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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?",
"headTitle": "Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker? | KQED",
"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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"title": "Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage",
"headTitle": "Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage | KQED",
"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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"excerpt": "The fourth in a series of dispatches, this piece describes Brandon Reynolds' experiences aboard Polar Star, an aging US Coast Guard ship. ",
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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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"excerpt": "Voters in all Bay Area counties will be answering this question on the June ballot.",
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"title": "Would You Pay $12 a Year to Fight Sea Level Rise? | KQED",
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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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"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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"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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"disqusTitle": "Brown Declares State of Emergency Over Porter Ranch Gas Leak",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Wednesday over a massive natural gas leak that has been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/23/porter-ranch-residents-at-wits-end-over-months-old-gas-leak\">spewing fumes into the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch\u003c/a> for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Brown said he acted based on the requests of Porter Ranch residents and the \"prolonged and continuing\" nature of the gas blowout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The well, at SoCalGas' nearby Aliso Canyon underground storage facility, has been spewing up to 1,200 tons of methane daily, along with other gases. The leak was first reported in October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"teHgVZos0vf8TiLzUD0LAZhT6k39E61Q\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas is paying to relocate thousands of households after residents complained that the gases were making them sick. They say they have suffered nosebleeds, nausea, headaches and other ailments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles school board already have declared the crisis a state of emergency, moving students out of two schools in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/08/l-a-sues-socal-gas-over-month-long-porter-ranch-leak\">filed a lawsuit against SoCalGas\u003c/a> in December, claiming the ongoing leak is worsening climate change by emitting the same amount of greenhouse gas in one hour as 200,000 cars running for one year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10823875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-10823875\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1440x964.jpg\" alt=\"Madison Zimmitti (R) a third-grader at Castlebay Charter Elementary School, stopped attending classes after intense fumes from the gas leak made her sick, Madison’s mother says.\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1440x964.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-400x268.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-800x535.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-768x514.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1180x790.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-960x643.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madison Zimmitti (R) a third-grader at Castlebay Charter Elementary School, stopped attending classes after intense fumes from the gas leak made her sick, Madison’s mother says. \u003ccite>(Chris Richard/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Resident Matt Pakucko, the head of a community group that has been pushing for the state declaration, said he cried when he heard about the governor's order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pakucko, speaking from a hotel where the gas company had moved him and his girlfriend, said he faced some doubts from his community about pressing the governor to declare an emergency. He said he had his own concerns that Brown might not take strong enough action, but was pleased in the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm not worried about being validated or vindicated, but that people get what they need,\" he said. \"And that's what we've been pushing for.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor's move, among other measures, directs efforts by California agencies in stopping the leak, and it orders emergency regulations for other gas storage facilities throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aliso Canyon site is one of the country's largest underground natural gas storage facilities and can hold enough natural gas to fuel Southern California for a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown toured the site of the leak for the first time earlier this week. The governor previously has resisted local calls for a state declaration, saying he wanted to make sure the utility, rather than the state, bore the financial cost.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Wednesday over a massive natural gas leak that has been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/23/porter-ranch-residents-at-wits-end-over-months-old-gas-leak\">spewing fumes into the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch\u003c/a> for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Brown said he acted based on the requests of Porter Ranch residents and the \"prolonged and continuing\" nature of the gas blowout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The well, at SoCalGas' nearby Aliso Canyon underground storage facility, has been spewing up to 1,200 tons of methane daily, along with other gases. The leak was first reported in October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas is paying to relocate thousands of households after residents complained that the gases were making them sick. They say they have suffered nosebleeds, nausea, headaches and other ailments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles school board already have declared the crisis a state of emergency, moving students out of two schools in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/08/l-a-sues-socal-gas-over-month-long-porter-ranch-leak\">filed a lawsuit against SoCalGas\u003c/a> in December, claiming the ongoing leak is worsening climate change by emitting the same amount of greenhouse gas in one hour as 200,000 cars running for one year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10823875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-10823875\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1440x964.jpg\" alt=\"Madison Zimmitti (R) a third-grader at Castlebay Charter Elementary School, stopped attending classes after intense fumes from the gas leak made her sick, Madison’s mother says.\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1440x964.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-400x268.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-800x535.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-768x514.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-1180x790.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/PRanchProtest-960x643.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madison Zimmitti (R) a third-grader at Castlebay Charter Elementary School, stopped attending classes after intense fumes from the gas leak made her sick, Madison’s mother says. \u003ccite>(Chris Richard/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Resident Matt Pakucko, the head of a community group that has been pushing for the state declaration, said he cried when he heard about the governor's order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pakucko, speaking from a hotel where the gas company had moved him and his girlfriend, said he faced some doubts from his community about pressing the governor to declare an emergency. He said he had his own concerns that Brown might not take strong enough action, but was pleased in the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm not worried about being validated or vindicated, but that people get what they need,\" he said. \"And that's what we've been pushing for.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor's move, among other measures, directs efforts by California agencies in stopping the leak, and it orders emergency regulations for other gas storage facilities throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aliso Canyon site is one of the country's largest underground natural gas storage facilities and can hold enough natural gas to fuel Southern California for a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown toured the site of the leak for the first time earlier this week. The governor previously has resisted local calls for a state declaration, saying he wanted to make sure the utility, rather than the state, bore the financial cost.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker -- And What's at Stake for Science",
"headTitle": "Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker — And What’s at Stake for Science | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The first \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>\u003cstrong>Aboard the Disoriented Express\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m pretty sure. Since I left the United States, I’ve leapt forward a day, landed in Hobart, Tasmania, ate wallaby tacos at a food festival beside the harbor, and set sail on a ship called Polar Star, heading south to Antarctica, but because the world is round, we’re also heading east, toward South America. See for yourself. Don’t look on a map, maps lie. Look on a globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyway, soon after departure came an announcement that we were leaping another two hours forward, time zones be damned, to catch up to where we’re heading. It’s the law of the sea, I suppose. Somewhere out there is ice, which will look, I imagine, like nothing so much as nothing at all — like the ocean doesn’t end so much as is erased past a certain point. Which is what the ship is here to correct, to restore ocean to the nothingness. It’s an icebreaker. On the other side of all that ice is Antarctica, where the clocks are set two hours ahead to McMurdo Standard Time, as, now, are ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think it’s New Year’s Eve. Scheduled for later, I hear is a party out on the helipad, or the fantail, whatever the back end of the ship is. Fake champagne will be served and everyone will be caught wearing the exact same thing and no one will be scandalized by this. We’re 21 hours ahead of the West Coast, so we’re practically the first people in the world who will celebrate the new year, and so this, the uniforms and the pretending-at-booze, this is the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_452752\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-452752 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg\" alt=\"The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation's only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1920x1281.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1180x787.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation’s only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Into the Deep Freeze\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trip is called Operation Deep Freeze, this ship is called Polar Star. It belongs to the Coast Guard which means, essentially, it belongs to you, if you’re American. (This will be important to keep in mind as we consider the looming costs associated with the mission.) \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Polar Star is a heavy icebreaker\u003c/a>, as opposed to a light or medium icebreaker, which means it can go pretty much anywhere there’s ice. Its mission is to cut a channel in the ice off the Ross Ice Shelf, where is located \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, a launching point for research on the continent. Polar Star opens the channel and then “grooms” it for supply ships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star is going to be 40 next year. That’s old for a ship doing this kind of work. It was supposed to have been retired at 30, but the billion dollars to build a new one has not been forthcoming from Congress. Nor the hundred-plus million required to get Polar Sea, the Star’s sister ship, back up and running. Right now she’s in semi-permanent hibernation in a dry-dock somewhere in Portland. Polar Star cannibalizes Polar Sea for parts, like a twin devouring its mate in utero, which gosh is a lurid image, and I’m sorry. It’s the vulgarity of the sea, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1035\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-400x518.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-768x994.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1440x1864.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1920x2485.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1180x1527.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-960x1242.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\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. \u003ccite>(David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right, so: what am I doing here. I’ll be sailing with Polar Star and its 160 souls for the next two months, from Hobart to McMurdo, from McMurdo to Valparaiso, Chile. Here come stories about small-town kids embroiled in adventure, about the various species of seasickness (everyone suffers differently, together), about how the ship is slowly but surely, a circuit board here, a screw there, becoming a different ship, and about a small community as far away as you can possibly be and still be on Earth. They’re going to a place whose importance in the future of the planet is a thing of some debate, climate-wise, and so the ship’s importance is also a thing worth considering. There will be stories about Antarctica, too, we all hope, which is its own strange world of strong personalities, scientific endeavor, and (I have to assume) beards, all built upon the immortal ruins of older attempts at discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What else. Getting these dispatches out is its own saga, involving orbital satellites and obscure communications companies and the preciousness of bandwidth. But hopefully there will be some delightful melange of word/photo/audio/video, in descending order of probability. We are very far away, I must stress that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Confession\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I fell asleep an hour before midnight because my head’s still ascramble and every day further south, night grows shorter until it’ll cease to be. I awoke to a shadowy sailor at the threshold, saying something about something I needed to see right away. What time is it, I asked, like that made any difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Mystery from the Sky!\u003c/em>\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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"excerpt": "In which our hero takes on Antarctica by icebreaker, for an inside look at an aging ship, a shrinking fleet, and the risks those pose to the future of polar science.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The first \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>\u003cstrong>Aboard the Disoriented Express\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m pretty sure. Since I left the United States, I’ve leapt forward a day, landed in Hobart, Tasmania, ate wallaby tacos at a food festival beside the harbor, and set sail on a ship called Polar Star, heading south to Antarctica, but because the world is round, we’re also heading east, toward South America. See for yourself. Don’t look on a map, maps lie. Look on a globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyway, soon after departure came an announcement that we were leaping another two hours forward, time zones be damned, to catch up to where we’re heading. It’s the law of the sea, I suppose. Somewhere out there is ice, which will look, I imagine, like nothing so much as nothing at all — like the ocean doesn’t end so much as is erased past a certain point. Which is what the ship is here to correct, to restore ocean to the nothingness. It’s an icebreaker. On the other side of all that ice is Antarctica, where the clocks are set two hours ahead to McMurdo Standard Time, as, now, are ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think it’s New Year’s Eve. Scheduled for later, I hear is a party out on the helipad, or the fantail, whatever the back end of the ship is. Fake champagne will be served and everyone will be caught wearing the exact same thing and no one will be scandalized by this. We’re 21 hours ahead of the West Coast, so we’re practically the first people in the world who will celebrate the new year, and so this, the uniforms and the pretending-at-booze, this is the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_452752\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-452752 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg\" alt=\"The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation's only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1920x1281.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1180x787.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation’s only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Into the Deep Freeze\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trip is called Operation Deep Freeze, this ship is called Polar Star. It belongs to the Coast Guard which means, essentially, it belongs to you, if you’re American. (This will be important to keep in mind as we consider the looming costs associated with the mission.) \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Polar Star is a heavy icebreaker\u003c/a>, as opposed to a light or medium icebreaker, which means it can go pretty much anywhere there’s ice. Its mission is to cut a channel in the ice off the Ross Ice Shelf, where is located \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, a launching point for research on the continent. Polar Star opens the channel and then “grooms” it for supply ships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star is going to be 40 next year. That’s old for a ship doing this kind of work. It was supposed to have been retired at 30, but the billion dollars to build a new one has not been forthcoming from Congress. Nor the hundred-plus million required to get Polar Sea, the Star’s sister ship, back up and running. Right now she’s in semi-permanent hibernation in a dry-dock somewhere in Portland. Polar Star cannibalizes Polar Sea for parts, like a twin devouring its mate in utero, which gosh is a lurid image, and I’m sorry. It’s the vulgarity of the sea, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1035\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-400x518.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-768x994.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1440x1864.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1920x2485.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1180x1527.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-960x1242.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\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. \u003ccite>(David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right, so: what am I doing here. I’ll be sailing with Polar Star and its 160 souls for the next two months, from Hobart to McMurdo, from McMurdo to Valparaiso, Chile. Here come stories about small-town kids embroiled in adventure, about the various species of seasickness (everyone suffers differently, together), about how the ship is slowly but surely, a circuit board here, a screw there, becoming a different ship, and about a small community as far away as you can possibly be and still be on Earth. They’re going to a place whose importance in the future of the planet is a thing of some debate, climate-wise, and so the ship’s importance is also a thing worth considering. There will be stories about Antarctica, too, we all hope, which is its own strange world of strong personalities, scientific endeavor, and (I have to assume) beards, all built upon the immortal ruins of older attempts at discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What else. Getting these dispatches out is its own saga, involving orbital satellites and obscure communications companies and the preciousness of bandwidth. But hopefully there will be some delightful melange of word/photo/audio/video, in descending order of probability. We are very far away, I must stress that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Confession\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I fell asleep an hour before midnight because my head’s still ascramble and every day further south, night grows shorter until it’ll cease to be. I awoke to a shadowy sailor at the threshold, saying something about something I needed to see right away. What time is it, I asked, like that made any difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Mystery from the Sky!\u003c/em>\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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"content": "\u003cp>It didn’t take an official measurement for Californians to start celebrating the presence of snow in the Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, still, drought watchers have anxiously awaited California’s version of Groundhog Day, the Sierra snow survey. Starting in December, the California Department of Water Resources sends a crew each month to a \u003ca id=\"rssmi_more\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/30/sierra-snowpack-survey-drought\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read More …\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Source:: \u003ca title=\"There’s Snow in the Sierras, But Not Enough Yet\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/30/sierra-snowpack-survey-drought\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Newsfix – Science\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It didn’t take an official measurement for Californians to start celebrating the presence of snow in the Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, still, drought watchers have anxiously awaited California’s version of Groundhog Day, the Sierra snow survey. Starting in December, the California Department of Water Resources sends a crew each month to a \u003ca id=\"rssmi_more\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/30/sierra-snowpack-survey-drought\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read More …\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Source:: \u003ca title=\"There’s Snow in the Sierras, But Not Enough Yet\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/30/sierra-snowpack-survey-drought\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Newsfix – Science\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>From planetology to paleontology, 2015 was full of news in the Earth sciences. Ace this 20-question quiz and you’ll have plenty of planetary tidbits from KQED Science to quick-turn an awkward conversation at your holiday table. Who doesn’t need that?\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>It’s the ultimate selfie: NASA launched this satellite that hovers between Earth and the Sun, taking snapshots of the whole planet about 15 times a day. Do you know its name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Scientists reported that the ash from some volcanoes contains abundant spherules — glassy droplets as fine as powder — that don’t arise from the splashing and explosions of lava. What makes them instead?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sediments in the bottom of a rare sinkhole show that a very large tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9 quake in Alaska, struck this state about 500 years ago. What state is that?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A study showed that the coral-sand islands of the Maldives are maintained by the activity of parrotfish. What do the fish do?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Researchers found that parts of Mars contain hydrated minerals, as well as dark streaks in the ground that appear during the Martian summer. What did they conclude?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Last month, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose above a round number and will not go back below it in the foreseeable future. What is that number?\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_29853\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29853\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/04/Daisy-parrotfish-wikimedia.jpg\" alt=\"Daisy Parrotfish in the Maldives\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Species like the daisy parrotfish \u003ci>Chlorurus sordidus\u003c/i>, are a crucial link in the natural chain that builds dry land in the Maldives archipelago. \u003ccite>(Julien Bidet/Wikimedia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>Two groups of scientists called for research programs to study the invisible ecosystems of microscopic organisms found everywhere we look. What’s the name for those ecosystems?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Early this year a spacecraft named MESSENGER ended several years of planetary observations by crashing into its target. What is that planet?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back images of high mountain ranges, plus what look like volcanoes and glaciers, on a place it took more than 9 years to reach. What is that distant world?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A fossil study proposed that the ancient soft-bodied creatures called Ediacarans went extinct when newly evolved animals ruined their habitat. What scientist first proposed this kind of extinction?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In December, NOAA reported that the previous month was the warmest November ever recorded. How many record-breaking months in a row did that make?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A new National Monument was established in northern California that displays signs of dramatic geologic activity including the clash of tectonic plates, volcanic eruptions and the wrenching of modern earthquake faults. Do you know its name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>True or false? A strong El Niño has been active since early summer.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104383\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-104383\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-800x656.jpg\" alt=\"Head of Wendiceratops\" width=\"800\" height=\"656\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-800x656.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-400x328.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-960x787.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>, as reconstructed by scientific illustrator \u003ca href=\"http://www.ddufault.com/paleo.html\">Danielle Dufault\u003c/a> for the Royal Ontario Museum \u003ccite>(Danielle Dufault/PLOS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>Fossils of a three-horned dinosaur with a flamboyant bony frill behind its head were found in a Canadian park and assigned the name \u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>. Why that name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>After an earthquake rips the ground, you can walk around the fresh geological evidence taking snapshots, and scientists can turn those images into an accurate 3D model. What’s the name of that technique?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A widely used record of the Sun’s historical activity was revised, erasing an apparent increase in solar energy that some researchers used to argue against greenhouse warming. What is that record?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Researchers showed that the Hayward fault is closely connected to a neighboring fault, making it more likely than previously thought that both can rupture together in an earthquake the size of 1906’s Big One. What’s the second fault?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Clever observations by a spacecraft peeking through dense clouds yielded conclusive evidence of volcanoes caught in the act of erupting. What planet was this?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>After 100 years of guessing, a fossil study of stegosaurs — those big dinosaurs with the rows of bony plates down their backs — found a way to tell the males and females apart. What is it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The U.S. Geological Survey updated its long-term earthquake forecast this year. Which Bay Area earthquake fault is considered most likely to cause a major quake over the next few decades?\u003c/li>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the answers, each linked to its KQED Science story.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/10/20/nasas-new-snapshots-of-earth-from-a-satellite-far-far-away\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The “selfie satellite” is DSCOVR\u003c/a>, or Deep Space Climate Observatory.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/05/volcanoes-and-lightning-make-tiny-glass-balls-together/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The new variety of spherule is made\u003c/a> when lightning lashes the ash-filled clouds above erupting volcanoes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27883\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27883\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/galunggung-lightning-usgs.jpg\" alt=\"Volcanic lightning can melt ash into tiny spheres of glass\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volcanic lightning lashes the eruption cloud over Galunggung, in Indonesia, in this 1984 photo. This discharge of energy creates abundant tiny spheres of melted rock that mix with the ash as it settles earthward and enters the geologic cycle. \u003ccite>(U.S. Geological Survey)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/09/ancient-sinkhole-could-presage-mega-tsunami-for-hawaii/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hawaii is the state\u003c/a>, and the Makauwahi sinkhole in Kauai has the evidence.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/05/01/fish-help-build-coral-reef-islands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The parrotfish manufacture sand for the Maldives islands\u003c/a> by crunching on large corals and pooping out the grit.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/09/28/reports-nasa-to-announce-water-flows-on-mars-watch-live/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA scientists announced\u003c/a> they had “the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/19/co2-earth-passes-into-uncharted-territory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In mid-November the CO\u003csub>2\u003c/sub> level\u003c/a> at the standard observatory in Hawaii exceeded 400 parts per million, for good.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/05/whats-left-to-discover-about-microbes-pretty-much-everything/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">These worlds of microbes\u003c/a>, found in soils, our skins and our digestive tracts, are called microbiomes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/04/03/nasas-messenger-spacecraft-preparing-its-farewell-message-from-mercury/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The planet was Mercury\u003c/a>, the one nearest to the Sun.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/27/ice-volcanoes-on-pluto-whats-next/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Horizons found volcanoes of ice water\u003c/a> and glaciers of solid nitrogen on the dwarf planet Pluto.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_281380\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-281380\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"New Horizons' high-resolution color-enhanced portrait of Pluto exaggerated colors showing variations in surface composition and terrain.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Horizons’ high-resolution color-enhanced portrait of Pluto, exaggerated colors showing variations in surface composition and terrain. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/09/11/mass-extinctions-the-case-of-the-vanishing-ediacarans/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Unlike other mass extinctions\u003c/a>, which had catastrophic causes, the Ediacaran mass extinction is the first example ever found of “biotic replacement,” the mechanism proposed in 1859 by Charles Darwin.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/17/november-was-record-warm-month-for-globe-extending-streak/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In 2015, November was the seventh month in a row\u003c/a> that was the warmest on record.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/07/16/geologic-highlights-of-californias-new-national-monument/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The new park, in the heart of the Coast Range\u003c/a>, is Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, although lots of California parklands feature this kind of geology.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/06/11/burn-after-reading-big-el-nino-building-could-be-major-rainmaker-this-fall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">It’s true; El Niño is a tropical weather pattern\u003c/a> that was strong back in June, in the tropics, but it’s barely starting to affect California now in late December.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/07/09/wendys-ceratops-a-new-face-in-the-dinosaur-line/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>, an early relative of \u003ci>Triceratops\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, was named in honor of amateur fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda and the Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve, where its bones were dug up.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/19/after-an-earthquake-use-your-phone-camera-for-science/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The surprisingly effective image-stitching technique\u003c/a>, stereoscopic viewing on steroids, is called “Structure from Motion,” or SfM.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/vofstereo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-28390\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28390\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/vofstereo.jpg\" alt=\"Stereo image from Valley of Fire, Nevada\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stereo image of a scene from Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park. To view it, carefully cross your eyes until the two images fuse in a 3D picture. \u003ccite>(Andrew Alden/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/08/14/its-official-dont-blame-the-sun-for-climate-change/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The historical record of solar activity\u003c/a> is based on a quantity called the sunspot number.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/05/28/two-faults-could-make-one-big-earthquake/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hayward fault could form a megafault with its southern neighbor\u003c/a> that runs from San Jose past Gilroy — the Calaveras fault.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/06/25/active-volcanoes-spotted-on-venus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The evidence of fresh pools of red-hot lava\u003c/a> was seen through the thick atmosphere of Venus.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/04/23/stegosaurus-male-or-female-the-answer-is-in-the-plates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stegosaurs appear to have had differently shaped spinal plates\u003c/a> in males and females.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/03/10/new-earthquake-forecast-less-frequent-moderate-quakes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hayward fault is given one-in-seven odds\u003c/a> of a massive rupture between now and 2045.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003c/ol>\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>From planetology to paleontology, 2015 was full of news in the Earth sciences. Ace this 20-question quiz and you’ll have plenty of planetary tidbits from KQED Science to quick-turn an awkward conversation at your holiday table. Who doesn’t need that?\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>It’s the ultimate selfie: NASA launched this satellite that hovers between Earth and the Sun, taking snapshots of the whole planet about 15 times a day. Do you know its name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Scientists reported that the ash from some volcanoes contains abundant spherules — glassy droplets as fine as powder — that don’t arise from the splashing and explosions of lava. What makes them instead?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sediments in the bottom of a rare sinkhole show that a very large tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9 quake in Alaska, struck this state about 500 years ago. What state is that?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A study showed that the coral-sand islands of the Maldives are maintained by the activity of parrotfish. What do the fish do?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Researchers found that parts of Mars contain hydrated minerals, as well as dark streaks in the ground that appear during the Martian summer. What did they conclude?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Last month, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose above a round number and will not go back below it in the foreseeable future. What is that number?\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_29853\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29853\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/04/Daisy-parrotfish-wikimedia.jpg\" alt=\"Daisy Parrotfish in the Maldives\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Species like the daisy parrotfish \u003ci>Chlorurus sordidus\u003c/i>, are a crucial link in the natural chain that builds dry land in the Maldives archipelago. \u003ccite>(Julien Bidet/Wikimedia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>Two groups of scientists called for research programs to study the invisible ecosystems of microscopic organisms found everywhere we look. What’s the name for those ecosystems?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Early this year a spacecraft named MESSENGER ended several years of planetary observations by crashing into its target. What is that planet?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back images of high mountain ranges, plus what look like volcanoes and glaciers, on a place it took more than 9 years to reach. What is that distant world?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A fossil study proposed that the ancient soft-bodied creatures called Ediacarans went extinct when newly evolved animals ruined their habitat. What scientist first proposed this kind of extinction?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In December, NOAA reported that the previous month was the warmest November ever recorded. How many record-breaking months in a row did that make?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A new National Monument was established in northern California that displays signs of dramatic geologic activity including the clash of tectonic plates, volcanic eruptions and the wrenching of modern earthquake faults. Do you know its name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>True or false? A strong El Niño has been active since early summer.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104383\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-104383\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-800x656.jpg\" alt=\"Head of Wendiceratops\" width=\"800\" height=\"656\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-800x656.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-400x328.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live-960x787.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Wendiceratops_live.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>, as reconstructed by scientific illustrator \u003ca href=\"http://www.ddufault.com/paleo.html\">Danielle Dufault\u003c/a> for the Royal Ontario Museum \u003ccite>(Danielle Dufault/PLOS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>Fossils of a three-horned dinosaur with a flamboyant bony frill behind its head were found in a Canadian park and assigned the name \u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>. Why that name?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>After an earthquake rips the ground, you can walk around the fresh geological evidence taking snapshots, and scientists can turn those images into an accurate 3D model. What’s the name of that technique?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A widely used record of the Sun’s historical activity was revised, erasing an apparent increase in solar energy that some researchers used to argue against greenhouse warming. What is that record?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Researchers showed that the Hayward fault is closely connected to a neighboring fault, making it more likely than previously thought that both can rupture together in an earthquake the size of 1906’s Big One. What’s the second fault?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Clever observations by a spacecraft peeking through dense clouds yielded conclusive evidence of volcanoes caught in the act of erupting. What planet was this?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>After 100 years of guessing, a fossil study of stegosaurs — those big dinosaurs with the rows of bony plates down their backs — found a way to tell the males and females apart. What is it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The U.S. Geological Survey updated its long-term earthquake forecast this year. Which Bay Area earthquake fault is considered most likely to cause a major quake over the next few decades?\u003c/li>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the answers, each linked to its KQED Science story.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/10/20/nasas-new-snapshots-of-earth-from-a-satellite-far-far-away\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The “selfie satellite” is DSCOVR\u003c/a>, or Deep Space Climate Observatory.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/05/volcanoes-and-lightning-make-tiny-glass-balls-together/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The new variety of spherule is made\u003c/a> when lightning lashes the ash-filled clouds above erupting volcanoes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27883\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27883\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/galunggung-lightning-usgs.jpg\" alt=\"Volcanic lightning can melt ash into tiny spheres of glass\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volcanic lightning lashes the eruption cloud over Galunggung, in Indonesia, in this 1984 photo. This discharge of energy creates abundant tiny spheres of melted rock that mix with the ash as it settles earthward and enters the geologic cycle. \u003ccite>(U.S. Geological Survey)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/09/ancient-sinkhole-could-presage-mega-tsunami-for-hawaii/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hawaii is the state\u003c/a>, and the Makauwahi sinkhole in Kauai has the evidence.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/05/01/fish-help-build-coral-reef-islands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The parrotfish manufacture sand for the Maldives islands\u003c/a> by crunching on large corals and pooping out the grit.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/09/28/reports-nasa-to-announce-water-flows-on-mars-watch-live/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA scientists announced\u003c/a> they had “the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/19/co2-earth-passes-into-uncharted-territory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In mid-November the CO\u003csub>2\u003c/sub> level\u003c/a> at the standard observatory in Hawaii exceeded 400 parts per million, for good.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/05/whats-left-to-discover-about-microbes-pretty-much-everything/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">These worlds of microbes\u003c/a>, found in soils, our skins and our digestive tracts, are called microbiomes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/04/03/nasas-messenger-spacecraft-preparing-its-farewell-message-from-mercury/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The planet was Mercury\u003c/a>, the one nearest to the Sun.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/27/ice-volcanoes-on-pluto-whats-next/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Horizons found volcanoes of ice water\u003c/a> and glaciers of solid nitrogen on the dwarf planet Pluto.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_281380\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-281380\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"New Horizons' high-resolution color-enhanced portrait of Pluto exaggerated colors showing variations in surface composition and terrain.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/09/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Horizons’ high-resolution color-enhanced portrait of Pluto, exaggerated colors showing variations in surface composition and terrain. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/09/11/mass-extinctions-the-case-of-the-vanishing-ediacarans/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Unlike other mass extinctions\u003c/a>, which had catastrophic causes, the Ediacaran mass extinction is the first example ever found of “biotic replacement,” the mechanism proposed in 1859 by Charles Darwin.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/17/november-was-record-warm-month-for-globe-extending-streak/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In 2015, November was the seventh month in a row\u003c/a> that was the warmest on record.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/07/16/geologic-highlights-of-californias-new-national-monument/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The new park, in the heart of the Coast Range\u003c/a>, is Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, although lots of California parklands feature this kind of geology.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/06/11/burn-after-reading-big-el-nino-building-could-be-major-rainmaker-this-fall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">It’s true; El Niño is a tropical weather pattern\u003c/a> that was strong back in June, in the tropics, but it’s barely starting to affect California now in late December.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/07/09/wendys-ceratops-a-new-face-in-the-dinosaur-line/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>Wendiceratops pinhornensis\u003c/i>, an early relative of \u003ci>Triceratops\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, was named in honor of amateur fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda and the Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve, where its bones were dug up.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/19/after-an-earthquake-use-your-phone-camera-for-science/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The surprisingly effective image-stitching technique\u003c/a>, stereoscopic viewing on steroids, is called “Structure from Motion,” or SfM.\u003c/li>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/vofstereo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-28390\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28390\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/vofstereo.jpg\" alt=\"Stereo image from Valley of Fire, Nevada\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stereo image of a scene from Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park. To view it, carefully cross your eyes until the two images fuse in a 3D picture. \u003ccite>(Andrew Alden/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/08/14/its-official-dont-blame-the-sun-for-climate-change/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The historical record of solar activity\u003c/a> is based on a quantity called the sunspot number.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/05/28/two-faults-could-make-one-big-earthquake/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hayward fault could form a megafault with its southern neighbor\u003c/a> that runs from San Jose past Gilroy — the Calaveras fault.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/06/25/active-volcanoes-spotted-on-venus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The evidence of fresh pools of red-hot lava\u003c/a> was seen through the thick atmosphere of Venus.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/04/23/stegosaurus-male-or-female-the-answer-is-in-the-plates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stegosaurs appear to have had differently shaped spinal plates\u003c/a> in males and females.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/03/10/new-earthquake-forecast-less-frequent-moderate-quakes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hayward fault is given one-in-seven odds\u003c/a> of a massive rupture between now and 2045.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003c/ol>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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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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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"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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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"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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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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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",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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