Three Decades of Climate Research in Antarctica

August 26, 2017  |  Valley News

by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling

After the crew members tied the helicopter down to prevent it from blowing away in what was shaping up to be one of Antarctica’s famously powerful storms, they crawled over the frozen ground to join Dartmouth Professor Ross Virginia and a handful of students in the crowded emergency shelter.

They’d seen the storm on the horizon, a solid wall of clouds rushing toward them, and soon they felt it too — winds that slammed into the small aircraft and caused it to bounce erratically. Though they were just minutes from the relative safety of McMurdo Station on Ross Island, they had to abandon their plans and seek immediate shelter on the ground.

“It was a plywood shack with a little stove in it,” Virginia recalled. “There was a radio, and bunk beds. A little table. Nine of us jammed in there.”

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