What time is it in Antarctica?
Posted: Monday, November 12, 2007 6:53 PM by Jen Brown
Filed Under:
Ends of the Earth
Editor's note: This post was written by Mike Simon last week in Antarctica. Internet connectivity being what it is at the South Pole, we are publishing it now.
(From Mike Simon, NBC News photojournalist)
I’ve been humming an old Chicago tune down here in Antarctica. Anyone vaguely aware of 70’s music will know the song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
You see, it’s been a constant battle trying to compute all of the different time zones that we have to remember. For starters, there is only one time zone that matters to all broadcasters: New York time. Antarctica operates on New Zealand time, which is 17 hours ahead of New York. I also have to keep in mind that New Zealand/Antarctica is 19 hours ahead of my home base in Denver. (My wife probably did not like me asking about Halloween two days before it was October 31.) How could I be so clueless about what day it is? Well, things would not be so hard if I had any math skills. Our brilliant IT guy here told me all you need to do is subtract 24 hours then add seven hours for New York and five hours for Denver. (See, you’re already getting confused. Just like me.) For our live shots on the Today Show, we have to be ready two hours ahead of the 7 a.m. East Coast broadcast. Hmm, 7 a.m. ET is, oh, midnight in Antarctica. Two hours before is 10 p.m. But Antarctica/New Zealand is a day ahead of New York. So it’s going to be Tuesday already before we get even get Monday’s Today Show off the air.
Complicating my math is the whole mess with the Antarctic sun. Normally, I am a fan of light. As a photographer, light is everything. But to really appreciate light, you have to have some darkness. Enter, problem number two in the time telling department. You see, there is 24 hours of daylight right now in Antarctica. Twenty-four hours of relentless sun. It really freaked me out the first couple of days. As I type, its 10:30 p.m. at night (5:30 a.m. in New York, 3:30 a.m. in Denver-all on Saturday).But the sun could not be any brighter than noontime in New York. It is still bright in the sky and the Antarctic snow cover only exacerbates the problem. So you never can tell the time by where the sun is.
My dad used to tell me that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He never visited the South Pole. The sun is doing a big lazy oval over us. Its also hard to tell which way is east or west when everything is north from here. The only thing you can be sure of is that you will be home before dark. We were going to go to the South Pole the other night on an overnight flight. Except, there is no over night because there is no night. There is only daytime.
There are several tripping points in the McMurdo community of timekeepers. First, the clocks of McMurdo require special orientation. One in particular is the beautiful clock in The Galley cafeteria/gathering place for everyone in Building 155. It’s a beautiful timepiece with huge, analog style hands spanning a face with NO numbers. It’s been a big conversation piece for us newcomers because, from Antarctica, there is only one direction: north. Everything is north from the South Pole. Oh great -- not only can I NOT tell time, but my normally acute sense of direction is now gone.
Next, every circadian rhythm here is upset by Mother Nature’s timetable. Your flight to the South Pole is leaving at 9:30 a.m.? You’ve got your huge bulk of clothes on and your Extreme Cold Weather bag with you, and you think its leaving because its time to go. Until the winds are too high here, the winds are too high there or the flight crews can’t keep the external heaters on the engines long enough before the gale-force winds knock them off. So you end up playing the favorite McMurdo game of hurry up and wait (perfected here first then adapted by the military, I am told). So even if you knew what time your flight was going to leave, its probably not going to leave at its assigned time because of elements beyond your control.
But things are looking up for me. Ive finally started calling my wife at 2 p.m., not 2 a.m. (sorry). The weather finally let up long enough for us to get around to see some of the fantastic science going on here. The National Science Foundation has put together an amazing community here who are much better at telling time than me. I’m getting great sleep thanks in part to the physical demands of dealing with the cold.
