A Glimpse into Day-to-Day Life at the Neumayer Station III

Group photo ÜWIs 2023

Hello everyone,

Needless to say, life at the Neumayer Station is a far cry from what we’re used to in Germany. We can’t just pop over to the local supermarket, we never have to worry about losing our keys (since none of the doors have locks), and the surrounding landscape could hardly be more different. But after more than 200 days in the ice, everything seems commonplace. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, when we sit around the dinner table we regale each other with stories of our favourite moments during traverses, discuss the fastest route to Atka11, make plans for which trail should be ploughed next, and wonder whether the lights are still on in the emergency shelter. If you only understood half of the last sentence, or if you’re asking yourself why we need a gallery in Antarctica or why ÜWIs love their mess, we’ve prepared a small dictionary for you – a (by no means exhaustive) list of terms that have now become part of our day-to-day lives.

Altmayer corner: Lounge in the southwest corner of the gallery. In the past, the corner was home to the upholstered furniture salvaged from the Neumayer Station II. It was dubbed the Altmayer corner because that’s where the old (German “alt”) furniture was. In the meantime, all the upholstered furniture has been thrown out; the only thing left is the table, whose scrapes and scratches are a testament to the dynamic history of German Antarctic research.

Arcade iceberg: A distinctive iceberg approx. 6 km east of the sea-ice ramp, with a row of arched caves on one side.
Atka Bay: The approx. 30-km-wide bay that we look down on from the Neumayer Station. During the winter months, it freezes over, forming the basis for the local emperor penguin colony. For us ÜWIs, the frozen-over Atka Bay is a favourite place to go – to visit the penguins or to admire the icebergs from up close.

Blue ice: Clear glacier water “flavour”. Regions of the (Antarctic) ice sheet where there is no snow cover, leaving the glacier ice clearly visible. The name comes from the ice’s bluish tint. Since the ice is very compact, it makes for a good airstrip for larger aircraft, which can land on it with their tyres.

Communications link: Our connection to the outside world. Thanks to cutting-edge communications systems, we have a satellite link to Bremerhaven, which also connects us to the Internet. Our radio operator does their best to ensure this link is always up, so that we have no interruptions in the flow of scientific data – and so we can share the latest pictures of our penguin chicks on social media.

Deck 0: Home to the station entrance, or rather, the entrance to the stairwell, which leads to Decks 1 and 2 in one direction, and to U1 and U2 in the other. You could say that Deck 0 is the roof of our basement. Since it’s made of sheets of plywood, we often call it the wood deck.

Decks 1 and 2: Many of the names and terms used at Neumayer are nautical; the same applies to the levels. Decks 1 and 2 are both above ground and contain the living quarters, offices and common rooms.

Drift: Often expressed as “Oh, it’s drifting again.” We’re not talking about car races; we mean a weather phenomenon frequently seen here. Strong winds gather snow particles from the surface and carry them along. This drift snow is so fine that it can find its way into even the smallest cracks and crevices, into the pockets of your Tempex overalls, or into the station’s entryway door. In the lee of the station, it forms massive, hill-like drifts. So, after a storm, the order of the day is “plough, plough, plough”!

Dronning Maud Land (DML): A region of Antarctica, shaped roughly like a piece of pie, that makes up a fifth of the continent. DML is home to several research stations, including Germany’s Neumayer Station.

E-Base: A container station near our winter camp and formed from the remains of the Neumayer Station II, used by South African researchers as a summer station and serving as our emergency base (hence the name).

Emergency shelter: A caravan, Antarctic-style, frequently orange, sometimes blue. A container on skids with several beds, seating and a small kitchen. Towed behind a snowcat, we take an emergency shelter with us on every traverse. If the snoring gets to be too loud in the shelter, tents are always an option for a good night’s sleep.

Feeder flight: In the Antarctic, there aren’t that many landing strips on blue ice where large planes on intercontinental routes can land. At these few runways, passengers and cargo are transferred to smaller aeroplanes that can land on snow using skis – for instance, models like the Twin Otter or the Basler BT-67. The latter is based on old DC3 aircraft, also known as “raisin bombers” in Germany. In the polar summer, the Neumayer Station maintains a landing strip (“skiway”) for these feeder flights, which provide – or “feed” – the station with new staff and provisions.

Fishing bib: Bib overalls made of windproof fleece that keep us nice and warm. They look a good deal like the waterproof waders that fishermen and -women wear.

Gallery: Decks 1 and 2 are made of containers. They are stacked up two storeys high, under the station’s somewhat outer-space-looking hull. Between the outer hull and these internal containers, the gallery is a U-shaped space around the containers. In addition to plenty of storage areas, it offers a range of athletic options and the Altmayer corner.

Handline: We have handlines leading to the SPUSO, MAGOBS and meteorological monitoring field. This ensures that when visibility is poor, e.g. because of fog or a storm, we don’t lose our direction and can find our way back to the station.

Ice shelf: Clear glacier water “flavour” with snow topping. Antarctic glaciers, too, are subject to the pull of gravity and flow slowly – and, unfortunately, faster and faster – into the Southern Ocean. At some point, they float on the seawater but are still attached to the ice on land. These floating glaciers are referred to as ice shelves. The ice shelf here at Neumayer is still more than 200 m thick.

Interconti: Short for “intercontinental flight”; refers to flights from the Antarctic to another continent. For most of us, intercontis are the preferred way to travel to or from the Antarctic. Normally, the flights are on normal airliners. Since they can only land on specially prepared blue-ice runways, there are only four sites in Dronning Maud Land. From there, the journey continues on a feeder flight, e.g. to Neumayer Station.

Kohnen: Legendary German Antarctic station that is operated during the summer months every other year. For most of us, all we see of Kohnen are the specially labelled crates full of equipment, provisions and supplies, which are stored at Neumayer. And the labels say: hands off!

MAGOBS: The geomagnetic observatory lies more than 15 m below the ice. A shaft and ladder lead down to it from the surface. Since it can detect even the smallest fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field, you can only go down there if you’re “non-magnetic”. In other words: no electric devices (radio, smartphone, camera…), only clothing without metal zippers, no steel-toed boots, etc.

Mess: Our dining room or, when there are more people there, our canteen. “Mess” is another nautical term. Of course, we keep our mess tidy at all times.

Nansen sledge: A wooden sledge that we can tow behind a snowmobile to carry all kinds of tools, monitoring equipment and survival gear. This type of transport sledge was named for the Norwegian (polar) researcher Fridtjof Nansen.

Northern pier: 20 km north of Neumayer, the ice shelf drops sharply into the deep blue of the Southern Ocean. Depending on the season and prevailing winds, there are few or several ice floes drifting nearby, and if you’re lucky, you might even see a whale coming up for air. At this part of the ice shelf, ships can drop anchor to resupply us. That’s why we call it the north shore, though it’s not much like your usual shore.

Olymp: German for “Mount Olympus”. An outlying geophysics observatory located approx. 90 km southwest of Neumayer on Søråsen Ridge. Since, given the distance, getting there involves a several-day-long traverse, we visit it much less often than Watzmann.

Penguin ramp: There is a height difference of approx. 10 – 15 m between the ice shelf and sea ice. Luckily, drift snow accumulates on the west side of Atka Bay, forming a natural ramp of sorts. We’ve prepared two spots on the ramp, so that we can safely ride our snowmobiles from the ice shelf to the sea ice. We call the northern one the “sea-ice ramp” and the southern one the “penguin ramp”. The “penguin ramp” is named for the colony of emperor penguins, which returns here every year.

Picking: Refers to selecting or sorting, one of the main tasks for Neumayer’s geophysicists. Here, they sift through the monitoring data from local seismometers to identify and localise earthquakes.

Ploughing: Our radio operator’s favourite task is to crank the music up loud and plough snow in the Antarctic. That may sound a bit odd, but here it’s absolutely essential. The heavy snow drift constantly forms new hills all about the station, which we have to break up and redistribute to keep them from getting too large. The airstrip and trails also have to be cleared from time to time, so that aeroplanes can land safely, and so we can move along the trails more or less easily.

Pocket: There are four of these storage spaces at Neumayer, which can be accessed through hatches in the floor of the gallery. Depending on crew specialties, they’re used to store toilet paper, universal buckets, weather balloons, Christmas decorations, Mardi Gras costumes and much more.

Radio: Short for “handheld radio”. Here, part of our daily lingo (“Have a radio on you?”). For our younger readers: a communications device for exchanging analogue spoken information in real-time, without a monitor or Internet connection.

Raising: Every year, more than a metre of snow falls on and around Neumayer. Since it doesn’t go away again, all our containers, monitoring equipment, observatories and even the station itself eventually seem to sink into the snow. We go to great lengths to make sure that doesn’t happen: Monitoring equipment is dug out of deep holes and put in new, shallow ones. And once a year, the entire Neumayer Station is raised on its hydraulic struts and new snow is added for them to stand on.

Rumsgebirge: Can be translated as “Thud Mountains”. The largest and most distinctive iceberg in Atka Bay, which was formed in September 2021 with a deafening crash. Back then, several large tabular icebergs were drifting past the bay. When a trailing corner of one of the icebergs got snagged, it broke off – and with a loud thud, the mountains were born. It’s been a favourite destination for ÜWIs ever since.

Sastrugi: A Russian term that describes patterns etched into the surface of the snow by (strong) winds. Depending on the snow texture and windspeed, they can be as much as 30 cm tall. Though they look almost magical when the sun is low, sastrugi can also make getting from A to B, whether or on foot or by snowmobile, difficult.

Scaffold pole: Rod made of aluminium. At Neumayer, we use them for virtually anything: to make frames for monitoring instruments, we stretch our handlines between them, or use them as props for plays…

Sea ice: South Atlantic water “flavour” with a hint of salt. Over the winter, the ocean surrounding Antarctica freezes over, forming a belt of sea ice around the continent. In Atka Bay, the sea ice freezes onto the neighbouring ice shelf and is thick enough for us to venture onto for sea-ice treks.

Sea-ice trek: A highlight for many of us ÜWIs. Once the sea ice is sufficiently stable, we regularly ride our snowmobiles out onto the ice to take readings. There’s also enough time to gaze at the icebergs or visit the penguins. The measuring sites are named for their distance from the ice-shelf edge: Atka11 is 11 km east of the sea-ice ramp.

Sea-ice ramp: There is a height difference of approx. 10 – 15 m between the ice shelf and sea ice. Luckily, drift snow accumulates on the west side of Atka Bay, forming a natural ramp of sorts. We’ve prepared two spots on the ramp, so that we can safely ride our snowmobiles from the ice shelf to the sea ice. We call the northern one the “sea-ice ramp” and the southern one the “penguin ramp”. Especially at the beginning of the season, the sea-ice ramp is frequently used for sea-ice treks.

Skidoo: Snowmobile that accommodates two. In most cases, you can rely on a skidoo to quickly get where you’re going, regardless of the terrain. When it comes to your hands, which have to hold the handlebars, there are two main options: frozen to the point of total numbness or slowly roasted if you switch on the handlebar heating.

Snowcat: You can sleep overnight in one or use it to make traverses #vanlife. But first and foremost, the snowcats are our beasts of burden: We use the big caterpillar trucks to prepare the landing strip, plough snow and ice, and move cargo containers from A to B.

SPUSO: Short for Spurenstoffobservatorium (Air Chemistry Observatory) and the workplace for our atmospheric chemist. Since the SPUSO is designed to detect even the smallest concentrations of trace elements (aerosols, ozone, methane, carbon dioxide, …), we have to ensure that the air it tests isn’t contaminated by emissions from the station. Accordingly, the SPUSO is located 1.5 km south of the station and has to be walked to.

Stamping: Something we often have to do when a storm is approaching. We fill the narrow gap that often forms between the station and the surrounding ice with snow and then stamp on it with our boots to compress it. By doing so, our goal is to prevent too much snow drifting into levels U1 and U2. That’s why, when a storm is on the way, we ÜWIs march around the station perimeter like a row of geese, stamping down the snow.

Station vicinity: The immediate area around the station with a radius of approx. 1.5 km. Within that radius, there’s no risk of cracks in the ice and we can move about on our own, without the need for emergency gear. When we leave the station vicinity, there are nearly always at least two of us and we take along a crate of emergency gear.

Summer camp: No, it’s not where we go on vacation; it’s an area 2 km west of the station, where a variety of containers are stored. Since the summer camp is subject to the same snow drift that affects the station, it’s mostly used during the summer season and reduced to a minimum in the winter. At the end of summer, any containers no longer needed are transferred to the winter camp.

Summer guests: Those who come to work here during the Southern Summer as researchers or technicians. The majority of the maintenance and repair work on the station, not to mention a range of research projects, takes place during the summer season. Our summer guests are mostly great, interesting people and a wonderful addition to life at the station, even if they don’t stay long. After a certain time, which varies considerably from person to person, they start to feel like visiting relatives: It’s so nice to have them here…

Synoptical Observation: One of the main duties for meteorologists at Neumayer. Weather conditions are observed every three hours and the resulting weather reports are fed into a global data network. Reports from around the world are always entered at the same time, and the data they contain is essential to reliable forecasts. As such, these fixed appointments dictate the meteorologists’ daily routine.

Tempex: A type of overalls, named for the manufacturer, that’s our go-to clothing when temperatures drop. On top of the excellent protection from cold and wind, the Tempex overalls (or officially “polar overalls”) allow you to stow a lot of your expedition gear and personal necessities in their countless pockets. This makes them plenty heavy, which can help keep you from blowing away when it’s stormy. When we load up the pockets too much, we gradually start taking on a more and more ball-like look, which they say is better for temperature regulation.

Trail: A trail on the ice shelf, marked with bamboo flags and partly cleared, i.e., essentially a street that offers a safe route through areas containing crevasses.

Traverse: A form of travel, also known as a caravan to nomadic desert peoples, used to transport large amounts of goods over long distances and through hostile territory. Instead of camels, here in the Antarctic we rely on snowcats towing sledges behind them, which is a somewhat faster option. Participants have described life on a traverse as a combination of rock concert and forced-labour camp.

U1 and U2: The station’s underground levels. U1 is home to workshops, storage and the sports room. U2, our underground garage, is where we park our skidoos, snowcats, Nansen sledges, etc. It’s also where the station’s 16 hydraulic struts are located, resting on a foundation of snow.

Universal bucket: 30-l bucket made of white plastic with a tight-sealing lid. The bucket you need for every – and I mean, every – situation at Neumayer. Preparing a batch of your own favourite muesli mix – you need a bucket. Home-made weights for weightlifting – you need buckets full of frozen water. Where to put food scraps? – a bucket. Where to put leftover sewage sludge? – a bucket. How to catch drips from a leaky ceiling? – a bucket. Where to safely store your “number two” when on a traverse? – you guessed it; in a bucket.

UPS: Uninterrupted power supply. Gives us a jolt every now and then, when there is a short break in the power supply, or when we realise which equipment isn’t connected to the UPS.

ÜWI: Short for Überwinterer:in (German for “overwinterer”). The ÜWIs, that’s us. 10 absolutely crazy individuals who came together to spend 14 months living in the Antarctic – including 8 months completely on our own, because the station can no longer be reached from outside Antarctica.

Watzmann: An outlying geophysics observatory located approx. 50 km southeast of Neumayer on Halvfarryggen Ridge. Here, a variety of monitoring instruments are buried in the snow, and frequently have to be dug out or transplanted. Then the motto is: “Let’s head for the mountains!” A trip to Watzmann often includes making an entry in the summit guestbook and enjoying a sip of a summit drink.

Whiteout: A frequently seen weather phenomenon, usually in connection with a storm and low-level clouds. In whiteout conditions, you can no longer tell the sky from the snow. What’s more, nothing casts a shadow; everything is equally bright. As a result, it’s virtually impossible to recognise bumps or holes in the ground, which makes moving about difficult at best.

Winter camp: Storage depot approx. 5 km north of the station, where we keep fuel, provisions and equipment safely stored in containers. It’s also where cargo delivered by ships, as well as return cargo, is temporarily stored. Before winter begins, all containers are placed atop snow hills to ensure they don’t sink into the snow over the course of the season.