or fancy dress nights. I love my job, part
of which involves going out every day to
launch a weather balloon as part of the
upper atmosphere monitoring.
Even if it’s minus fifty degrees?
Yes!
You must be brave to cope with such
freezing temperatures.
When it’s that cold, it’s very calm with
no wind. You wrap up in special clothes
and the weather is actually quite nice
when it’s still. But going out every single
day, you get to see all the different
weather that Antarctica has to offer.
Even like today where I can’t see past
100 metres from my window, to the
most beautiful sunrises, ice formations
and all the strange sights we get. Every
day it just reminds me how special this
place is. In the dark of winter the sun
doesn't go over the horizon but it does
light it up and there’s this beautiful red
glow sort of to the north.
The 24-hour darkness is a bit strange
but you do get the glorious night skies
and the Aurora Australis. It makes up for
being dark. Recently I saw something
called “polar stratospheric clouds”.
These are very high up and made of
especially cold ice. After sunset, just
above the ground were strange, almost
shining
rainbowcoloured
clouds.
It sounds spooky but
really beautiful.
Yes. Apparently you can get them in
the UK - last February I think they were
spotted over Cambridge. If Sparklers
see a rainbow-coloured cloud after dark,
it could be quite special.
What is the worst storm or weather
conditions that you’ve experienced?
It was the very first storm we had back in
March. Back then we had a couple of gusts
that were well over 70 miles per hour.
That’s fa
st
cars on a er than
motorwa
y!
8
SPARK