The Swedish part of the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, JASE: Report no 14

The Japanese traverse group left on December 30 for their journey towards Syowa station. The Swedish group will take off at January 1. During the stay here we have had social exchange and performed maintenance of vehicles, snow studies and radar, GPS and radiometer studies at the site of a subglacial lake. During this stay we have also had an exchange of scientists. Two Swedes are now joining the Japanese expedition and we now have two Japanese members in our team.

The temperature has now dropped somewhat and varies on a daily basis between -25 and -35 degrees C. The annual mean temperature at this site is -55 degrees C, so winters must be tough here.

Tomorrow we head southwest towards a depot build by the Norwegian-US traverse. We will pick up fuel, empty barrels and some snow samples. After that we will head westwards towards the Wasa station.

December 31, 2007

Per Holmlund and Tomas Karlberg