On my way to where the air is clear...& cold

Am I there yet? While this may look like the Antarctic ice sheet, it is actually a thick stratus cloud layer from the Christmas Day storm last week, seen from the airplane as I was flying from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix, AZ.

Well, it is finally happening. After five weeks of being poked and proded for medical clearance, securing reservations for New Zealand flights and lodging, filling out paperwork, organizing a fundraiser, researching Antarctic science, getting the proper reporting equipment, working my normal schedule and celebrating Christmas with family in Phoenix -- I am finally beginning my journey to the bottom of the World. In just a few hours, I will fly to Christchurch, New Zealand, home of the U.S. Antarctic Program office, where I will plan and prepare for a few days before departing for the Ice. Somehow (because of the time difference), I will miss New Year's Eve and magically appear there on the morning of Jan. 1, 2010. Celebrate some for me!

Many, MANY thanks for your generous support and encouragement over the past month, especially in helping me reach my fundraising goal. I will be posting to this blog as often as possible over the next few weeks, so check back often. I hope you enjoy reading my personal account of traveling to Antarctica, as well as the links to science materials Dan Satterfield and I create.

May 2010 be a great year for all of us!

About the trip and blog

My teammate Dan Satterfield (chief meteorologist at WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Alabama) and I, along with four other journalists, have been selected by the National Science Foundation to participate in a media expedition to Antarctica from January 5-12, 2010. We will be covering a range of important studies: ice core drilling on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide; new research on the Ozone hole; discoveries made with the new South Pole telescope; how weather is measured in such a harsh conditions; liquid lakes that lie beneath miles of ice. Oh, and of course, the penguins (who will also play the role of the peanut gallery above). Learn more about the major studies we are planning to cover.

During and after trip, we will be posting blog articles, photos, videos and more -- a multimedia smorgasbord -- to a variety of Web sites: Earth Gauge, Planet-Connect, Capital Weather Gang, WHNT, Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal, and the home page of the National Environmental Education Foundation. This blog will serve as a clearinghouse for all of this information, and a means with which to communicate with you from one of the most remote places on Earth. This trip couldn't come at a better time -- less than three weeks after COP15, the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, while the world's eyes are on our Earth's climate system and its impacts, including those in polar regions.

Many thanks to Kristian Whipple for setting up this blog, including creating the awesome penguin graphic above. View more of his work at kwhipple.com.

About Ann

Ann Posegate is a science writer, educator and communicator based in Washington, D.C. She is currently the outreach coordinator for Earth Gauge, the weather and environment program of the National Environmental Education Foundation. Earth Gauge provides broadcast meteorologists with free, weekly information, videos and graphics to help them increase their coverage of environmental and climate topics on-air and online. Ann also writes for Capital Weather Gang, the local weather blog of washingtonpost.com, where she provides weekly content and commentary about local weather, environment and climate topics.

Ann's background is in environmental science with a focus on weather and water. She experienced and taught about mountain weather and ecology in the "worst weather in the world" as outreach educator for the Mount Washington Observatory in northern New Hampshire and assistant for the Observatory’s former radio show, The Weather Notebook. She also worked as an environmental and science educator for K-12 youth in D.C., with a focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Ever since a few good friends from the Observatory lived and worked at the South Pole as meteorologists, Ann has been very intrigued by the rugged, isolated desert of ice that is home to only about 2,000 people per year and some of the most incredible science on Earth.