Ice Thickness
October 21st, 2007 by Ken Mankoff
8.5 meters of sea ice?! Really!? I've heard that the sea ice is generally only 1 to 1.5 meters around Antarctica. Do you know if the region where they are drilling is multi-year ice?
We are drilling on multi year ice, but only because B-15 broke off a couple years ago and impacted the local ocean currents wind effects and essentially 'plugged up' McMurdo sound, allowing multi-year ice to form.
The drill is about 25km from McMurdo Station. The single year sea ice is right in front of the base where our runway is located. Right now it is 2.25m, and the minimum for the C-17 to land is (I think) 1.75m.
