Interview of Craig W. Brown by Brian Shoemaker

• Main Author: Brown, Craig W., 1937-
• Other Authors: Shoemaker, Brian
• Format: Audio
• Language: English
• Published: Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program 2009
• Subjects: Antarctica > Discovery and exploration > Interviews; Antarctica > Social life and customs; Meteorology > Antarctica > Interviews; Brown; Craig W.; 1937- > Interviews; Arctic; Byrd; Christchurch; Fries; McMurdo Sound; Scripps; South Pole; Antarc*; Antarctica; South pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1811/37923

The media can be accessed at the links below. Audio Part 1: http://streaming.osu.edu/knowledgebank/byrd/oral_history/Mr_Craig_W_Brown_1.mp3 Audio Part 2: http://streaming.osu.edu/knowledgebank/byrd/oral_history/Mr_Craig_W_Brown_2.mp3 Mr. Brown graduated from the University of Iowa in 1960 with a degree in electrical engineering. He was in graduate school at the University of Idaho when he read a U.S. Weather Bureau recruitment brochure for work in Antarctica. He answered the advertisement and was accepted by the USWB in 1962. In June of 1962 he was sent to the USWB Station in Kansas City, KS where he was trained to maintain and repair the parabolic tracking radar to track weather balloons. From there he went to Herndon, VA where he learned to us the Dobson Ozone Spectro-Photometer and the Regener Chemiluminescent Ozone detector. The Dobson measured upper atmosphere ozone and the Regener measured surface ozone. The final training leg was at Scripps Institute of Oceanography where he was trained to measure carbon dioxide concentrations. From there he proceeded to McMurdo Sound via Christchurch and after one day there was flown to the South Pole Station on the 12th of November 1962. He noted that it was 39 degrees below zero at the time. He describes the South Pole Station - the only evidence was a doorway arch sticking up above the terrain leading down to the station which was about 12 feet below the surface due to drifting snow. The scientists who spent the prior year left the day after he and other scientists arrived. His partner from the USWB was Ken Jensen. He and Ken shared 24 hour per day scientific data-collection duties for a year. He describes his research measurement of upper atmosphere ozone using Ultra-Violet radiation via the Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometer year around, surface ozone via chemiluminesce, and carbon dioxide measurements day-in and day-out. He briefly describes other scientific research that was taking place at South Pole at the time: - Aurora studies by Bob Fries for the Arctic ...