some work what i have done....a celebration

This is some prelim work correlating in-situ data with RADARSAT imagery. It is very useful to sometimes be able to show other people what you are talking about rather than trying to explain. The first image uses read arrows to indicate which direction the wind was hitting the ship from while we were travelling around inside the Mertz Polynya. As the polynya was open at the time the winds are from the south (which is to be expected) and and a little more easterly than one would expect. This demonstrates the curving of katabatic wind flow anit-clock wise around the continent as it flows over the ocean. When you get large off-shore winds this flow is nobbled altogether over the ocean and the polynya starts to close.

Image 2 shows how important it was to get ship based measurements. Most met data comes from the station Dumont d'urville (DD). This land based set of data is excellent. What this ship comparison shows is that events can be different (ie wind speed, direction or temperature etc) from a measurement point within the polynya. However the record is good for general trending.

Now this is all much more complex and for full details you will have to wait for my book entitled "really dull science - of interest to only a select few".

This follows on from my wildly successful atlas of a few places around Antarctica that we care about....oh i just kill me some times.

when do you choose who you want to be?

The other day i was thinking about my "little ways" as my mother likes to call them. I was trying to decide if i should just chuck the phd / research altogether and do something else. Like, i don't know, become a ..... well to be fair i hadn't actually got to the part of "being" something else.

I was trying to decide if i should get some therapy and/or meds to try to remove my "quirks" so i could have a better life or more accurately a better quality of life. It is a big decision to make. As i am an all or nothing kinda person i can't do, as one friend suggest, just pick the bits i don't like and get rid of them!

The thing is that i am and always will be an obsessive compulsive with addictive tendencies. These proclivities take a lot of controlling. I spend an inordinate amount of energy just controlling myself so i behave and appear to be "normal". Well, not normal but i try not to draw much attention to myself. I will give you just one example: i don't go on dates. It is really tricky for me for a number of reasons but chiefly:

• I cannot stand having to explain myself when i don't want to do something (for no apparent reason - but i maintain perfectly logical to me)
• dining out is tricky (i can't being to tell how much i HATE my food stacked, or sauce over everything!!)
• i can suddenly have a brain wave and have to write it down or worse, go home and code it up

My life could be radically different if i didn't have so much going on in my head.

But here is the thing. I really don't think that i would be able to do my job with out my compulsions. I mean, working with satellite data requires patience and coordination. All the programming i do and research wouldn't get done i think. So that is my dilemma. I could get a vastly improved personal life but at what cost?

So i think that means that i long ago chose to be who i am. It has just taken a while for me to catch me up and let me know.

Photo Time....it has been 10 years....

I am still not well enough to be working. I am getting very good at the sitting around doing nothing kind of thing but that has so far failed to produce anything that adds to my, or others, life in any way, shape or form. It is in fact very dull. Really mind numbingly dull. I don't like it at all. I DID manage to have a shower, wash my hair, eat something and change my sheets. Like i said not adding a lot to the sum total of knowledge and all that.

...does any one else love "clean sheet day"? It is a think i picked up living on a ship. Once a week we got our clean sheets. I thought it was heaven. I remember at the end of a cruise finding out that some of the "boys" had their clean sheets piled up in a corner. From the entire time. I mean i was grossed out that they had not changed their sheets the entire time but mostly pissed at them for not telling me what they were doing so i could have nicked their clean sheets and had "clean sheet day" twice a week. I was talking to my mum about it and she said "if i were rich i would pay someone to come and make sure i had clean sheets everyday". This is one of the few times in life that i agree with her. I would also add "cook me all my meals" and "change the kitty litter tray" but that is just me.

As i have been doing nothing really important i thought i would go through some old v1 99 photos. So here a few ice pics (and then i will get back to finishing an old Terry Pratchett novel ... decided that as i had nothing better to do i was going to re-read them all....Lost Continent at the moment....awesome).

this is siggi and myself with the radiometers we were using. The second shot is another radiometer attached to the basket and taking measurements away from the ship at the same time as the ship attahced ones! Not usually so pretty or calm. And i should have my freezer suit on but i was only outside for like 10 mins!!

Sea smoke visible as the ship crashes though to get to "exhibit a". That is the second grey and obscure picture which is THE mertz polynya. That dull gery stuff in the back is the Mertz Glacier itself. Which is mostly...grey.

when you are so sick....

I have had a frightful week. For the first time in years i have spent the week in bed. I was just so ill that i was all drugged up and asleep. I had a virus. I was worried that it was the swine flu and before you disparage my comment (a) my cousin has a confirmed case and (b) with a compromised immune system it would have meant hospital, probably. I did not want that. Today is my first day without the drugs and out of bed. a bit of a disappointment really. I have a headache...and feel flaky. This sucks. I am afraid i have not found a silver lining at all.

What was worse was that i couldn't read. I love to read. It was sooooo boring being in bed and not being able to read. I tried watching DVDs but that got tricky...and boring. I have watched series 1-3 of stargate SG-1 and some truly amazing live, morning tv programs. Did you know that try to sell you things in between the "stories"? It was very off putting. I also got to watch a few eps of "days of our lives" which was confusing and yet strangely had a lot of the same people on it that i remember from my college days (i have no idea why i watched it when i was at college...i just did).

So i have not done any writing at all. This blog entry is the only exception. But i know i am feeling better. I can tell this because i am out of bed and also because i am walking around complaining bitterly about not feeling well....instead of laying there not feeling well...things are lookin' up!

it is so cold i can't think

A few years ago i got sick. One of the things about being this particular kind of sick was that i no longer felt hot or cold. I mean i "felt" i was one of them but it bore no relation to the ACTUAL temperature. I am feeling a lot better now. It is winter. I feel cold all the time.....my fingers get numb as i try to type. This means that lately i have taken to only hand writing stuff. This adds to the big pile of other stuff i have hand written that needs to be typed in.

People offer suggestions like getting some one else to type it up but (a) that is cheating and (b) entering it into the computer is an editing step for me - I get sick of typing so i sort through my ramblings a bit.

Been an interesting week. Al Gore came to Aussie Land for a visit and everyone tells me their climate change thoughts (the thing is that i am a researcher...so i my opinions are fluid and i like to change them as i take in new information...i think it is the whole point). The PM is all gung-ho about it too www.pm.gov.au

I have had nightmares this week about my work as well. Lost opportunities, am i wasting my life (i think yes BTW), i gave up so much to have achieved so little. Lovely week. I think it was the lack of sleep and hormones that did me in really. We had this whole doorbell thing. ALL Saturday night it kept ringing. At like 3 am we went and dismantled the thing. It turns out my neighbour had the same problem. It was not people.....so some kind of electrical interference setting them off? Another neighbour had their sewerage system explode. It was quite a weekend.

Best get back to my books (reading a book about word origins) and TV (little one watching Pyche season 1 so i have to supervise as she is only 11)

A starting point

Over yesterday's bitch fest. I had a good day. Let me just say this tho - i am constantly surprised by how much of a people person i am. I THINK that i am a scientist type with poor people skills and even less desire you use the ones i have. Then i spend a day chatting and making friends and gosh darn it enjoying myself.

Anyway i decided to show you one of my little projects that i am finishing off and writing about. One of the problems (for there are many) with working with satellite data (of Antarctic regions in this case) is all the cloud that gets in the way. I started off heavy on the cloud detection.

This is an image showing a satellite (AVHRR) product and the cloud detection product my first algorithm made. This was based on other research (not mine) and i can supply names....but not publicly. There is a key to help

After a LONG time i realised my error and understood that i wasn't really interested in clouds as such rather i am only interested in water (the polynyas). So i refined things and look for open water and open water under cloud (and then remove the cloud if i can). When i say this i mean that the computer churns through thousands and thousands of images and does it all for me. What you need to remember is that it took a lot of time and effort to let the computer do this. Sometimes i think it might have been quicker to just look at the damn things one at a time myself! But not as much fun :)

If you ever need something to put to sleep then sure, you go ahead and ask me all about my algorithms and how they do amazing things....or all about the different types of ice.

if i just finished i wouldn't have too....

I have this rule. OK i have lots of rules but one f them involves never working at a job i don't like just because i need the money. I mean i can always get another job. I think you shouldn't have to put up with work place bullying or mean people.

This morning i got the "the rest of us have to go do jobs we don't like...so can you". But why? It is not that i dislike my job really. Just some of the people. The sad thing is that they probably, no make that definitely, have no idea how much i dislike them. I am trying to find the silver lining by saying to myself that it is teaching me things:

• how to keep my opinions to myself
• doing a job you don't want to and smiling at the same time
• not to be so selfish - everyone has crap jobs
• how to count down the hours until you leave, but not look like you are

See. Valuable life lessons. I haven't had to learn these until now.

This only comes up on the blog for one reason. I am being punished. I have like a "tough love" guardian angel. Some people get lovely ones. Not me. my mother put it the best when i complained:

"if you just finished the PhD then you wouldn't have to do this job. you could do something that you liked and payed a lot more"

She also went on and on about how hard her job is and i shouldn't whinge so much....

Like i said. I am being punished. Obviously i don't get subtle life lessons. Only the hard ones. On that note i promise to write a little bit more than usual today. Also, i will you think about my research ALL DAY....they can make me work but they can't make me think like them!

So what is a polynya

OK. some people were asking what a polynya is exactly. I have a simple def i use in my justifications:

Polynyas are areas of open water within the sea ice where you would expect to find only an icey covering. They appear in winter when air temperatures are well below the freezing point of sea water and are bordered by water that is covered with ice. They are typically rectangular or elliptical in shape and occur quasi-continuously in the same regions. The size of polynyas can range from a few hundred meters to hundreds of kilometers. At these open water sites you get oceanic and atmospheric as well biological activity - which are studied by a wide variety of disciplines.

I only try to locate them using various remote data sources and cool coding....

Now the image i have shown you is a lovely composite of various remote sensing products to show you the polynya

1. open water to thin, new ice (polynya) - black/purple/blue/aqua
   
2. sea ice or cloud - green/yellow/red


3. land or fast ice - white/red

I made this. It took me a long time. I really enjoyed the process of making it and finding out how i might make it. Happy days....

the week in ice and fog

Once again it is time for my weekly analysis of my writing progress.

none.

well. now that's over.

It hasn't been so bad. I had a GREAT idea about some data analysis and display which i was quite proud of. Hard to explain exactly but i will try. I have some data that i am using which other people have told me/inferred is not "fit for purpose" and that i shouldn't use it. I realised that they were not listening to me and had no idea what exactly i was doing with it. The upshot of all this is that (a) i can use the data (b) it fits my purposes just fine and (c) i DO know what i am doing.

I just need to remember sometimes that i do understand my own work better than others. Not to say i don't take advice or listen to them. I just need to stay focused I my long term plan.

The way i am going to display my data is still undecided. I mean i have loads of plots and stuff and they make sense but not really practical in a thesis. It is going to take a lot of explaining. If it were easy....

So. One good thing from the week. I think one day i will get there.

Now. For Kath. I know you enjoy reading this so something for you....sorry i had to stop for a pause because nothing funny happened to me this week. It was lovely seeing you last week tho! Better luck next time.