Our summer season of work is wrapping up here at the South Pole. I head home in less than two weeks, along with nearly everyone else working here right now. Are you wondering what happens next with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the IceCube Upgrade? What happens to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station during the winter? Lucky for us, there are about 40 adventurous individuals who will stay here over the winter to maintain the station and the experiments here. Can you guess what we call these folks? I’ll give you a hint — it’s not creative but very informative…. We call them winterovers!
Winterovers play a critical role in keeping the South Pole station and all the science experiments here running. For the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, there are always two winterovers. They are some of the first folks to arrive on the ice in the summer and will stay approximately 13 months at the South Pole. For the first week or so on the ice, the prior winterovers hand over all their work and get the new winterovers updated on what has happened during the winter. But winterover training starts months in advance, with lots of informative talks, training sessions, practice sessions, and test sessions.
