I feel like writing.  As always, the computer is humming in readiness.  The blank screen and computer await to be writ upon, instead of to be calculated with, for a change.  The butter is out, getting soft, in preparation for when I'll eat my evening snack.  This little abode of mine is clean, since the maid was here while I was out.  The day darkens outside.  The rain clouds are giving way to clear patches.  No flight is scheduled for tomorrow, so there's time now for writing.

Finally I bought a Norwegian/English dictionary, a map of the area, a newspaper in English, and a knife for buttering my bread.   I'm glad to have a knife for buttering my bread.  It's been difficult doing this with the large knife I use for slicing the bread.  I've had a buttering knife on my shopping list for the past few days.  This reveals how little things can loom large on one's mind of concerns on field deployments.  I could go into details about the way I set my table, using a cut open plastic shopping bag for a tablecloth, etc.

It is strange to consider this, and juxtapose it upon the larger issue that has brought us here.  This afternoon I bought a copy of "USA Today" in the hotel lobby, and read an article about how the ER-2 "ripped through the mist at Stavanger, Norway Tuesday morning into the Arctic sky."  And they had an interview with Albert Gore, who said "There has been a 4% reduction in the thickness of the ozone layer over the entire world.  The findings in Norway will be important in improving our understanding of how fast this is occurring and how we can stop it."  And I, who am a part of this operation, am relieved to have finally obtained a butter knife!

Had breakfast with one of the pilots yesterday.  He was explaining to us how much more of a pest the air traffic controllers are in this part of the world.  They kept calling him during Tuesday's flight to request that he change frequencies, or report his altitude and position, and they couldn't understand how he could be at 65,000 feet when the airplane's transponder was reporting 60,000 feet (the maximum that the aircraft's transponder is capable of reporting).  He proudly told how he outwitted them by requesting a "block altitude of 60 to 65," and they didn't pester him anymore.

Then he told about the new survival mittens the life support guy placed in the leg pocket of his pressurized flight (space) suit.  Since the cabin pressure is allowed to go up to 28,000 feet (while flying at 60 or 70,000 feet), the cockpit is essentially in vacuum.  The mittens were in an air-tight plastic bag, which expanded so much that it wedged his right leg tightly in the cramped quarters provided for pilot's legs.  He was afraid to lift his leg out to unzip the pocket because he wasn't sure he could unzip it with his gloves on (and he couldn't remove his gloves because he'd depressurize); and if he couldn't do that he might not be able to put his leg back in place because of an even more expanded leg pocket, forcing him to fly the plane for several hours with his leg up on top of some instruments.   His rendition was hilarious!

These are the things that don't get reported in the newspapers.  Yet they are what all missions, trivial or profound, consist of.  They are the "all too Human" matrix within which the crucial work occurs.   It's fun being a part of this mission, as it was fun being a part of the previous ones.  It focuses life.  There's the preparation and anticipation preceding it, the feeling of "being there" during it, and the recollection and insight-gleaning analysis phase afterward.

 - - - - - -

Yesterday was a flight day for the ER-2.  Jim flew what turned out to be a harrowing flight.  He almost lost the plane (and his life).  At the post-flight pilot's debriefing he mentioned that the air data computer failed an hour from landing.  The faulty computer abruptly produced a spuriously high Mach number (air speed), which caused the auto pilot to pitch up abruptly, which produced the kind of shuddering that precedes a stall; and during a critical 10 seconds he figured out that he had to take manual control and ease the pitch down; which he did successfully.  His accounting was casual.

Today he was in our area, looking over the recordings of air speed, Mach number, pitch angle, etc, which are obtained by the experiment team we share a work area with.  He said that his air speed departed almost 30 knots from what it should have been, and another knot or two would have placed the aircraft outside it's limits.  I asked what would have happened in that case, and he said, casually, the plane would have entered a spinning dive (which we all know cannot be recovered from in the ER-2), and during the dive the tail section would have fallen off (another weakness of the ER-2).  That was the end of the conversation, basically.  What else can you say?  Even if he had ejected, he would have landed in freezing water, 100 km from the coast, at latitude 65 North, and close to sunset.  Survival time in such water is measured in the 10's of minutes.

I'm glad I told the pilot this morning that the flight produced good science, and a lot of us would be studying it carefully.  We definitely penetrated into the polar vortex, where the unusual chemistry happens.

During the past two weeks I've become more aware of the possible magnitude of the ozone hole problem.  It dawned on me that since there's as much chlorine in the Arctic stratosphere as in the Antarctic, there is actually as much "potential" for ozone depletion in both places.  And it is possible that the only thing that prevents the Arctic from being as bad as the Antarctic is the relative warmth and early break-up of the Arctic vortex.  Since these Arctic meteorological properties vary from year to year, it is possible that the natural fluctuations could occasionally produce serious depletions in the North.

Furthermore, all the other assaults to the Earth's climate, such as global warming (caused by burning rainforests and fossil fuels), have the potential for cooling the stratosphere. It sounds ironic, but it is apparently true, that a warming troposphere goes along with a cooling stratosphere.  And this is bad for ozone depletion, because colder stratospheres produce more clouds, which process more air for chemical depletion reactions.

Global warming is an inexorable process, and can't be stopped.  There's so much inertia that it is not feasible to control human activities enough to stop the slow and persistent warming process.  It may be inescapable then that the stratosphere will inexorably cool.   As agricultural practices adjust to the need to move poleward, they will also have to adjust to increases in ultra-violet light exposures. Thus, as our children warm, they will also get sunburned!

As I look into the future, I don't like some of the things I see.  Most of them are social, or genetic.  But some are environmental.  The public's concern for environmental threats is growing.  There are uncertainties though.  There always are.  And that's part of the problem.  As long as there are uncertainties, the politicians will say the problem needs to be studied more so that policy decisions can be based on knowledge - at a later date.  Albert Gore is the kind of politician the U.S. needs, and will need for a long time in our future.

Until the Gores dominate the scene, however, it will be important to reduce the uncertainties.  That's Science's new role.  We'll have to conduct missions over Antarctica again.  And return to Norway another year.

And tonight will be another night that I won't be able to see the Northern lights.  What a shame to be at 59 degrees North, while the sun is producing all kinds of proton solar winds, which are supposed to be producing beautiful auroral displays, and to not be able to see them.

As I look out the window there are no stars, because of the clouds.  Only the airport a couple miles away can be seen.  And the parked cars in front of the hotel, three stories below.

And I think the butter over there on the table is now soft; and the humming computer is in need of a rest, as I feel hunger from within.
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This site opened:  October 30, 1998.   Last Update: October 30, 1998