Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Sunday, 19 January 2014
Arctic Northwest, present !
A recent map from 'whos.among.us' shows a nice string of extreme northwest arctic places with someone visiting 'Ultima Thule'.
Thanks, people, you're always welcome.
Kotzebue, Paulatuk, Cambridge Bay, Iqaluit ... places I can only dream of.
Best wishes for 2014 !
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Dome Argus, -93.2º C- colder than the average on Mars
The coldest place on Earth has recently been measured by satellite to minus 93.2 Celsius (-135.8 F).
It is located on a high ridge in Antarctica, on the East Antarctic Plateau, where temperatures in several hollows can dip that much below zero on a clear winter night.
The ridge runs between two summits on the ice sheet: Dome Argus (the highest peak of the East Antarctic Plateau, over 4000 m) and Dome Fuji .
Dome A or Dome Argus (80°22′ S, 77°21′ E) is part of an Antarctic plateau located 1200 kilometres inland. It is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, near the center of East Antarctica.
Dome Argus is not really a mountain in the conventional sense of the word, but just the highest point in the Range.
The lowest observed temperatures are not on crests but on downside slopes, under strong wind blows.
At an elevation of 4000 m, the ridge is not only remote but extremely cold and dry. The study revealed that the water content of the entire atmosphere in a vertical column above the ridge is equivalent to a layer of water less than the thickness of a human hair.
The ridge is also extremely calm, which means that there is very little of the atmospheric turbulence elsewhere that makes stars appear to twinkle. A perfect place for astronomic observations.
“It’s so calm that there’s almost no wind or weather there at all. The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers. Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth.”
You can't survive at -93º C, even for some minutes, without an insulated heated suit like the astronauts use in space. Any exposed bit of flesh will freeze instantly.
This area can stay in complete darkness for 5 full months during local winter.
The closest human settlement is the chinese Kunlun Research Station.
.
Kunlun station is only inhabited during antarctic summer for a reason: CO2 transforms from a gas into dry ice at -78.5°C so at such temperatures human body turns into a frozen statue within a matter of minutes.
Chinese researchers who were constructing the station had to wear electronically-heated clothes to do the job there. And scientists believe that temperature at Dome A might fall as low as -102°C !
I have already signaled here the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth as the russian village of Oymyakon, with a record low of -71.2 ºC.
By way of comparison, the hottest spot recorded on Earth - again by satellite sensor - is the Dasht-e Lut salt desert in southeast Iran, where it reached 70.7º C in 2005.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Hello, Antarctica , Happy New Year ! there at 63.8 S, 155.22 E
That's where the MVAkademik Shokalskiy is trapped in the frozen sea, few miles north of the antarctic base Dumont D'Urville:
Three icebreakers were successively unable to rescue the russian ship, itself built in Finland in 1982 and "fully ice-strengthened " for arctic and antarctic seas.
After the failed attempts of one chinese and one french middle-class icebreakers to reach the Shokalskiy, a stronger and powerful australian ship, the Aurora Australis, was called from Casey, where it was anchored for the usual summer supply, to help release the russian / australian team and crew:
But no ship is prepared for zero visibility. A dense blizzard stopped the Aurora Australis just after it entered the frozen seas, some 10 miles from the Shokalskiy. No rescue could be done in such conditions.
Ah, technology. But yes, there are other means - helicopters can at least rescue the scientific team and some tourists aboard, leaving the crew to maneuver as the ice recedes.
At least, they are having some fun in the antarctic Summer:
Treading on the ice to level a helipad.
What an unexpected Ultima Thule there!
-------------------------
The End:
Three icebreakers were successively unable to rescue the russian ship, itself built in Finland in 1982 and "fully ice-strengthened " for arctic and antarctic seas.
After the failed attempts of one chinese and one french middle-class icebreakers to reach the Shokalskiy, a stronger and powerful australian ship, the Aurora Australis, was called from Casey, where it was anchored for the usual summer supply, to help release the russian / australian team and crew:
But no ship is prepared for zero visibility. A dense blizzard stopped the Aurora Australis just after it entered the frozen seas, some 10 miles from the Shokalskiy. No rescue could be done in such conditions.
Too thick, damn !
At least, they are having some fun in the antarctic Summer:
What an unexpected Ultima Thule there!
-------------------------
The End:
Thursday, 26 December 2013
Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia:absolutely-not-Ultima-Thule, but a frequently visitor here !
No-ultima-thule-at-all. I'd say this is even the anti-ultima-thule !
-----------------------------
Strange, unbelievable statistics from 'Blogger', show I receive continued visits from such an impredictable, remote and continental place as Ulaan Baatar (or Ulan Bator), the capital of Mongolia.
I don't get it! The visit spot on the blogger's visit map never turns off.
Several other remote and amazing locations come and disappear, make ephemeral visits - and make me so happy. But Ulaan Baatar is on the visit map to stay, always present, without a break. Do I have many followers out there? But after all what is there like ?
A nice 'Yurt' in central Ulaan Baatar.
Gandan, a budhist temple, the dominant religion. Some of them can be found in town, trapped between skyscrapers.
My amazement led me to do some research; and here I leave the results now.
The History of Mongolia was epic and grandiose. The fascinating Mongol Empire was as extensive as the Roman, and encompassed from the Baltic and the Danube to the Pacific, a large strip of territory diverse in civilizations and peoples. I can't even imagine how it was possible, during our Middle Ages, so thriving a civilization on Europe's doorstep. The Pax Mongolica assured in the 13th century intense transcontinental trade routes across Eurasia. As expected, after the climax at the end of the century, the Empire finally collapsed and ended in 1368.
An animated vision of the Mongol expansion here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mongol_Empire_map.gif
That glorious past under the Khan dynasty faded to nothing but an almost deserted territory in the middle of nowhere, far from everything, underdeveloped and poor, stuck underneath Siberia, with a population of nomadic shepherds and a few villages in an isolation that only air flights and the Trans-Siberian helped to endure.
Steppe, Gobi desert and mountains - an unforgiving territory.
After the country's independence, a sudden wealth source was found in intense exploitation of coal, gas and minerals: huge deposits of copper, lead, gold, tungsten, uranium, all known of the Soviet regime but carefully kept in secret!
Open-pit mine, one of many.
The profits mostly go to Rio Tinto, some local business magnats, and what's left goes to favour the trade balance; Mongolia looks reborn in modernity.
Motorway into the capital. Like anywhere in Europe.
Sukhabatar square, the civic center. Under the central colonnade, a huge statue of Genghis Khan, the beloved national icon.
The historic icon.
A new icon.
If land doesn't allow farming or pasture, at least it delivers energy and high valued mineral rocks - a precious gift. As for pastures, they were mostly consumed by the goats, traditionally herded for the famous Altai Cashmere, which despite the crisis remains famous and a relevant export, an exquisite and unique product.
'Altai Cashmere':
http://mcashmere.com/brands/altai-cashmere.html
This new Mongolia of fertile subsoil, excavated and mostly deserted, leaves the nomadic life in the yurts, and starts to build skyscrapers, airports, shopping malls, pedestrian streets with fountains and terraces.
Famous brand shops. Luxurious hotels. Even the sad prefabricated 5-floor blocks of the Soviet era are converted: with Greek columns at the door, here a pub, there a hairdresser, a mobile phone shop. Nothing of this is really new: just enthusiastic capitalism.
Peace Avenue, the largest in Mongolia, centralizes almost all trade and can be a traffic and pollution hell.
Hotel in Karakorum, the old historic capital of the Empire.
Surreal.
Two worlds coexist, in sharp contrast, and Mongolia is one of the most unequal and polluted countries on the planet.
A 'Ger' (yurt campsite) in an outskirt neighbourhood. With car by the door.
Two cities.
Winter is still the worst, people may have to survive by -50° C. Yurts are heated by coal stoves, the cheapest, and smoke becomes unbearable - you can't even see the other side of the street.
A post-modern Yurt .
You will be always welcome, dear Mongol visitors, from your yurts or from your 15th floor lofts with a view.
----------------------
GDP growing 17.3% ! (2011)
GDP per capita $ 5 000
Fotos: Panoramio, Skyscrapercity
-----------------------------
Strange, unbelievable statistics from 'Blogger', show I receive continued visits from such an impredictable, remote and continental place as Ulaan Baatar (or Ulan Bator), the capital of Mongolia.
I don't get it! The visit spot on the blogger's visit map never turns off.
Several other remote and amazing locations come and disappear, make ephemeral visits - and make me so happy. But Ulaan Baatar is on the visit map to stay, always present, without a break. Do I have many followers out there? But after all what is there like ?
My amazement led me to do some research; and here I leave the results now.
*
Ulaan Baatar has a population of over one million people, which is amazing for what may well be the most interior capital of the world, far from the sea like no other. With an area of 1.5 million km2, Mongolia is a huge country, almost the size of India. However it has a population of less than three million, of which more than a third living in the capital - not the imperial capital of Genghis Khan, the ruined Karakorum, but the modern capital Ulaan Baatar.
The History of Mongolia was epic and grandiose. The fascinating Mongol Empire was as extensive as the Roman, and encompassed from the Baltic and the Danube to the Pacific, a large strip of territory diverse in civilizations and peoples. I can't even imagine how it was possible, during our Middle Ages, so thriving a civilization on Europe's doorstep. The Pax Mongolica assured in the 13th century intense transcontinental trade routes across Eurasia. As expected, after the climax at the end of the century, the Empire finally collapsed and ended in 1368.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mongol_Empire_map.gif
That glorious past under the Khan dynasty faded to nothing but an almost deserted territory in the middle of nowhere, far from everything, underdeveloped and poor, stuck underneath Siberia, with a population of nomadic shepherds and a few villages in an isolation that only air flights and the Trans-Siberian helped to endure.
After the country's independence, a sudden wealth source was found in intense exploitation of coal, gas and minerals: huge deposits of copper, lead, gold, tungsten, uranium, all known of the Soviet regime but carefully kept in secret!
The profits mostly go to Rio Tinto, some local business magnats, and what's left goes to favour the trade balance; Mongolia looks reborn in modernity.
If land doesn't allow farming or pasture, at least it delivers energy and high valued mineral rocks - a precious gift. As for pastures, they were mostly consumed by the goats, traditionally herded for the famous Altai Cashmere, which despite the crisis remains famous and a relevant export, an exquisite and unique product.
http://mcashmere.com/brands/altai-cashmere.html
This new Mongolia of fertile subsoil, excavated and mostly deserted, leaves the nomadic life in the yurts, and starts to build skyscrapers, airports, shopping malls, pedestrian streets with fountains and terraces.
Famous brand shops. Luxurious hotels. Even the sad prefabricated 5-floor blocks of the Soviet era are converted: with Greek columns at the door, here a pub, there a hairdresser, a mobile phone shop. Nothing of this is really new: just enthusiastic capitalism.
Hotel in Ulaan Baatar
Surreal.
Two worlds coexist, in sharp contrast, and Mongolia is one of the most unequal and polluted countries on the planet.
Winter is still the worst, people may have to survive by -50° C. Yurts are heated by coal stoves, the cheapest, and smoke becomes unbearable - you can't even see the other side of the street.
*
You will be always welcome, dear Mongol visitors, from your yurts or from your 15th floor lofts with a view.
----------------------
GDP growing 17.3% ! (2011)
GDP per capita $ 5 000
Fotos: Panoramio, Skyscrapercity
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