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Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.",
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"description": "With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.",
"title": "Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The seventh and concluding post in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone must inevitably deal, at some point, with “the break-up.” It wears different disguises in different places — the surprise invitation, the unexpected pregnancy, the phone call late in the night — but you know it simply as that which changes your direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In McMurdo Sound the break-up is what happens to the \u003ca href=\"https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/fast-ice\">fast ice\u003c/a> that stretches from \u003ca href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/mount-erebus/judson-text\">volcanic Mt. Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Move Over California Poppy: This State Has a New Symbol",
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"content": "\u003cp>On New Year’s Day, lace lichen, a stringy green organism often called “Spanish moss” that hangs from oak trees around California, joined the grizzly bear, California poppy, California quail and gold as an official \u003ca href=\"http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california\">California State symbol\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new law, signed last July by Gov. Jerry Brown, made California the first state to claim an official lichen. Lace lichen can be found in almost every part of the state, from the north to south and up to 130 miles inland from the shoreline. Draping from tree branches, which it uses for support, not sustenance, there are about 1,900 kinds of lichen, along with the lace variety, native to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Lichen Society proposed adding a state lichen and state Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, wrote AB 1528, which sailed through the Legislature without much disagreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said he carried the bill because it fits his interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have lifelong love of the outdoors,” he said. “I loved exploring and playing under the tree canopies as a boy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said one of his next bills will identify wildlife corridors to help protect migrating animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_497733\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-497733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"It's commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lace lichen is commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kelsey Gielen)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lichen, which is actually a complex life form that is a partnership of fungus and algae, has long been misunderstood and overlooked, scientists say. In the mid-19th century, it was misclassified in the moss and liverwort family. \u003ca href=\"http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24954/title/Beatrix-Potter--scientist/\">Beatrix Potter\u003c/a>, of Peter Rabbit fame, was an unlikely lichen champion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She contributed to lichen and fungus research before she found literary fame. In the late 1800s she did botanical studies and research in her kitchen, wrote a scientific paper about fungus and spore reproduction, and supported the view, unpopular with scientists of the time, that lichen belonged in its own family. She produced many wonderful, detailed drawings of fungus and lichen species. Since she was a woman, though, a male scientist had to present her scientific paper and research to the Linnean Society of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lowly lichen is both hardy and sensitive. It has survived the extremities of experimental exposure in outer space. And it can be shut in a drawer in a museum for decades, and yet live again when given sunlight and water. It is found on nearly every surface of the Earth — from the North to the South poles and desert floors to rocky mountain tops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some species are very sensitive to air pollution – especially sulphur dioxide, radiation and other toxic pollutants – making them a useful, inexpensive environmental monitor. The US Forest Service is undertaking a \u003ca href=\"http://fhm.fs.fed.us/fact/pdf_files/fhm_lichen_2009.pdf\">study of lichen communities\u003c/a> that may even help determine how fast the climate is changing. Citizen science projects to \u003ca href=\"https://www.handsontheland.org/environmental-monitoring/lichen-monitoring.html\">monitor lichen\u003c/a> are underway that are easy enough for elementary school students to contribute to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest advocates for the otherwise quirky bill say they had a good reason: to raise public awareness about these unique species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calling attention to lichens by recognizing one of them as the California state lichen creates an opportunity for us to learn about and celebrate the things that make California special,” the California Lichen Society said in a statement after its bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On New Year’s Day, lace lichen, a stringy green organism often called “Spanish moss” that hangs from oak trees around California, joined the grizzly bear, California poppy, California quail and gold as an official \u003ca href=\"http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california\">California State symbol\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new law, signed last July by Gov. Jerry Brown, made California the first state to claim an official lichen. Lace lichen can be found in almost every part of the state, from the north to south and up to 130 miles inland from the shoreline. Draping from tree branches, which it uses for support, not sustenance, there are about 1,900 kinds of lichen, along with the lace variety, native to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Lichen Society proposed adding a state lichen and state Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, wrote AB 1528, which sailed through the Legislature without much disagreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said he carried the bill because it fits his interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have lifelong love of the outdoors,” he said. “I loved exploring and playing under the tree canopies as a boy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said one of his next bills will identify wildlife corridors to help protect migrating animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_497733\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-497733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"It's commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lace lichen is commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kelsey Gielen)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lichen, which is actually a complex life form that is a partnership of fungus and algae, has long been misunderstood and overlooked, scientists say. In the mid-19th century, it was misclassified in the moss and liverwort family. \u003ca href=\"http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24954/title/Beatrix-Potter--scientist/\">Beatrix Potter\u003c/a>, of Peter Rabbit fame, was an unlikely lichen champion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She contributed to lichen and fungus research before she found literary fame. In the late 1800s she did botanical studies and research in her kitchen, wrote a scientific paper about fungus and spore reproduction, and supported the view, unpopular with scientists of the time, that lichen belonged in its own family. She produced many wonderful, detailed drawings of fungus and lichen species. Since she was a woman, though, a male scientist had to present her scientific paper and research to the Linnean Society of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lowly lichen is both hardy and sensitive. It has survived the extremities of experimental exposure in outer space. And it can be shut in a drawer in a museum for decades, and yet live again when given sunlight and water. It is found on nearly every surface of the Earth — from the North to the South poles and desert floors to rocky mountain tops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some species are very sensitive to air pollution – especially sulphur dioxide, radiation and other toxic pollutants – making them a useful, inexpensive environmental monitor. The US Forest Service is undertaking a \u003ca href=\"http://fhm.fs.fed.us/fact/pdf_files/fhm_lichen_2009.pdf\">study of lichen communities\u003c/a> that may even help determine how fast the climate is changing. Citizen science projects to \u003ca href=\"https://www.handsontheland.org/environmental-monitoring/lichen-monitoring.html\">monitor lichen\u003c/a> are underway that are easy enough for elementary school students to contribute to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest advocates for the otherwise quirky bill say they had a good reason: to raise public awareness about these unique species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calling attention to lichens by recognizing one of them as the California state lichen creates an opportunity for us to learn about and celebrate the things that make California special,” the California Lichen Society said in a statement after its bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Jerry Brown’s Complicated Relationship With Environmentalists",
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"content": "\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In 1976, a year into his first term as governor, Jerry Brown signed a bill that came to be seen as one of the strongest environmental protection laws in the country. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/ccatc.html\">California Coastal Act\u003c/a> limited development along the 1,100-mile shoreline and guaranteed public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Yet just two years later, Brown had become frustrated with the commission tasked with upholding the Coastal Act. He made headlines in 1978 for calling commissioners “bureaucratic thugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">[contextly_sidebar id=”bvhcVaoNxMgJ2oQeEZkaReD1f1BGCqOh”]It was an early indication of Brown’s complicated relationship with the environmental movement, a dynamic that still shapes his governorship today. Weeks after returning from global climate-change talks in Paris that positioned Brown as an environmental leader, the fourth-term Democrat is now facing the wrath of environmentalists at home. It’s the result of a new drama unfolding on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/\">Coastal Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation advocates have been critical of the decisions made by Brown’s appointees to the commission, who have voted in favor of projects environmentalists opposed. Now they are furious that the commission is holding a vote next month to dismiss Executive Director Charles Lester. They view him as an environmental guardian and say commissioners appointed by Brown are trying to oust Lester to make the coastal agency more amenable to development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It is kind of alarming that his appointees are trying to do this because it flies in the face of the environmental legacy that he wants to leave,” said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, coastal preservation manager for the Surfrider Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It’s very problematic that it’s (Brown’s) appointees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and other environmentalists are pressuring Brown to intervene. So far Brown has declined to comment on the situation; his spokesman Evan Westrup wrote an email saying, “This is a matter the Coastal Commission initiated without any involvement from our office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The criticism from environmentalists is reminiscent of the pressure Brown faced a few years ago from activists opposed to the oil-extraction method known as fracking. They demonstrated in front of the Capitol, followed Brown to speaking appearances and raised the question of his environmental legacy after the governor signed a 2013 bill that fell short of activists’ desire to ban fracking in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_496887\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-496887\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory in October 2015.\" width=\"800\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-400x223.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-768x428.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1440x802.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1920x1070.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1180x658.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-960x535.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown.jpg 2008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory in October 2015. \u003ccite>(California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, environmentalists have hailed Brown’s efforts to combat climate change. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">executive order\u003c/a> last year to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. He won \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/despite-setbacks-california-climate-push-accelerates/\">legislative approval\u003c/a> to increase the amount of renewable energy that flows to California’s electricity grid. He has made the battle against global warming his cause celebre, traveling to Italy for talks with Pope Francis and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/california-a-climate-model-for-the-world-has-work-to-do-at-home/\">Paris\u003c/a> for the conference last month that resulted in an international deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who know Brown well are not surprised that he is at odds with environmentalists on the latest Coastal Commission controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He is not a 100-percent-er on any of these things and that’s what’s made him a pretty interesting and effective governor,” said journalist Orville Schell, who wrote a biography of Brown in 1978 and remains friendly with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He isn’t a carbon cutout of one left or right view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor appoints 4 of 12 seats on the Coastal Commission, with the remainder appointed by the two legislative leaders. Lester and the commissioners he reports to are not commenting before the Feb. 10 vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lester, who assumed leadership of the commission in 2011, has been through lengthy performance evaluations behind closed doors in the last three years. Publicly, commissioners have pressed him for not providing enough information about projects that have applied for permits, and a lack of ethnic diversity among commission staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Brown has demonstrated support for the Coastal Commission. His \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/by-the-numbers-analysis-governor-budget/\">budget proposal\u003c/a>this month gave the commission 25 permanent positions that had been temporary. The budget Brown approved two years ago gave the commission new authority to levy fines on property owners who block public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Environmentalists applaud those moves, even as they criticize Brown’s appointments for steering the commission in a pro-development direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In August, Brown’s appointees voted to take away public use of a portion of a Malibu bluff overlooking the ocean to make way for eight new mansions. In October, on a different project in Malibu, three of the governor’s appointees voted to approve a beach restoration project that excludes a public path advocates sought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“They are voting poorly to protect the coast,” Sekich-Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Steve Blank, a former coastal commissioner who was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Brown may assume he has the support of environmentalists because he is a Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“Under Schwarzenegger, there was an extended effort to reach out to a constituency he didn’t own. And now, with Brown, there is benign neglect of the constituency he’ll own forever,” Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Brown’s evolution from an environmental visionary 40 years ago to a fiscal watchdog today has put his legacy at risk, Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“No one is going to remember his skills as an accountant. It’s sad but true. But people will remember driving the California coast (as the result of) Jerry Brown’s signature in 1976,” Blank said. “I hope they don’t remember it as Jerry Brown’s destruction in 2016.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Conservationists are at odds with the governor over the direction of the California Coastal Commission he helped create.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In 1976, a year into his first term as governor, Jerry Brown signed a bill that came to be seen as one of the strongest environmental protection laws in the country. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/ccatc.html\">California Coastal Act\u003c/a> limited development along the 1,100-mile shoreline and guaranteed public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Yet just two years later, Brown had become frustrated with the commission tasked with upholding the Coastal Act. He made headlines in 1978 for calling commissioners “bureaucratic thugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>It was an early indication of Brown’s complicated relationship with the environmental movement, a dynamic that still shapes his governorship today. Weeks after returning from global climate-change talks in Paris that positioned Brown as an environmental leader, the fourth-term Democrat is now facing the wrath of environmentalists at home. It’s the result of a new drama unfolding on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/\">Coastal Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation advocates have been critical of the decisions made by Brown’s appointees to the commission, who have voted in favor of projects environmentalists opposed. Now they are furious that the commission is holding a vote next month to dismiss Executive Director Charles Lester. They view him as an environmental guardian and say commissioners appointed by Brown are trying to oust Lester to make the coastal agency more amenable to development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It is kind of alarming that his appointees are trying to do this because it flies in the face of the environmental legacy that he wants to leave,” said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, coastal preservation manager for the Surfrider Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It’s very problematic that it’s (Brown’s) appointees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and other environmentalists are pressuring Brown to intervene. So far Brown has declined to comment on the situation; his spokesman Evan Westrup wrote an email saying, “This is a matter the Coastal Commission initiated without any involvement from our office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The criticism from environmentalists is reminiscent of the pressure Brown faced a few years ago from activists opposed to the oil-extraction method known as fracking. They demonstrated in front of the Capitol, followed Brown to speaking appearances and raised the question of his environmental legacy after the governor signed a 2013 bill that fell short of activists’ desire to ban fracking in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_496887\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-496887\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory in October 2015.\" width=\"800\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-400x223.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-768x428.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1440x802.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1920x1070.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1180x658.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-960x535.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown.jpg 2008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory in October 2015. \u003ccite>(California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, environmentalists have hailed Brown’s efforts to combat climate change. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">executive order\u003c/a> last year to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. He won \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/despite-setbacks-california-climate-push-accelerates/\">legislative approval\u003c/a> to increase the amount of renewable energy that flows to California’s electricity grid. He has made the battle against global warming his cause celebre, traveling to Italy for talks with Pope Francis and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/california-a-climate-model-for-the-world-has-work-to-do-at-home/\">Paris\u003c/a> for the conference last month that resulted in an international deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who know Brown well are not surprised that he is at odds with environmentalists on the latest Coastal Commission controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He is not a 100-percent-er on any of these things and that’s what’s made him a pretty interesting and effective governor,” said journalist Orville Schell, who wrote a biography of Brown in 1978 and remains friendly with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He isn’t a carbon cutout of one left or right view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor appoints 4 of 12 seats on the Coastal Commission, with the remainder appointed by the two legislative leaders. Lester and the commissioners he reports to are not commenting before the Feb. 10 vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lester, who assumed leadership of the commission in 2011, has been through lengthy performance evaluations behind closed doors in the last three years. Publicly, commissioners have pressed him for not providing enough information about projects that have applied for permits, and a lack of ethnic diversity among commission staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Brown has demonstrated support for the Coastal Commission. His \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/by-the-numbers-analysis-governor-budget/\">budget proposal\u003c/a>this month gave the commission 25 permanent positions that had been temporary. The budget Brown approved two years ago gave the commission new authority to levy fines on property owners who block public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Environmentalists applaud those moves, even as they criticize Brown’s appointments for steering the commission in a pro-development direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In August, Brown’s appointees voted to take away public use of a portion of a Malibu bluff overlooking the ocean to make way for eight new mansions. In October, on a different project in Malibu, three of the governor’s appointees voted to approve a beach restoration project that excludes a public path advocates sought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“They are voting poorly to protect the coast,” Sekich-Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Steve Blank, a former coastal commissioner who was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Brown may assume he has the support of environmentalists because he is a Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“Under Schwarzenegger, there was an extended effort to reach out to a constituency he didn’t own. And now, with Brown, there is benign neglect of the constituency he’ll own forever,” Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Brown’s evolution from an environmental visionary 40 years ago to a fiscal watchdog today has put his legacy at risk, Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“No one is going to remember his skills as an accountant. It’s sad but true. But people will remember driving the California coast (as the result of) Jerry Brown’s signature in 1976,” Blank said. “I hope they don’t remember it as Jerry Brown’s destruction in 2016.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)",
"headTitle": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks) | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "One thing we know: the Antarctic is a very different animal than the Arctic when it comes to interpreting ice patterns.",
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"title": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks) | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2016/01/Sciencecarboncapturefull.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”gQN8H1y3bLQFyuhusmTVtazUF1miwYuW”]Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, regulators at the California Energy Commission will decide the final fate of the HECA project sometime this spring.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "State officials aren't giving up on the idea of snatching carbon emissions and stashing them underground, but investors and utilities might be.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker?",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "It takes major muscle to do battle with Antarctic ice fields -- but is the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker losing its mojo?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "2015 Was the Warmest Year on Record Globally (But Not in California)",
"headTitle": "2015 Was the Warmest Year on Record Globally (But Not in California) | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>2015 goes into the books as the warmest year the Earth has experienced since 1880, when official records began. And the record was not merely set, but shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combining land and ocean surface temperatures, the global average for the year was 1.62°F (0.9°C) above the 20\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century average, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201512\">data gathered by federal climate scientists\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-482846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg\" alt=\"California_-map_temps copy\" width=\"394\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-400x472.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-768x906.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1440x1698.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1920x2264.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1180x1391.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-960x1132.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy.jpg 1949w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\">The extreme temperatures were evenly distributed worldwide and part of the “long-term trend,” says Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and would have been unprecedented even without the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/el-nino/\">warm El Niño conditions\u003c/a> that have prevailed in the Pacific Ocean for much of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both sea and land temperatures set new highs individually, but land temperatures in particular were way out into record territory, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.45°F (0.25°C).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time since 2000 that the global temperature record has been broken. Only two months — January and April — did not set temperature records globally, the first time that 10 months of any given year have all set high-temperature marks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2015 was also the year that Earth officially reached one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels (about 250 years ago), exactly halfway to the 2-degree international target established for halting global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California did not set a new mark for high temperatures, contrary to some expectations. 2015 clocked in as California’s second-warmest calendar year. Averaged over the state as a whole, 2015 fell about one degree (Fahrenheit) shy of the record set in 2014, and came in\u003cbr>\nabout one degree above the 3rd-warmest year, 1934.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[gallery type=\"slideshow\" columns=\"1\" ids=\"482587\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually surprised that it was as warm as it was,” says Kelly Redmond, climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California might’ve seen a new record were it not for a series of cold storms from the Gulf of Alaska that swept across Northern California in December. Kelly says temperatures for much of the year hovered around the normal range. The first three months of the year were all warmer than normal, setting expectations that 2015 might punch through the record-warm year of 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual years aside, scientists say they expect the general warming trend to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The factors that are causing this long-term trend are continuing to accelerate,” says Schmidt, referring to the worldwide burning of fossil fuels that generates greenhouse gases, and the deforestation that reduces the land’s ability to absorb them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re gonna be betting,” adds Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, “I’d bet that 2016 will be warmer than 2015.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>2015 goes into the books as the warmest year the Earth has experienced since 1880, when official records began. And the record was not merely set, but shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combining land and ocean surface temperatures, the global average for the year was 1.62°F (0.9°C) above the 20\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century average, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201512\">data gathered by federal climate scientists\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-482846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg\" alt=\"California_-map_temps copy\" width=\"394\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-800x943.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-400x472.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-768x906.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1440x1698.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1920x2264.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-1180x1391.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy-960x1132.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/California_-map_temps-copy.jpg 1949w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\">The extreme temperatures were evenly distributed worldwide and part of the “long-term trend,” says Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and would have been unprecedented even without the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/el-nino/\">warm El Niño conditions\u003c/a> that have prevailed in the Pacific Ocean for much of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both sea and land temperatures set new highs individually, but land temperatures in particular were way out into record territory, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.45°F (0.25°C).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time since 2000 that the global temperature record has been broken. Only two months — January and April — did not set temperature records globally, the first time that 10 months of any given year have all set high-temperature marks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2015 was also the year that Earth officially reached one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels (about 250 years ago), exactly halfway to the 2-degree international target established for halting global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California did not set a new mark for high temperatures, contrary to some expectations. 2015 clocked in as California’s second-warmest calendar year. Averaged over the state as a whole, 2015 fell about one degree (Fahrenheit) shy of the record set in 2014, and came in\u003cbr>\nabout one degree above the 3rd-warmest year, 1934.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually surprised that it was as warm as it was,” says Kelly Redmond, climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California might’ve seen a new record were it not for a series of cold storms from the Gulf of Alaska that swept across Northern California in December. Kelly says temperatures for much of the year hovered around the normal range. The first three months of the year were all warmer than normal, setting expectations that 2015 might punch through the record-warm year of 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual years aside, scientists say they expect the general warming trend to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The factors that are causing this long-term trend are continuing to accelerate,” says Schmidt, referring to the worldwide burning of fossil fuels that generates greenhouse gases, and the deforestation that reduces the land’s ability to absorb them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re gonna be betting,” adds Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, “I’d bet that 2016 will be warmer than 2015.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Would You Pay $12 a Year to Fight Sea Level Rise?",
"headTitle": "Would You Pay $12 a Year to Fight Sea Level Rise? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Billions of dollars of infrastructure around San Francisco Bay are sitting in the path of rising sea levels, including homes, roads and tech company offices. And a coalition of environmental and business groups is hoping Bay Area residents will help pay to protect it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods.”\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>David Lewis, Save the Bay\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In June, residents in nine Bay Area counties will vote on a new $12 a year parcel tax, designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two decades to restore wetlands and build levees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A specially-appointed council, the \u003ca href=\"http://sfbayrestore.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority\u003c/a>, voted Wednesday to have the measure placed on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco counties. Each region of the bay would be guaranteed a certain amount of the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods,” says David Lewis, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>. “They can act like a sponge during times of high tides and floods and soak up extra water, instead of having that water pile up against communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists say sea levels could rise up to two feet by 2050, inundating today’s shoreline. Add to that the flooding from a catastrophic storm, and the damage could cost the Bay Area more than $10 billion, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/storm-flood-protection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much seas will rise by the end of the century depends partly on what we do to mitigate global warming; scientists say \u003ca href=\"http://www.adaptingtorisingtides.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NAS_SLR_brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the range\u003c/a> is from 17 inches to 66 inches. Add to that a storm surge of more than three feet, and we could end up with waves crashing in 8 feet higher than they do today. This map showing what \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/news/searise/2015-07/as-science-gets-better-dramatic-sea-rise-seems-more-certain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">8 feet of sea level rise\u003c/a> would mean in Bay Area counties is from the \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/searise\">San Francisco Public Press’ 2015 summer cover story\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"800\" mozallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen src=\"https://amandabee.cartodb.com/viz/00d63d00-3598-11e5-adac-0e018d66dc29/embed_map\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 90 percent of the wetlands around San Francisco Bay have been lost, with many diked off and filled in as communities around the bay expanded. About 30,000 acres are awaiting restoration, Lewis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the South Bay, some 15,000 acres of former \u003ca href=\"http://www.southbayrestoration.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are being restored\u003c/a>, but the project still needs millions more in funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a crucial time to start this work and raise the money that can restore marshes now,” says Lewis. “The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it is to restore tidal marsh, once sea level starts increasing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to restoring wildlife habitat, wetlands and levees could protect important roads, highways, wastewater treatment plants and even tech companies. The headquarters of Facebook, Google, Cisco and more than a dozen others sit right on the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”Hv6icoIVCCvB24JQKHiyiQlcaMeByR0f”]“This concerns the health and welfare of the entire region,” says Mike Mielke of the\u003ca href=\"http://svlg.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Silicon Valley Leadership Group\u003c/a>. “It’s that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the measure will have to make that case to the entire Bay Area, including residents who don’t live next to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if your daily commute doesn’t take you near the water’s edge, if there’s a significant problem on the roadway because of flooding, that is going to impact you, because people are going to change the way they get to work and commute,” says Mielke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $500 million from the new parcel tax is only about a third of what’s needed to restore more than 30,000 acres around the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good first step,” says Mielke. “We’re going to need money from the state and we’re going to need money from the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parcel tax measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, not within each county, but across all nine counties where residents will vote.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Billions of dollars of infrastructure around San Francisco Bay are sitting in the path of rising sea levels, including homes, roads and tech company offices. And a coalition of environmental and business groups is hoping Bay Area residents will help pay to protect it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods.”\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>David Lewis, Save the Bay\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In June, residents in nine Bay Area counties will vote on a new $12 a year parcel tax, designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two decades to restore wetlands and build levees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A specially-appointed council, the \u003ca href=\"http://sfbayrestore.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority\u003c/a>, voted Wednesday to have the measure placed on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco counties. Each region of the bay would be guaranteed a certain amount of the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wetlands are like magic when it comes to protecting against floods,” says David Lewis, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.savesfbay.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save the Bay\u003c/a>. “They can act like a sponge during times of high tides and floods and soak up extra water, instead of having that water pile up against communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists say sea levels could rise up to two feet by 2050, inundating today’s shoreline. Add to that the flooding from a catastrophic storm, and the damage could cost the Bay Area more than $10 billion, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/storm-flood-protection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much seas will rise by the end of the century depends partly on what we do to mitigate global warming; scientists say \u003ca href=\"http://www.adaptingtorisingtides.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NAS_SLR_brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the range\u003c/a> is from 17 inches to 66 inches. Add to that a storm surge of more than three feet, and we could end up with waves crashing in 8 feet higher than they do today. This map showing what \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/news/searise/2015-07/as-science-gets-better-dramatic-sea-rise-seems-more-certain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">8 feet of sea level rise\u003c/a> would mean in Bay Area counties is from the \u003ca href=\"http://sfpublicpress.org/searise\">San Francisco Public Press’ 2015 summer cover story\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"800\" mozallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen src=\"https://amandabee.cartodb.com/viz/00d63d00-3598-11e5-adac-0e018d66dc29/embed_map\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 90 percent of the wetlands around San Francisco Bay have been lost, with many diked off and filled in as communities around the bay expanded. About 30,000 acres are awaiting restoration, Lewis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the South Bay, some 15,000 acres of former \u003ca href=\"http://www.southbayrestoration.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are being restored\u003c/a>, but the project still needs millions more in funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a crucial time to start this work and raise the money that can restore marshes now,” says Lewis. “The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it is to restore tidal marsh, once sea level starts increasing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to restoring wildlife habitat, wetlands and levees could protect important roads, highways, wastewater treatment plants and even tech companies. The headquarters of Facebook, Google, Cisco and more than a dozen others sit right on the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>“This concerns the health and welfare of the entire region,” says Mike Mielke of the\u003ca href=\"http://svlg.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Silicon Valley Leadership Group\u003c/a>. “It’s that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the measure will have to make that case to the entire Bay Area, including residents who don’t live next to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if your daily commute doesn’t take you near the water’s edge, if there’s a significant problem on the roadway because of flooding, that is going to impact you, because people are going to change the way they get to work and commute,” says Mielke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $500 million from the new parcel tax is only about a third of what’s needed to restore more than 30,000 acres around the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good first step,” says Mielke. “We’re going to need money from the state and we’re going to need money from the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parcel tax measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, not within each county, but across all nine counties where residents will vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The third \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We sailed through the Southern Ocean as night ran out on us. Then it was endless day, and that’s when we began seeing ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started with a mountain that sailed by, one of the tabular icebergs that Operations Officer Lt. Joel Wright described in a briefing with officers who’d be driving the ship through the ice as “big-time Chiclets.” Some of the bigger tabular icebergs are numbered and tracked across the ocean and are the size of cities. This one was about a quarter-mile long and stood 193 feet out of the water, according to somebody deft with a sextant. So, going by the rule of thumb, it extended nine times that distance beneath the surface. That’s not even worth naming, size-wise, but it drew sailors to the bow to snap photos as the thing crept by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what I know about ice came from that briefing from Wright. The big takeaway, at least as far as piloting the ship, is that though Polar Star is classed as an icebreaker, it’s really an icedodger until it absolutely has to go through it. That’s how you keep a 40-year-old ship viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s the easiest way through ice?” Wright asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around it,” said somebody. Correct answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the meeting, spirits were high: some of these officers would be piloting through ice for the first time. Imagine the power to push a 399-foot ship through six feet of ice. Imagine having 75,000 horsepower vibrating under your hands. Even I was seduced, and I wasn’t driving. American power!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-466974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-400x254.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready.jpg 989w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then the lights went out. Everything was quiet, and then everything was loud. Sailors ran to emergency stations. “The last time this happened,” Wright said before rushing out, “we blew our switchboard.” He was smiling, but it was the smile of someone trying not to worry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, right as Polar Star was about to pull in to Valparaiso, one of the main switchboards blew out. That switchboard controlled ventilation, lighting, and refrigeration to parts of the ship. For a few days after, electricity usage was restricted. I asked Master Chief Tom Stone, a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard and resident ship-whisperer, who was also onboard last year, how long it took them to decide what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much knew immediately,” he said. “Whenever you have a switchboard fire like that they’re gonna send you home.” After some rerouting, Polar Star limped straight back to Seattle, forgoing Valparaiso and other port calls. What everyone was worried about this time was another mission-ending crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466698\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466698\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg\" alt=\"Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship's three service diesel generators, which provide "hotel" services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship’s three service diesel generators, which provide “hotel” services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Time was, there were many icebreakers in the American fleet. The Navy used to handle the icebreaker program, sending half a dozen ships to the poles and places like Greenland. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Operation Deep Freeze\u003c/a> started in the 1950s to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">research at McMurdo\u003c/a>, and that continued to be the mission when the Navy handed over the icebreaker program to the Coast Guard in 1965. Since then the supply of ships has dwindled as old ones have been retired and new ones have \u003ca href=\"http://news.usni.org/2015/02/25/coast-guard-analysis-says-u-s-needs-3-heavy-and-3-medium-icebreakers-path-to-ships-unclear\">languished on the drawing board\u003c/a>. Polar Star was commissioned in 1976, her sister ship \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcpolarsea/\">Polar Sea in 1979\u003c/a>. For a long time they’d cover the poles and other places. Then they were taking turns going south. They’ve had things blowing up and breaking down since they were commissioned. (Polar Star ran aground two days after it was launched.) It’s in the nature of the ships, and the nature of the mission. Stay up after midnight and you’ll hear the ghosts of alarms past yowling in the corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally they’d carry scientists, though the polar-class icebreakers have always been intended for operational support. This is Cold War thinking: make sure we have a little red tub of Ameri-can vigor ready to go to the farthest reaches. Still, science was such a standard that on the old-timey plaques above the doors here (there’s one reading “Soda Fountain” over the door of what is now the “Polar Starbucks” (not affiliated with the Seattle-based coffee corporation) you’ll see more than a few labeled “Scientist Stateroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1999, \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/\">the Healy\u003c/a> was commissioned, a medium-duty icebreaker that goes north to the Arctic and carries scientists on a variety of missions. In the last decade things get hairy. The Polars continue to be costly to maintain. Engineering problems in 2006 forced Polar Star into what’s called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/958353-129/the-coast-guards-woeful-icebreakers\">caretaker” status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, for funding reasons that have remained vague and that I hope this trip will shed some light on, both the Polar Sea and the Healy went north while the National Science Foundation, which funds part of the Deep Freeze missions, instead leased icebreakers from Sweden and Russia to sweep up the channel in front of the Antarctic station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010 Polar Sea, after extensive renovations, broke. Polar Star had a $57 million rejuvenation and, now, this is the fourth trip since Polar Star was reactivated in 2012. In (American) summer 2013 she went to the Arctic to see how she fared; the winter of 2013-14 was the first time she’d gone south in nearly a decade. This, then, is her \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">third trip to Antarctica since reactivation\u003c/a>. For those who were around since she was fired up again, this is the first time since 2012 that things are (more or less) running smoothly. The mission, like the icebreaker fleet, has been scaled down. There are a few scientists running around onboard, but the one and only goal of Polar Star now is to break into McMurdo. After that she goes almost straightaway in for repairs, having no relief. Last year she was away from home 320 days, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">much of that in a Vallejo dry dock\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg\" alt=\"Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. In the back-ground is a life-sized ice sculpture of Monument Valley.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Congressional priorities shift and icebreaking looms less in the public consciousness than more local concerns, the icebreaker well has dried up. Now there’s just Polar Star out here. (Healy made the trip south a few years back and didn’t handle it well.) So if she breaks, there are no more. And if she breaks out here, no one’s coming for us. This gets into territory covered by what’s called the wintering-over bill, a document that details spending a year on the ship, in the ice, in the event of a catastrophic casualty. It looms in the minds of these sailors somewhere between Lord of the Flies and a probably-very-compelling reality show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’ll loom a little more in their minds, and mine, as we get closer to Marble Point, 42 miles from McMurdo. We’re going there to resupply a fuel depot after leaving McMurdo. The ice there is older and thicker. There may be a big-time Chiclet in the way. That’s when the wintering-over bill may seem most relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, though, it wasn’t a mission-ending casualty. Everyone tucked away their dreams of beards and penguin-hunting parties for another day. A diesel generator overheated and blew a transformer, shifting the load to another generator which was having absolutely none of it, so it too shut off. The emergency generator kicked in, there was some rerouting, and after a few hours, we were back up and running. I hear tell that there may be a new transformer waiting for us at McMurdo. This ship is powered by rumor as much as diesel, though, so we shall see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, it has become clear to me that alarm bells and breakages are not only common but constant. In a ship with this many moving parts, under these conditions, at any given time, something, or someone, is quietly planning to go sideways. There are as many possible mishaps as there are kinds of ice in these variable seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Ice Liberty\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The third \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We sailed through the Southern Ocean as night ran out on us. Then it was endless day, and that’s when we began seeing ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started with a mountain that sailed by, one of the tabular icebergs that Operations Officer Lt. Joel Wright described in a briefing with officers who’d be driving the ship through the ice as “big-time Chiclets.” Some of the bigger tabular icebergs are numbered and tracked across the ocean and are the size of cities. This one was about a quarter-mile long and stood 193 feet out of the water, according to somebody deft with a sextant. So, going by the rule of thumb, it extended nine times that distance beneath the surface. That’s not even worth naming, size-wise, but it drew sailors to the bow to snap photos as the thing crept by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what I know about ice came from that briefing from Wright. The big takeaway, at least as far as piloting the ship, is that though Polar Star is classed as an icebreaker, it’s really an icedodger until it absolutely has to go through it. That’s how you keep a 40-year-old ship viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s the easiest way through ice?” Wright asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around it,” said somebody. Correct answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the meeting, spirits were high: some of these officers would be piloting through ice for the first time. Imagine the power to push a 399-foot ship through six feet of ice. Imagine having 75,000 horsepower vibrating under your hands. Even I was seduced, and I wasn’t driving. American power!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-466974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-400x254.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready.jpg 989w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then the lights went out. Everything was quiet, and then everything was loud. Sailors ran to emergency stations. “The last time this happened,” Wright said before rushing out, “we blew our switchboard.” He was smiling, but it was the smile of someone trying not to worry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, right as Polar Star was about to pull in to Valparaiso, one of the main switchboards blew out. That switchboard controlled ventilation, lighting, and refrigeration to parts of the ship. For a few days after, electricity usage was restricted. I asked Master Chief Tom Stone, a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard and resident ship-whisperer, who was also onboard last year, how long it took them to decide what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much knew immediately,” he said. “Whenever you have a switchboard fire like that they’re gonna send you home.” After some rerouting, Polar Star limped straight back to Seattle, forgoing Valparaiso and other port calls. What everyone was worried about this time was another mission-ending crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466698\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466698\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg\" alt=\"Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship's three service diesel generators, which provide "hotel" services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship’s three service diesel generators, which provide “hotel” services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Time was, there were many icebreakers in the American fleet. The Navy used to handle the icebreaker program, sending half a dozen ships to the poles and places like Greenland. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Operation Deep Freeze\u003c/a> started in the 1950s to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">research at McMurdo\u003c/a>, and that continued to be the mission when the Navy handed over the icebreaker program to the Coast Guard in 1965. Since then the supply of ships has dwindled as old ones have been retired and new ones have \u003ca href=\"http://news.usni.org/2015/02/25/coast-guard-analysis-says-u-s-needs-3-heavy-and-3-medium-icebreakers-path-to-ships-unclear\">languished on the drawing board\u003c/a>. Polar Star was commissioned in 1976, her sister ship \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcpolarsea/\">Polar Sea in 1979\u003c/a>. For a long time they’d cover the poles and other places. Then they were taking turns going south. They’ve had things blowing up and breaking down since they were commissioned. (Polar Star ran aground two days after it was launched.) It’s in the nature of the ships, and the nature of the mission. Stay up after midnight and you’ll hear the ghosts of alarms past yowling in the corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally they’d carry scientists, though the polar-class icebreakers have always been intended for operational support. This is Cold War thinking: make sure we have a little red tub of Ameri-can vigor ready to go to the farthest reaches. Still, science was such a standard that on the old-timey plaques above the doors here (there’s one reading “Soda Fountain” over the door of what is now the “Polar Starbucks” (not affiliated with the Seattle-based coffee corporation) you’ll see more than a few labeled “Scientist Stateroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1999, \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/\">the Healy\u003c/a> was commissioned, a medium-duty icebreaker that goes north to the Arctic and carries scientists on a variety of missions. In the last decade things get hairy. The Polars continue to be costly to maintain. Engineering problems in 2006 forced Polar Star into what’s called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/958353-129/the-coast-guards-woeful-icebreakers\">caretaker” status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, for funding reasons that have remained vague and that I hope this trip will shed some light on, both the Polar Sea and the Healy went north while the National Science Foundation, which funds part of the Deep Freeze missions, instead leased icebreakers from Sweden and Russia to sweep up the channel in front of the Antarctic station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010 Polar Sea, after extensive renovations, broke. Polar Star had a $57 million rejuvenation and, now, this is the fourth trip since Polar Star was reactivated in 2012. In (American) summer 2013 she went to the Arctic to see how she fared; the winter of 2013-14 was the first time she’d gone south in nearly a decade. This, then, is her \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">third trip to Antarctica since reactivation\u003c/a>. For those who were around since she was fired up again, this is the first time since 2012 that things are (more or less) running smoothly. The mission, like the icebreaker fleet, has been scaled down. There are a few scientists running around onboard, but the one and only goal of Polar Star now is to break into McMurdo. After that she goes almost straightaway in for repairs, having no relief. Last year she was away from home 320 days, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">much of that in a Vallejo dry dock\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg\" alt=\"Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. In the back-ground is a life-sized ice sculpture of Monument Valley.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Congressional priorities shift and icebreaking looms less in the public consciousness than more local concerns, the icebreaker well has dried up. Now there’s just Polar Star out here. (Healy made the trip south a few years back and didn’t handle it well.) So if she breaks, there are no more. And if she breaks out here, no one’s coming for us. This gets into territory covered by what’s called the wintering-over bill, a document that details spending a year on the ship, in the ice, in the event of a catastrophic casualty. It looms in the minds of these sailors somewhere between Lord of the Flies and a probably-very-compelling reality show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’ll loom a little more in their minds, and mine, as we get closer to Marble Point, 42 miles from McMurdo. We’re going there to resupply a fuel depot after leaving McMurdo. The ice there is older and thicker. There may be a big-time Chiclet in the way. That’s when the wintering-over bill may seem most relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, though, it wasn’t a mission-ending casualty. Everyone tucked away their dreams of beards and penguin-hunting parties for another day. A diesel generator overheated and blew a transformer, shifting the load to another generator which was having absolutely none of it, so it too shut off. The emergency generator kicked in, there was some rerouting, and after a few hours, we were back up and running. I hear tell that there may be a new transformer waiting for us at McMurdo. This ship is powered by rumor as much as diesel, though, so we shall see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, it has become clear to me that alarm bells and breakages are not only common but constant. In a ship with this many moving parts, under these conditions, at any given time, something, or someone, is quietly planning to go sideways. There are as many possible mishaps as there are kinds of ice in these variable seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Ice Liberty\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "When Will California’s Drought End? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>This winter’s first big storms, fueled by El Niño, soaked much of the Bay Area in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s been a flurry of attention to the gradually rebuilding Sierra snowpack, the “frozen reservoir” that meets about a third of the state’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/241071442″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=’166′ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But depleted reservoirs are still catching up. December rains added \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_29343070/first-big-el-nino-storms-hit-california-bring\">293 billion gallons\u003c/a> to the 154 major state and federal reservoirs in California, which sounds substantial. But by December’s end, that was still only 31 percent of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And rain totals have been both literally and figuratively all over the map.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many parts of Northwestern California have been soaked—Eureka is at \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNOWRKCLI.php\">128 percent of normal\u003c/a> precipitation for this time of year. While sections of the Bay Area, like Oakland airport, are at \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNOWRKCLI.php\">74 percent of normal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_458971\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-458971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Traffic plows through flood waters in San Francisco during early January rains.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Traffic plows through flood waters in San Francisco during early January rains. \u003ccite>(Olivia Allen-Price)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With more rain expected this week, one question looms: when will California be out of a drought?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Three Things That Would End the Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legally, it’s when Governor Jerry Brown declares it over. However, scientific experts say three things would signify the drought’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A replenished groundwater supply (but that could take 50 years)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Making up for our rainfall deficit (that’d likely take over a year)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Full reservoirs\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The last scenario would really indicate the end of a drought, according to many experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on past drought-busting years, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/background.cfm\">state Department of Water Resources estimates\u003c/a> that precipitation would need to reach about 150 percent of average — about 75 inches — in key Northern California watersheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, is currently only 33 percent full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more detail on El Niño, the drought and what to expect in the weeks ahead, KQED news anchor Danielle Venton spoke with Paul Rogers, KQED’s managing editor for science. You can listen to their audio interview at the top of the story.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After heavy rain, the Sierra snowpack is finally above average and reservoirs are gaining water, so when will the drought be over?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This winter’s first big storms, fueled by El Niño, soaked much of the Bay Area in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s been a flurry of attention to the gradually rebuilding Sierra snowpack, the “frozen reservoir” that meets about a third of the state’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='’166′'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/241071442″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/241071442″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But depleted reservoirs are still catching up. December rains added \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_29343070/first-big-el-nino-storms-hit-california-bring\">293 billion gallons\u003c/a> to the 154 major state and federal reservoirs in California, which sounds substantial. But by December’s end, that was still only 31 percent of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And rain totals have been both literally and figuratively all over the map.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many parts of Northwestern California have been soaked—Eureka is at \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNOWRKCLI.php\">128 percent of normal\u003c/a> precipitation for this time of year. While sections of the Bay Area, like Oakland airport, are at \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNOWRKCLI.php\">74 percent of normal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_458971\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-458971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Traffic plows through flood waters in San Francisco during early January rains.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS17955_IMG_2112-qut-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Traffic plows through flood waters in San Francisco during early January rains. \u003ccite>(Olivia Allen-Price)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With more rain expected this week, one question looms: when will California be out of a drought?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Three Things That Would End the Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legally, it’s when Governor Jerry Brown declares it over. However, scientific experts say three things would signify the drought’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A replenished groundwater supply (but that could take 50 years)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Making up for our rainfall deficit (that’d likely take over a year)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Full reservoirs\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The last scenario would really indicate the end of a drought, according to many experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on past drought-busting years, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/background.cfm\">state Department of Water Resources estimates\u003c/a> that precipitation would need to reach about 150 percent of average — about 75 inches — in key Northern California watersheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, is currently only 33 percent full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more detail on El Niño, the drought and what to expect in the weeks ahead, KQED news anchor Danielle Venton spoke with Paul Rogers, KQED’s managing editor for science. You can listen to their audio interview at the top of the story.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Southern Lights and struggling into a Gumby suit are just the beginning. The ice still lies ahead.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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