antarctic Division said Professor Quilty died at the weekend at the age of 79.

Professor Quilty led the AAD's scientific program for 18 years from 1980 and published more than 200 scientific papers.

After graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science with honours from the University of Western Australia, Professor Quilty first visited Antarctica in 1965 as a field palaeontologist with the University of Wisconsin.

He received his PhD from the University of Tasmania in 1969.

AAD director Nick Gales said Professor Quilty had made an outstanding contribution to Antarctic science.

"His was a very distinguished career with Professor Quilty playing a leading role in the international Antarctic science community," Dr Gales said.

Dr Gales said Professor Quilty stated that one of his career highlights was his discovery of fossil whale and dolphin bones at Marine Plain, in the Vestfold Hills near Australia's Davis station.

It is the only site in Antarctica where fossil vertebrates have been found since the continent was glaciated 34 million years ago.

After leaving the Australian Antarctic Division, Professor Quilty taught and undertook research at the University of Tasmania.

Among the many honours and awards bestowed upon him during his long career was the

Phillip Law Medal in 2016, Member of the Order of Australia in 1997 and the Royal Society of Tasmania Medal in 1996.

Quilty Bay in the Larsemann Hills near Australia's Davis station was named by the Australian Antarctic Names Committee in recognition of Professor Quilty's contributions to science.

https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/former-australian-antarctic-division-chief-scientist-pat-quilty-dies/news-story/d072e4c978dfccfb9db54c4e2526feb6

Best 73s,-
Bhagwati Prasad Semwal (VU3BPZ/Ex-AT10BP/8T2BH)
(20,24,29,31,35th,WOT Maitri/Bharati )

QTH: Dehradun (Himalaya)

1. bprasad2002@yahoo.co.in,

Skype Id : vu3bpz
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Saturday, August 25, 2018

[IPRNmail] Fwd: 2508 NASA launching laser satellite to study Earth’s changing ice

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Bhagwati Prasad Semwal <bplovemaitri@rediffmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 11:12 PM
Subject: 2508 NASA launching laser satellite to study Earth's changing ice
To: bplovemaitri <bplovemaitri@rediffmail.com>

NASA launching laser satellite to study Earth's changing ice
The Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) satellite is scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on September 15.

NASA is launching a laser-armed satellite next month that will measure — in unprecedented detail — changes in the heights of Earth's polar ice to understand what is causing ice sheets to melt fast. In recent years, contributions of melt from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica alone have raised global sea level by more than a millimeter a year, accounting for approximately one-third of observed sea level rise, and the rate is increasing.

Called the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), the mission is scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on September 15, NASA said in a statement late on Thursday. ICESat-2 will measure the average annual elevation change of land ice covering Greenland and Antarctica to within the width of a pencil, capturing 60,000 measurements every second

"The new observational technologies of ICESat-2 will advance our knowledge of how the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contribute to sea level rise," said Michael Freilich, Director of the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

ICESat-2 will improve upon NASA's 15-year record of monitoring the change in polar ice heights. It started in 2003 with the first ICESat mission and continued in 2009 with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne research campaign that kept track of the accelerating rate of change. ICESat-2's Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) measures height by timing how long it takes individual light photons to travel from the spacecraft to Earth and back.

"ATLAS required us to develop new technologies to get the measurements needed by scientists to advance the research," said Doug McLennan, ICESat-2 Project Manager. "That meant we had to engineer a satellite instrument that not only will collect incredibly precise data, but also will collect more than 250 times as many height measurements as its predecessor," he added.

ATLAS will fire 10,000 times each second, sending hundreds of trillions of photons to the ground in six beams of green light. With so many photons returning from multiple beams, ICESat-2 will get a much more detailed view of the ice surface than its predecessor. As it circles Earth from pole to pole, ICESat-2 will measure ice heights along the same path in the polar regions four times a year, providing seasonal and annual monitoring of ice elevation changes. Beyond the poles, ICESat-2 will also measure the height of ocean and land surfaces, including forests.

https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/nasa-launching-laser-satellite-to-study-earths-changing-ice-5322620/

Best 73s,-
Bhagwati Prasad Semwal (VU3BPZ/Ex-AT10BP/8T2BH)
(20,24,29,31,35th,WOT Maitri/Bharati )

QTH: Dehradun (Himalaya)

1. bprasad2002@yahoo.co.in,

Skype Id : vu3bpz
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JAI HIND!! JAI BADRINATH !!

"Aum Badrinarayan Namo Namah:! Aum ShreeLakshmi Narayan Namo Namah:!''

[IPRNmail] Fwd: 2505 Science & Environment:-Antarctica has a fire department

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Bhagwati Prasad Semwal <bplovemaitri@rediffmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 11:03 PM
Subject: 2505 Science & Environment:-Antarctica has a fire department
To: bplovemaitri <bplovemaitri@rediffmail.com>

Yes, Antarctica has a fire department
By Mary Halton-Science reporter, BBC News

Fire prevention in one of the coldest places on Earth might not sound like the most likely job, but every year the US Antarctic Program recruits a team of fire-fighters to head poleward.

"'Are there fires in Antarctica?' That's always the question I get," says Megan Branson, who spent over 24 months "on the ice" as a fire-fighter and paramedic between 2007 and 2010.

And the answer?

Yes. Though rarely, if the the Antarctic Fire Department can help it.

In the busy summer season of October - March, there are over 1,000 residents at the US Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station, making it the largest settlement in the region.

McMurdo station sits on Ross Island, just off the coast of Antarctica
Flights landing at the base must, by law, have a fire crew on hand, but McMurdo is also a fully functioning town.

As for any town, building fire safety is important. Even more so when outdoor temperatures only inch above freezing at the height of summer.

"There's a lot of heavy machinery, a lot of chemicals and toxic substances, a lot of people... and humans are prone to error." says Branson.

This more than warrants McMurdo's own firehouse and team of fire-fighters.

How do you get a job in Antarctica?

Having initially trained as a fire-fighter and paramedic after completing high school in the US, Branson was jokingly challenged by a friend to apply for the Antarctic programme.

"I had finished my training, graduated and was looking for an adventure (and more importantly, a job)... I have an odd habit of pursuing things that scare me and took the challenge," she tells BBC News.

By the time interviews came around, her friend had gotten another job, so she went through the rest of the process alone.

What is fire-fighting like?

"You'd work 24 hours on, 24 hours off, and every other week you'd have an additional day off," says Branson. "Everybody else in the town works Monday to Saturday and gets Sunday off, so we were kind of the anomaly in the firehouse."

Regular duties ranged from cleaning the firehouse to conducting fire inspections around the town and running dispatch - the main communication hub for all vehicles coming on and off Ross Island, where McMurdo sits.

But fighting fires in freezing temperatures also calls for some specialist equipment.

Surprisingly, water is still an option. McMurdo's fire engine has a pump, which cycles water constantly through the vehicle to prevent it from freezing.

Remembering to set the pump going is, says Branson, a lesson quickly learned.

"You do not want to be the person who freezes all the water in the fire engine. Then you're stuck with a 500 gallon engine with an ice block in it... and nobody on base is going to like you."

There are, however, no additional layers to the gear worn by fire-fighters in sub-zero temperatures.

"You also can only wear certain base layers when you're fire-fighting because polyester and materials like that melt to your skin... so yeah I was freezing. All the time."

Life at the bottom of the world
Down time in Antarctica, says Branson, would often consist of films, card games or going to the gym.

"Not having fresh food was just so, so difficult. Sometimes you'd give anything for a fresh banana or a carrot or apple… I ate a lot of bread," she laughs.

During her final stretch on the continent, she spent 14 consecutive months in Antarctica - a summer at the South Pole's Amundsen-Scott base and a long, dark winter at McMurdo.

But when emergencies do break the monotony, they can be more complex than in less isolated places.

Branson recalls fighting a vehicle fire, perched precariously where the tightly packed sea ice meets Ross Island, and worrying that it might melt through the ice to the sea floor below.

The crew eventually had to tamp down the fire by shovelling snow on it.

One New Year's Day at the South Pole proved particularly eventful, when an off-duty Branson was hastily summoned to attend a tourist in cardiac distress.

Being the only member of medical staff on the base trained in emergency medicine, by the time she arrived the patient's condition had deteriorated so much that Branson knew she had only one option.

"We had to shock him. He was pretty unconscious, but kind of like he was going to feel this still... because it is painful."

Her approach worked.

"I went to see him off the next day, and he looked at me and said 'You! You shocked me! Thank you. But ow!'"

"Those two things, they really sum up the type of experience that fire-fighting in Antarctica is. It's totally needed; it is not perfect

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45246840

Best 73s,-
Bhagwati Prasad Semwal (VU3BPZ/Ex-AT10BP/8T2BH)
(20,24,29,31,35th,WOT Maitri/Bharati )

QTH: Dehradun (Himalaya)

1. bprasad2002@yahoo.co.in,

Skype Id : vu3bpz
--------------------------------------------------
JAI HIND!! JAI BADRINATH !!

"Aum Badrinarayan Namo Namah:! Aum ShreeLakshmi Narayan Namo Namah:!''