The sun doesn’t set and the top temperature is around -1°C, but Antarctica has its own appeal. Recently arrived back from New Zealand’s Scott Base, where she joined scientists investigating how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has reacted to global warming in the past, Veronika Meduna answers questions about a summer on ice.
Can you describe a typical day at Scott Base?
Daily life at Scott Base revolves around meals served in the communal mess. The chefs will have breakfast ready from 7am and will cook two warm meals, plus plenty of delicious baking and snacks for morning and afternoon tea. At 8am, an announcement is broadcast across base (except in the dorms) to update everyone on the weather forecast, the day’s main activities (for example, if the ski field is open) and some fun facts.
Outside the mess is a whiteboard, which serves as the information HQ. This is where people find updates on scheduled flights in and out of field sites or north to Christchurch as well as community notices about social events, for example the movie on that night, hot-tub bookings and any evening events at the Scott Base bar, the Tatty Flag.
Scott Base has great showers, but because all freshwater must be produced in a reverse-osmosis plants (turning seawater into freshwater), people tend to use them sparingly.
The staff at Scott Base - the chefs, electricians, domestics, carpenters, managers, field trainers, etc - spend their weekdays working, but for science teams, Scott Base is a temporary home before or after field work.
Before I headed out into the field with the SWAIS2C team (who are investigating how sensitive West Antarctica is to 2°C of warming), we had to complete our overnight Antarctic field training to learn how to put up a Scott polar tent and build a snow shelter.
After that, we were busy getting all our kit ready for the field camp. Once we returned after a month in the deep field, we helped with cleaning and snow-clearing chores around base and had time to go for walks, either over the hill to McMurdo Station to have brunch with our American team members or along some of the stunning trails close to Scott Base. My favourite outing remains a climb up Observation Hill where the surviving members of Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole erected a cross in memory of the five men who didn’t make it back.
Regardless of what people do during their day, most gather at the Tatty Flag after dinner for some socialising.
What’s the food like?
Scrumptious. Just the fact that someone is cooking all the meals is an absolute highlight for me, but the food is also always delicious, varied and caters for a range of dietary preferences. As an almost life-long vegetarian, I felt well-nourished and looked after - and was inspired by many of the recipes. All food must be flown in and fruit and vegetables arrive mostly frozen or canned. Any fresh fruit and veges are treasured like the most precious items.
What’s the temperature inside the base?
It varies a bit between the main communal rooms at the centre of Scott Base and the dorms in the wings, but it’s always around a comfortable 18°C, which feels warmer because the air is so dry. It’s certainly warm enough to wander around in jeans and a T-shirt and a pair of sneakers. But that means that if you want to go outside for more than just a few minutes, you must get changed into warmer gear, usually a layer of thermal underwear and bibbed salopettes (ski pants), a fleece top, down jacket, polar boots, gloves and a hat and, importantly, sunscreen and sunglasses or goggles.
[Ed’s note: Because of the thinner atmosphere and the way snow and ice reflect light and UV rays, you’re at risk of sunburn and snow blindless.]
The comfort at Scott Base contrasts with being in the field. There, we slept in polar tents, snuggled into double sleeping bags, and barely got out of our cold-weather gear and insulated boots during the day, except when we gathered for meals in the heated mess tent.
How many people down there?
At the height of summer, we had 120 people at Scott Base. Groups tend to come and go as some head out to their field sites or depart home as others return from camp. There are always new people to meet and old friends to catch up with.
Towards the end of the summer season in early January, there were only about 60-70 people and during winter, only 10-12 staff remain to keep the base running and ready for the next summer season.
Is it true you can’t go down there if you’ve still got your appendix?
I still have my appendix and wisdom teeth, but anyone wanting to visit Scott Base must go through a comprehensive medical assessment and dental clearance to limit the risk of any medical emergencies while on ice. This assessment includes several blood tests, a thorough physical examination and detailed medical history, a lung capacity test and a stress electrocardiogram.
A doctor at Scott Base can help with minor injuries or ailments and McMurdo Station has an emergency hospital, but good health and a basic level of fitness are prerequisites for an Antarctic visit. Wintering staff have an even more thorough medical and dental examination.
The Ross Island Windfarm helps power Scott Base, but how do they stop the wind turbines from icing up?
They don’t. There are three turbines supplying renewable energy to Scott Base and the neighbouring American base, McMurdo Station. If one gets too chilly, the other turbines carry the load until their counterpart warms up again. The new turbines being installed as part of the Scott Base redevelopment are state-of-the art and will be able to de-ice themselves.
You have internet access, but what about things like Netflix?
Last year, Antarctica New Zealand installed Starlink at Scott Base to improve connectivity. It has made a huge difference. People can now use their own devices to connect to the internet, and although daily data use is capped, it provides plenty to get work done (just like working from home) and make video calls to friends and family.
It also makes streaming movies possible, but probably the biggest benefit is that you can take whānau for a walk around base and even outside. Some of the loveliest moments happened when teammates were calling their young kids to show them what Antarctica looks like and we’d all wave back at them to say hi.
How do they dispose of rubbish and waste down there?
Any supplies for Scott Base are carefully chosen and usually bought in bulk to minimise waste, but packaging and other materials (cardboard, paper, glass, aluminium and tin cans) are separated and returned to Christchurch for recycling. Food and food-contaminated wastes are also collected and sent back to New Zealand for disposal. Human wastes are processed through a wastewater treatment plant at Scott Base.
In a field camp, all these types of wastes are also collected and returned to Scott Base. I spent a month with the team at a site known as KIS-3 (Kamb Ice Stream 3), some 1200kms away from Scott Base, and we collected all recyclables and all food or food-contaminated waste to bring back - and our toilets were simple affairs with buckets to collect all solid human waste, which was also returned to Scott Base for processing. Thankfully, things freeze quickly in Antarctica, so smell is not an issue, but sealing and replacing the poo buckets was one of the regular chores at the camp site.
If there are no huskies pulling sleighs, how are things transported?
The SWAIS2C team required some heavy equipment because we had to drill through almost 600m of the Ross Ice Shelf (using hot water to bore a hole) and then planned to drill into the sediment on the ocean floor (which will continue next season).
To get all this gear to the site, a four-strong team spent two weeks on a traverse, using PistenBullies (tracked vehicles that can groom the snow surface and pull heavy weights) to bring everything out. This included the equipment and large bladders of fuel to run the vehicles themselves and generators at camp.
The traverse team could only travel slowly, at about 10-15km an hour, and on days with low cloud cover, they had to travel by GPS coordinates to find our site. The traverse team is still travelling back and should arrive at Scott Base early next week (Tuesday, January 23), but some of the gear also remains at the KIS-3 site, stored safely in berms of snow, for next summer’s season.
Fixed-wing aircraft (Basler) were used to bring people to the site, but because this part of the continent is very flat, it experiences days with low cloud and flat white light when aircraft can’t travel. During the month we spent there, we had several days in a row when aircraft wouldn’t have been able to reach us.
How do you cope with the endless day during summer?
At Scott Base, some dorms have no windows, and if they do, they come with shutters so you can darken the room to get a good sleep.
It’s a different challenge in the field, where the 24-hour sun lights up the yellow/orange tents. I get cold easily and was always sleeping with a beanie anyway, so I just pulled it over my eyes. Some people use eye masks to help them maintain a healthy sleep rhythm.
The midnight sun can be a beautiful thing though, changing the light ever so slightly as it circles around you.
Is it true that icebergs make a lot of noise, and can you hear this? If so, what does it sound like – and does it mean Antarctica is a noisier place than many of us may think?
Icebergs do indeed make a lot of noise when they break off the ice shelf, and then they groan and hiss occasionally as they drift north. But Scott Base isn’t close to iceberg-calving areas.
The research station is on Ross Island, and the island is surrounded by frozen ocean on one side and the Ross Ice Shelf on the other. Where the two ice masses meet, they buckle and rise in beautiful, towering pressure ridges. They crackle as they move and melt during summer, but it’s not as noisy as bergs splitting off.
But I have heard a very otherworldly natural sound just outside Scott Base when Weddell seals call out under the ice. They congregate around the pressure ridges in spring and summer to bask in the sun and to have their young, with easy access to the ocean through holes in the ice. Their under-ice calls are like no other sound, even more ethereal than whale song.
The areas around Scott Base and McMurdo Station can be noisy with the hubbub of people and tracked vehicles, but I’ve also experienced the complete absence of sound. At our field site this summer, at the edge of West Antarctica where the West Antarctic Ice Sheet begins to float, the wind-still days were often eerily silent.
There are a number of artefacts from historic missions in Scott Base. Is there one that strikes a special chord with you?
Scott Base is surrounded by history, going right back to the expeditions of the Heroic Era (which began at the end of the 19th century), and it’s too hard to choose just one artefact.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust has been working on the conservation of historic huts on Ross Island, including those erected by expeditions led by Scott and Shackleton, as well as Hillary’s Hut, the very first building of Scott Base set up by Sir Ed Hillary during the summer of 1956/57.
Freshly back from climbing Mt Everest in 1953, Sir Ed led a party to lay food depots for the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition and to oversee New Zealand’s involvement in the International Geophysical Year. The hut now serves as a museum and quiet space for people staying at Scott Base. It’s like a time capsule; easy to imagine the men coming together for a meal or a game of cards.
I’ve been fortunate to visit all these historic buildings. If I had to choose a few favourite artefacts, it would be the stove at Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds (because it’s such a central part of the hut and makes it feel warm and cosy even today), the plank on his bunk where he signed his name and the pieces of shelving that have dog footprints all over them. This is, of course, also the hut where conservators discovered crates of 114-year-old whisky encased in ice under the floorboards.
At Hillary’s hut, Sir Ed’s grey, woollen balaclava and the old telephone are among my favourites.
How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve at Antarctica?
I was lucky to celebrate both New Year’s Eve and my birthday in Antarctica this summer and on both occasions, I took a night walk up Observation Hill. On New Year’s Eve, the Tatty Flag bar was a hub of celebration, but a few people ventured outside to mark the start of the new year.
What’s the one thing you would advise anyone visiting Antarctica and Scott Base to bring with them?
Patience. Working or travelling - doing anything really - in Antarctica includes a lot of waiting. Everything takes a little longer and is a lot more dependent on the right conditions, outside of anybody’s control.
On a more pragmatic note, as someone who wears prescription glasses, the lesson I learned this summer is to always pack a spare pair. I broke my glasses into three pieces and if it hadn’t been for the repair skills of one of the Scott Base engineers, I would have struggled.
And Antarctica New Zealand recommends bringing a distinctive beanie so that people can recognise themselves in photos where everyone is swaddled in extreme-cold-weather clothing.
You’ve been to Antarctica a number of times. Can you notice things changing, ie, getting warmer?
This was my fourth time in Antarctica since my first visit 20 years ago. Even back then, much of the science on the continent focused on monitoring change, but during 2023, some of the potential impacts of climate change became very obvious, including the record low levels of sea ice.
Antarctica seems remote and disconnected, but it’s a major driver of global systems and plays a crucial role in many climate feedbacks. The annual freeze-thaw cycle of sea ice has been described as Antarctica’s heartbeat and it’s crucial for our planet’s health. Sea ice reflects the sun’s energy back into space, it produces water masses that kick off vital global currents that carry heat and nutrients around the world, and it provides essential habitat for Emperor penguins to raise their chicks.
Antarctica is also a great archive of changes that happened during warmer periods in Earth’s past. The project I joined this summer, and others I covered during previous visits, study the information contained in ice cores and layers of sediment on the ocean floor to explore how Antarctica changes and what the consequences are for New Zealand and other parts of the world.