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2002-2003 campaign
Campaign report (from page 148 to page 185)
The main objectives of the 2002-2003 campaign at Dome C were:
- the continuation of the deep drilling core activity (EPICA);
- the continuation of the glaciology activity (EPICA);
- the continuation of the installation of the Concordia Station;
- the execution of Concordia scientific programmes (i.e. glaciology, seismology, astrophysics, etc.).
ACTIVITIES
Logistic activities
The Camp was opened 92 days from November 9th 2002 until February 8th 2003; 82 people visited Dome C Camp with an average of 50 people/day and a maximum number of 58 people on January 7th 2003.
The first group of six people who reached the camp site performed the following activities:
-start-up of: electrical power station, HF and Satellite stations, dormitory tents and night area in the main building, kitchen, vehicles, snow melter and meteorological station;
-maintenance of the runway and snow cleaning in the Camp Area.
49 Twin Otter flights were performed during the entire expedition period in order to satisfy transport requests for people and cargo.
During the entire period three traverses were performed between Cape Prud'Homme and Dome C. Its cargo was mainly composed of material for the construction of Concordia Station. Material for scientific activities, fuel and material for conduction of the summer Station completed the cargo. The total pay load transported was around 490 tons.
Concordia scientific activities
During the Campaign 8 groups of scientists operated in Dome C Camp. The projects were:
- CONCORDIASTRO
The fixed goals for this 2002-03 campaign were successfully achieved during the mission:- the daily launch of a meteorological radio-sound balloon was performed in order to accumulate data on wind speed, pressure, temperature and humidity profiles. This is to increase the significance of statistics obtained at the Dome C site;
- the construction of a 5-m-high platform was built to accommodate all the telescopes and DIMM instrumentation for site testing;
- DIMM observations on Canopus and alpha cent were performed for 26 days;
- more than 250 continuous hours of observations were accumulated.
- AASTINO
The AASTINO is a complete site-testing laboratory, designed to study the atmospheric transmission, sky brightness and air turbulence. Roughly the size of a shipping container, the AASTINO is made from well insulated fibreglass panels. It generates its own heat and power using a combination of solar panels and two Stirling engines. During the winter it operated continuously until July 1st 2003, communicating with its home institution, the University of NSW in Sydney, via Iridium.
The first two instruments, a sub-millimetre photometer and an acoustic radar, have been installed during the campaign.
- Physics of the atmosphere
Measurements of temperature and of aerosols in the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) have been performed at Dome Concordia. A passive microwave radiometer has been used for the temperature profile (MTP-5P, polar version), also a microLIDAR has been used for aerosol measurements.
- Physics of the atmosphere
The analysis of the winter data will allow us to characterize the Antarctic plateau during the winter and this information will be made public to initialize the GCM's.
- Seismic permanent observatory
Installation of ventilation and lighting plants in the tunnel, installation of safety protection and maintenance of the electrical wire have been performed in the permanent seismic station.
- Satellite sensor validation
A 32-m-walk-up tower has been constructed in the clean area, one km east of Concordia Station, to observe the reflectance pattern of sunlight on the snow surface. With this facility in place, snow reflectance pattern measurements (called the bidirectional reflectance distribution function, or BRDF) at visible wavelengths were made. These will be compared to similar measurements made at South Pole Station. The results will be relevant to climate, remote sensing, and the physics of ice.
Daily ozone measurements were performed to determine the ozone concentration above Dome C.
- Validation of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
Dome Concordia is an ideal site for calibration and validation of infrared satellite instruments. The large continental ice sheet is one of the most homogeneous land surfaces on earth in terms of surface temperature and emissivity. Surface-based measurements of upwelling infrared radiation from the surface between 8-12 micrometers are very nearly equal to those measured by satellite instruments because of minimal atmospheric absorption. Therefore, accurate measurements made at the surface of spectral infrared radiance can provide valuable validation data for satellite instruments.
In January 2003, fieldwork was carried out to validate NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). Upwelling and downwelling spectral infrared radiances with the Polar Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (PAERI) were measured atop an 8-meter tower. A narrow-band infrared radiometer dragged behind a snowmobile mapped changes in surface radiation at spatial scales similar to the AIRS field of view. Radiosondes were launched to obtain atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles. A ground-based GPS unit was used to measure the extremely low values of total precipitable water (about 1 mm in summer).
- Environmental testing
During this campaign, a sampling process was performed to verify the environmental impact relative to the logistic and scientific activities.
EPICA activities
The activity of the EPICA Project (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) at Dome C has been completed for this season with an outstanding result: 3,201.03 m of depth, on a total of 3,300 m.
The team is extremely pleased about this result: by comparison, at Vostok, where the ice was drilled at a depth of 3,000 m, the age was evaluated at 420,000 years. The great difference between these two ages is due to the different location of the two drilling sites. The surveys performed by georadar have shown the almost perfect horizontal layering of the ice formed in the millennia and of the bedrock (the layer of rock under the polar ice).
In the next few years it is planned to reach the bedrock, drilling the remaining 100 m. The main obstacle will be the comparatively high temperature of the ice, -7°C, very high compared to the surface temperature of -50°C. The temperature of -7°C makes this last ice layer very inconsistent.
The main task of the EPICA science team (11 scientists) for the 2002-03 field season was to complete the core processing on all the cores which have been drilled during the previous season, as well as on all cores to be drilled during this season. Processing included the inspection and registration (logging) of the cores, the cutting and packing of ice core samples to facilitate the distribution of samples to the various laboratories and the efficient measurements in the laboratories and first analyses on the ice like Dielectric Profiling (DEP), Electrical Conductivity Measurements (ECM) and chemical analyses like Continuous Flow Analyses (CFA) and Fast Ion Chromatography (FIC).
Concordia Station: status of the construction work for the winter base
The assembly activities of the Italian-French winter Concodia Base continued at full speed, even if the temperature was very cold at the end of the Austral summer. Sixteen specialists worked there, seven Italian and nine French. The maximum effort was on the completion of the assembly of internal walls and ceiling. In the next campaign in the Austral summer 2003-04 internal equipment and the co-generation plant for electrical and thermal energy will be installed to make the station operational.
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