Don's Log
| 3 - 8 August |
| 9 - 11 August |
| 12 - 18 August |
| 19 - 31 August |
| 1 - 12 Sept |
| 13 - 26 Sept |
| 27 Sept -1 Oct |
13 September - 26 September: South to Fram Strait
Tuesday 13 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
89 22.447 N, 89 05.3 WForget about spring forward. Try catapult forward. Since we crossed over the top of the world yesterday we changed time zones from Alaska Daylight Time to Norwegian Daylight Time. That’s a whopping +10 hours. I got up at 0230 and found that it was 1230 and I had missed breakfast and lunch. Well today will be a short day. Its just as well. There is a bit of a day after Christmas feel to the ship today. It’s a combination of the letdown after the celebration at the pole yesterday and the time jump.
I thought about hitting the gym, but was too tired so I worked on data instead and counted down to dinner. Somewhat to my surprise I was paged after dinner and informed that we were stopping in 15 minutes while the Oden did a 3-hour CTD cast. OK, here we go to Site 24. It’s a fairly small floe around 300 m in diameter with new rubble around the perimeter. It was a small, but substantial floe. Bruce measured a couple blocks upturned by the ship and found that they were 2.5 m thick. There were also several ridges and considerable snow drifting. We got a new record snow depth of 55 cm. The combination of deep drifts near the ridges and the breakable ice crust from the freezing rain storm made walking difficult. Of course carrying a 10 foot long, 30 pound instrument doesn’t help.
As I was falling over in slow motion in the snow drifts, I kept thinking “the Arctic Ocean is a desert.” It is a desert. The average snow depth onArctic sea ice is about 33 cm and the average density is about 0.33 grams per cubic centimeter. Multiply them together and you get an average water equivalent precipitation of just over 10 cm, about 4 inches. Toss in
another inch of rain in the summer and you are still well under the limit for a desert.The thickness survey was a spiral first going around the outside perimeter of the floe and gradually working inward. Tom and Jeremy measured sootlevels and snow physical properties. Do you really need to ask about the weather? It was cloudy, low visibility, high winds, and snow.
As soon as we returned to the ship, it was up to the science lounge to participate in a webinar. A webinar is a web seminar and this one was part of the educational outreach activities. Ute, a high school science teacher from Texas, was the moderator on the Healy and a couple of schools from the United States participated.
I was definitely ready for bed by the end of the day (or was it days?).
Figure 1. The Healy crew and science team at the north pole.
Figure 2. Jeremy writing down ice thickness measurements made at Site 24.Wednesday 14 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
88 46.932 N, 75 06.2 E
It was a very rough night of icebreaking. We only made 3 miles southward in 8 hours. At one point we did 20 back and rams. Ice conditions vary widely and so does our transit time. In heavy ice we are lucky to do 1 knot, while in leads and thin ice we can do 8 knots.The big surprise of the morning was the line at breakfast. Yesterday’s 10 hour time change has left everyone’s body clocks confused and hungry for dinner at the 0700 breakfast. I was no exception having scrambled eggs, two bowls of cheerios, and three pieces of homemade bread with cream cheese and jelly. It was a start, but there are only 3 hours to lunch.
In the morning we had another “data archiving” festival backing up all the results and photographs from the past few sites. Tom and I worked on the incident spectral irradiance data, trying to straighten out the calibrations. In the optics business its pretty easy to make relative measurements, like albedo, where you divide one measurement by another. Its much more difficult to make absolute measurements where a variety of calibration factors need to be applied. The brain gets a little mushy six weeks into a field experiment and it takes some thought to remember which terms get multiplied and which get divided.
I did a quick version of optics in the afternoon, with only a set of spectral incidence. Sky conditions: complete overcast, solar disk not visible.
The Oden is making CTD stops every 40 minutes of latitude and that gives us a chance to get on the ice. We seem to be in an evening pattern for stops as we pull up to a floe at 1900. We are on the ice from 1930 to 2115 under beautiful skies. That’s right, beautiful. The wind has died down and the sun has come out. Its just a spectacular evening and a wonderful time for a stroll on the ice for a snow depth ice thickness survey. Tom and Jeremy did a set of transmission measurements. Howie and Alejandro drilled and measured a set of ice thickness holes. We all took pictures of the beautiful Arctic icescape. The floe had quite a bit of topography including some new ridges formed from 30 cm thick young ice. This floe also had the icy crust from the freezing rain event.
Word of the day: evolution. This word is used incessantly aboard ship. It does not refer to Darwin’s theory. Evolution is the actions that comprise an event. For example, “What does the ice station evolution look like? Two hours, for site selection, the basket, surveying, and characterizing.” There is every imaginable sort of evolution: helicopter, sediment coring, seismic surveying, eating dinner. The typical questions regarding an evolution are what do you need and how long will it take.
Figure 1. Track of the Healy (in red) during backing and ramming to get through a pressure ridge. The lines are offset because the ice cover is drifting.
Figure 2. Sunshine at Site 25.Thursday 15 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
88 03.333 N, 58 44.9 E
Here is a key scientific finding. Breakfast is the new dinner. Until a couple of days ago meals had a consistent pattern; people tended to trickle in for breakfast and there would be a long line of people waiting for the start of dinner. No more. Since the time change, there is a long line waiting for the start of breakfast and a steady trickle of people for dinner. We may have changed the wall clocks but not our internal stomach clocks.Its more thick ice and slow going. For the past couple of days we have been in heavy multiyear ice and averaging about 40 nm per day. Subconsciously there was a feeling that since we are heading south the ice will get easier. That will eventually happen, but not today. We are still less than 100 miles from the pole and are deep in the heart of the pack. We are far away from the ice edge and most of the ice here has been in the Arctic Basin for a long time. The ice we have encountered the past couple of days is thick and it's old. There are big floes with lots of surface topography, hummocks and refrozen melt ponds, topography that indicates that the floes have been around for several years. The slow going and the overturned blocks show that these floes are thick. Most of the ice is more than 3 m. And that is the flat ice. Typical ridge heights are 2 m, with some reaching 5 m high.
For the third day in a row we have an after dinner station. We’re on the ice at 1915. The weather has definitely improved the past few days. The skies are partly cloudy and there is no fog. The improved visibility makes it much easier to walk around on the ice. You can see the bumps and hollows before you trip over them. It was a little chilly, -11 C, but after working for a while it felt quite comfortable. The floe we were on was the thickest so far. The undeformed ice was about 3.5 m and there were some big ridges that we didn't even bother to try to drill. Tom did the soot and surface characterization observations, Jeremy and Kazu took an ice core, and Bruce and I did our usual surveying. It was a nice night and a nice floe, so we did 2 km instead of 1.
Figure 1. Blue sky and beautiful clouds at Site 26.
Figure 2. Jeremy photographing an ice core. The core was 3.5 m long and still didn't go all the way through the ice.Friday 16 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
87 36.151 N, 59 0.3 E
Once again the going is quite heavy. We have only made 3 nm in the past 8 hours. The Healy and Oden were doing tandem icebreaking. It is very impressive to watch. The ships are close together, parallel to one another. One ship goes forward breaking ice until it stops. Then it slowly starts to back up as the other ship presses forward into the breech. Once the second ship stops the first moves forward again. The process is repeated until the ships break through into thinner ice. It is an elegant “pas de deux” for icebreakers. Well maybe ballet is not the place to look for metaphors for icebreakers that weigh tens of millions
of pounds apiece. How about tag team sumo wrestling. The key is to keep the ships as close as possible to maximize the ice breaking, but not so close as to "trade paint"; trade paint is a delightful euphemism for collide, crash, wreck. We avoid trading paint, but it is difficult because of the close quarters, the huge ships, and the ice blocks that can unpredictably push the ship sideways. I’m glad I’m not driving.I participated in another educational outreach conference call. This one did have a twist. It was with a high school in Sweden and was in Swedish. After exhausting my limited Swedish vocabulary (Hey, eisbjorn), my question and answer portion was in English. The students asked lots of excellent questions and were very engaged. They asked me about sea ice
thickness and melting. The question that got the biggest laugh was “do you scientists make a lot of money.”Of course there is always optics on the flying bridge. Today it is a double feature in honor of the sunny skies; spectral incident irradiance measurements in the morning and in the afternoon. Its been sunny most of the day, aside from a short period of dense fog. Doing optics I stop to watch the ice go by, slowly. This is some serious thick multiyear ice. The ice has been around for a few years, it's thick and has considerable surface topography. There are hummocks, refrozen ponds, and tall consolidated ridges. These are the wrinkles on the face of the floe. Wrinkles that have been earned over several summers of melting and winters of ridging.
There is a special treat at dinner tonight – macadamia nuts. These nuts are wonderful and totally addictive. Here we are only 150 miles from the North Pole eating Hawaii’s greatest. The evening is spent waiting and waiting and waiting for the next station. At 2000 it is only 12 miles away. At 2100 it is only 11 miles away. At 2200 it is only 10 miles away. Doing a quick extrapolation I decide to go to bed and get some sleep. The station won’t be until tomorrow, or at least until after midnight.
Figure 1. Multiyear floe with a large hummock in the middle of the photo.
Figure 2. Panorama of multiyear ice.Saturday 17 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
87 11.600 N, 58 36.8 E
The site comes early, both in space and time. It was tenatively to be at 87 20 N, but was 8 miles early at 87 28 N instead. Those 8 miles meant my after breakfast prediction was wrong. It was 0230 AM instead. These middle of the night sites can be tough. You’re in this nice warm bunk when somebody tells you its time to go out into the cold world of the ice. And when you are half asleep it does feel cool, particularly with 25 mph winds and temperatures of -10 C. Cold, but spectacularly beautiful. It is an ethereal scene. The sun is low on the horizon with a cerulean sky highlighted by wisps of high cirrus clouds. Bordering the sun are two “sun dogs” or more formally parahelia arcs or more descriptively rainbow parentheses. A knee high layer of blowing snow sweeps across the surface giving it a diffuse aura. Stretching across the ice surface is the half kilometer long shadow of the Healy. You gotta love it.We are parked in, not next to, but in, a huge floe that appears to go on forever. Bruce and I do the snow/ice survey walking 400 m from the ship and then back and then do it again shifting to a new track line. Its easy walking as the floe is fairly flat with only a few old, weathered ridges. The surface wind slab is beginning to freeze and in some places you don’t
break through. There was no evidence of the freezing rain event at this location. Jeremy pounds 8 holes through the ice for comparison. Tom takes samples in the blowing snow. There are only the four of us this morning. It must be the early start. We are on the ice from 0330 to 0500 when it is time for the ship to start moving again.Food or sleep? I decide to pass on breakfast and sleep until 0830. There is macaroni and cheese for lunch, so I’ll be able to catch up on my eating. The eating is great, but how do you get exercise on a field experiment like this. When we are getting on the ice, exercise is no problem. There is the sea ice fitness program: sled dragging, hole drilling, equipment hauling, buoy wrestling, surveying, and more. But there are days we don’t get on the ice. The Healy has an excellent and well maintained gym with treadmills, bikes, rowing machines (a little ironic) and weight equipment. So a workout is available 24/7. Personally I’ve stuck to the
bicycle and some weights. But even without the gym, there is exercise everywhere. The Healy is a vertical world. When I do optics on the rail, its five stories and 85 stairs from the lab to the flying bridge. From my room to the mess hall its down two flights of stairs and from my room to the bridge its up 3 flights and the aloft con is three vertical ladder flights above the bridge. If you are going on a ship experiment, train on the Stairmaster.In the afternoon it is snowing and blowing and slow going. Its snowing hard enough that I pass on optics on the rail. Too much snow could trash the computer. The slow going continues, we are barely averaging a knot. The ice is thinner than yesterday, but the ice pressure is greater. The next station is the Gakkel Ridge at 86 48 N. We should be there sometime tomorrow.
Figure 1. Bruce on the helo deck, silouetting the sun and framed by sun
dogs.
Figure 2. Sun dog and blowing snow on the surface.Sunday 18 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
86 39.394 N, 55 37.1 E
There was a nice surprise at the end of yesterday. Bruce on I were up on the bridge just watching the ice go by when Bruce said “Look there are some bears!” It was a mama and two cubs walking right between us and the Oden crossing the broken rubble. An announcement was made and everyone came flocking to the bow of the ship. We were all standing around looking at the bears who were standing around looking at us. The only difference was we were shivering in the cold and they were quite comfortable.It was nice going to bed last night knowing that there would not be a station until late in the day tomorrow. So it was a chance to sleep in. Of course I woke up at the usual time, but the important point is that I didn’t have to. It was a lazy morning working on data and waiting for burgers for Sunday lunch.
By 1530 we were close to the sediment coring site so we went up to the bridge to check out the floes, then got our gear together. We were parked at 1630 and off on the ice we went to Site 28 – into the teeth of the gale. It was seriously windy, 30 mph with gusts pushing 40 mph. Not only was it windy, but the sunny weather of Saturday morning is long gone. There is total overcast with low stratus clouds. Luckily it wasn’t very cold, only -2 C. Once you got used to the wind blowing you every which way it was actually a fairly pleasant night for a walk. That’s what Bruce and I did, walk. We walked a two-kilometer-long snow depth/ice thickness survey line. Tom did ice physical properties. Jeremy helped Kazu take a core under his instrument and then with help from Ute drilled some thickness holes. The floe was several hundred meters across. It had some towering, old ridges, the tallest sail was over 5 m high. There were several other old consolidated ridges that were over two meters tall. The thickness of the undeformed ice was about 2.2 m. The wind-packed surface layer of the snow continues to develop. When walking you stay on top of the snow about 75% of the time, breaking through only in the soft snow that covers the melt ponds.
By the end of the site at 1830 we noticed the strangest phenomena in the sky. It was getting dark. Not really dark, you could see just fine, but the lights on the ship were noticeable. An hour later the sun actually dipped below the horizon. We are headed towards nightfall in both time and space, as we head south and also approach the autumnal equinox.
Figure 1. Mama bear.
Figure 2. and her two cubs.
Figure 3. Jeremy, Bruce, and Ute drilling a hole at Site 28.Monday 19 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
86 00.900 N, 49 44.1 E
Aaargghh! Shiver me timbers! You lubbers don’t know how hard the life of a pirate is. Give me a pint of grog and I’ll tell you a tale of a frozen ocean and great white beasts. Aaargghh! No I haven’t totally lost my mind. Today is official international talk like a pirate day on the Healy. A great way to have some fun. Of course function follows form. At breakfast we were all practicing our pirate talk. At lunch we were admiring the great pirate outfits sported by the crew. By dinner we were talking weapons and piracy. With the seismic air gun and lots of potatoes who could stop us. Aargghh!Speaking of aargghh, that does a pretty good job of describing the current ice conditions. It continues to be slow going in thick ice with little open water. Since the pole we have averaged a degree of latitude every 48 hours for a speed of just a little over a knot. We hoped to be making three knots. The difficult going has necessitated some changes to our plans. The extensive survey of the Gakkel Ridge has been scaled back. Yesterday there was a wealth of science; a CTD station, sediment cores from the Gakkel Ridge, and an ice site. But today logistics takes a front seat and the intricate, complex plan becomes simple – go south. We are leaving the Gakkel Ridge and heading south to the ice edge. Once at the edge we can decide where to go next. It’s the old end around play, get outside (south) away from the defense (ice) in the middle.
After lunch Bruce and I took advantage of a brief sunbreak for some optics on the rail. The sun angle these days is pretty low, just 5 to 10 degrees above the horizon. We measured the incident from the flying bridge and then went to the bow to measure the reflectance of all available ice types. All available ice types was one, snow-covered multiyear ice. Generally speaking the ice cover is a pristine combination of white snow and blue or white ice, but not always. There are areas where the surface of the ice is contaminated by sediments and other areas where the ice bottom is colonized by algae. The sediment tends to be black to brown in color and the algae brown to orange. Both are very distinct from the white and blue of the snow and ice.
Because of the difficult ice conditions, the Oden and Healy will staying together for a few more days. Also the CTD station planned for 86 N has been cancelled to expedite movement south. Thus there are no ice stations for at least the next few days. Too bad since it is always nice to get on the ice. On the bright side at least there won’t be any middle of the night stations.
Figure 1. Sediment-laden sea ice. Note the bands of sediment in the block.
Figure 2. Algae is evident on the bottom of ice blocks overturned by the passage of the icebreakers.Tuesday 20 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
85 42.445 N, 46 45.9 E
“No middle of the night station.” Famous last words. At 0330 the phone rings, “We’re on station, do you want to go on the ice?” Of course we want to go on the ice. As I stagger up to the bridge in my usual 0330 semi-comatose state, once again I am rewarded for the effort. It is a beautiful morning. The sun is just a few degrees off the horizon in the east and the full moon is in the sky in the west. There is a rosy haze to themorning due to the thin wisps of fog in the air. The temperature is a crisp -10 C and there is no wind. Once you wake up, it’s great to be on the ice.The floe was easy walking. Site 29 was big, over a kilometer in all directions and fairly flat with just a few small ridges scattered about. It was quite a bit different than the heavily ridged Site 28. The first task was to take an ice core to add to our collection. Bruce and I then
took advantage of the easy going by doing a two kilometer survey, while Tom did surface characterization and Jeremy drilled reference holes for the thickness sensor.So what is this surface characterization that I keep talking about? It includes taking snow samples for analysis of the contaminants, primarily soot, in the snow. Since snow is such an excellent reflector of sunlight, even a small amount of contamination can cause a significant reduction in the albedo. Another important component of the characterization is determining the grain size of the snow or the ice surface. Again, the motivation is the albedo. Generally speaking the smaller and more intricate the snow grains the larger the albedo. We also measure the snow density. Just a few days ago the snow was quite fluffy, but now it is a
hard wind-packed slab. Last week we sank into the snow, this week we walk across the snow surface. The snow density is 0.33 grams per cubic centimer. That value is right on the expected average. That is one-third the density of water, so if you melt 15 cm of snow you will get around 5 cm of water.We’re back on board by 0615 and the gear is stowed by 0630. The old question arises “sleep or food?” The answer is both, first breakfast then a nap until lunch. The afternoon is spend doing optics on the rail. As is often the case, the partly cloud skies of the wee hours of the morning have given way to the low stratus and complete overcast of the afternoon. Bruce and I made a set of incident sunlight measurements from the flying bridge and then a series of reflectances from the bow of all the available ice types. Since we are bashing through an enormous floe all available ice types is one, snow-covered multiyear ice. It is a leisurely
evening crunching data as the Healy crunches ice.
Figure 1. Bruce at Site 29.
Figure 2. A newly formed ridge made from young ice that was 15-20 cm thick.
Figure 3. A closeup photograph of snow crystals.Wednesday 21 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
85 05.154 N, 44 14.8 E
We continue to slowly head south. Occassionally there are short periods of easy going, but mainly it is a lot of backing and ramming. Sometimes once or twice, sometimes 10 times, sometimes 20 times; whatever it takes to get through the ice. This is a time for patience and persistence. For the past several days we have consistently averaged 30 to 40 nautical miles per day. This is good progress considering the ice conditions, but slower than we had expected.With no chance of a stop and no ice stations we are back into our in transit mode of operation. There are the ongoing ice watch measurements, the cleaning of the radiometer domes, and of course the day’s highlight, the afternoon measurements. Bruce and I continue to do optics in the afternoon. Now we are still doing the incident measurements from the flying bridge, but are doing the reflectance measurements from the bow. This gets us closer to the ice and allows us to focus on particular ice types. Since the ships are carefully picking the easiest way to go, we are not getting a random sample of the ice. We can, however, measure the reflectance of all the basic building blocks of the surface; leads, gray nilas, white nilas, young ice, multiyear ice, and of course snow. These building blocks can then be combined to generate area averages.
While we are measuring reflectance, Tom and Jeremy are using an infrared radiometer to measure the surface temperature. They have seen quite a bit of spatial variability in the surface temperature. Today’s values ranged from -7 C for snow-covered multiyear ice to -1.7 C for an open lead. The surface temperature of the snow-covered ice was pretty close to the air temperature. In contrast the lead temperature was at the freezing point of the salty ocean water. Generally speaking the thicker the ice the colder the surface temperature.
Tonight’s science lecture was on the Arctic Research Commission and the Law of the Sea. One fun fact is that the Arctic Research Commission is the second smallest federal agency. The smallest administers the Goldwater scholarships. Coincidentally I know about these scholarships because one of my daughters won one. It is a great program to encourage and support undergraduates studying math and science during their senior year. If you fit the criteria check it out. The Law of the Sea discussion was interesting in that the old 3 mile, or 12 mile, or 200 mile limit definition of what part of the ocean belongs to a country has been changed. It is now a complex algorithm involving ocean depth, second derivatives, sediment depth, and geological composition. I can’t explain it. The tax code is trivial by comparison.
The backing and ramming continued throughout the entire day. The reconnaisance flight and the satellite imagery indicate that there may be some relief in about 20 or 30 miles. We’ll see tomorrow.
Figure 1. Tom and Jeremy doing KT-19 measurements from the rail.
Figure 2. A sight we haven't seen for two months - the moon.Thursday 22 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
83 45.2 N, 40 04.3E
Happy autumnal equinox! The sun is on the equator and is heading south. The days are getting shorter, and that is really true up here. Just a couple days ago we had 24 hours of daylight. Now at our current position we are losing more that an hour of daylight each day. If we stayed here the sun would set for the winter in early October. That is a fast change of seasons.Conditions are different this morning and the going is much easier. We have been making 4-5 knots for the past few hours. Persistence has paid off, we are out of the heavy ice and now making excellent progress. The ice here is thinner and there is much less snow. There is not even enough snow to completely cover the ice. You can see bare ice on the hummocks. Some of the ponds are drifted in with snow, but others are completely snow-free. My working hypothesis is that this local variability in pond depth is due to topography. Refrozen ponds that are in fairly flat areas are windswept. Ponds that are in hollows tend to drift in and get deep snow.
From yesterday to today there has been a world of change. No more backing and ramming, just zipping through the ice. One of the most exciting aspects of this cruise is the chance to watch changes, both in space and time, in the ice cover. Over the course of the cruise the changes have been dramatic. There have been areas of thick multiyear ice and also large areas of open water. When we started the melt season was in full swing, now its fall freeze up. The surface melt season is over and the top of the ice is cooling. Surface temperatures are now -5 to -7 C. What were once fields of azure and turquoise melt ponds are now just a seemingly endless expanse of white snow. Notice that I said the surface melt season is over. The bottom of the multiyear ice hasn’t gotten the message that it is fall yet. Because of its thickness it takes one to two months for the cold temperatures to propagate through the ice and initiate freezing at the underside. Of course the leads are rapidly freezing, since they are directly exposed to the cold air.
Once again in was optics in the afternoon. Incident from the flying bridge and reflectance from the bow under the all too common complete overcast skies. We tried to get a sampling of the ice types there were present.
Figure 1. Finally a loosening of the ice pack
Figure 2. An area of dirty ice.
Figure 3. A close up of dirty ice.Friday 23 September
Southbound in the Arctic Ocean
81 43.995 N, 31 07.7E
We made great progress all night and are now in that fuzzy area called the ice edge. At one point there is open water and at another point there is the ice pack. In between is the ice edge. This is not a distinct boundary, but can extend for miles or tens of miles depending on the winds, waves, currents, and ice conditions. Off-ice winds spread out the ice edge, while on-ice winds compress it. Waves are efficiently dampened by the ice cover. If waves are propagating into the ice cover, they break big floes into little floes. They also break up the newly growing ice forming an interesting looking kind of ice called pancake ice (see picture). As we moved towards the edge the floes got smaller, the amount of open water increased, and the new ice was broken up into pancakes. As an added feature we saw some small icebergs.There was another interesting feature of the ice edge, polar bears, lots of polar bears. This is a prime seal hunting area. The downside is that the floes are small and thin, so the bears must use their hunting and swimming skills. We saw 7 bears within a span of 3 hours, that’s almost as many as we have see on the rest of the cruise. Suddenly there are also lots of birds. The the birds follow the bears who follow the seals.
We are moving east to west and are changing time zones rapidly, but not changing our clocks. Because of this we decided to do optics in the morning, to get as high a sun angle as possible. The ice is thin enough that we are going on a straight line point A to point B transect. This means we can try to get a sample of the this area by making reflectance measurements for the flying bridge every 30 seconds for a half hour.
Today marks a milestone in Hotrax 05. The Healy and Oden are parting ways. The Oden is headed for Longyearbyen for another mission and the Healy is headed for the Yermak Plateau for one last station. To mark this milestone there is a small ceremony in the science lounge of the Healy. Several people from the Oden came over, gifts were exchanged and short speeches were made. As a team, we have accomplished a great deal through easy ice and tough going. There is another component to field experiments beyond the science, and that is the friendships that we make. Field experiments are a great way to get to know people. The hard work and isolated location can build a strong camaraderie among the people on board. That has certainly been the case on this cruise. The farewell has an added poignancy as 6 people on the Healy are leaving with the Oden. It's interesting to think back 50 days ago on a small noisy aircraft flying from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor. I noticed a group of people that shared two features; the glazed look that comes from sitting on a plane too long and matching blue jackets with yellow stripes and “Swedish Polar Research”. I didn’t know who they were, but I had a pretty good idea we were all going to the same place. Sure enough, we all were going to the Healy. Now they are not strangers, but friends, and that is one of the best parts of polar field work.
Figure 1. Pancake ice near the ice edge.
Figure 2. Time for a swim.
Figure 3. A few of the people of HOTRAX 05. (click on the photo for a large picture.)Saturday 24 September
Westbound in the Arctic Ocean
81 32.346 N, 17 59.3 E
We continued to make excellent progress during the night. And it is accurate to call it night. It is dark enough that the ship is using its spotlights to help steer through the ice. We are no longer close to the ice edge, but are moving through loose pack ice. Instead of yesterday’s small floes and pancake ice, there are some substantial floes around, both in thickness and areal extent. One caused a brief, but big “start stumbling sideways, listen to the crashing” tilt to the ship.It was a beautiful morning, sunny with just a few clouds and no fog. No fog, until the announcement “Flight briefing on the bridge in 5 minutes.” Suddenly there was fog everywhere. The sound waves from the announcement must cause water vapor to condense. Just kidding – I think. Luckily, after a brief delay, the fog lifted enough to go on a photo flight. Jeremy flew as our camera and intervalometer monitor. The flight started at 1000 feet, but the low clouds quickly brought the helo down to 500 feet, our usual altitude for these flights. You don’t get that big a field a view that close to the ground. What saves us is using a digital camera with a high speed, 4 GB compact flash card. Today we took a photograph every 3 seconds for a grand total of 1287. Each photo is only several hundred feet across, but we can put them all together and get a picture that is 80 nautical miles long.
Since we have moved to the west the past day our clocks are now in the right time zone. That means we are back to optics in the afternoon. The sun has returned and we get to make one of the rare sunny sky incident measurements along with some reflectances under sunny skies. We decide to target particular ice types again, so its down to the bow for reflectance. It’s a challenge to be quick enough since we are cruising at 7 knots. The sunny skies make it easy to see the topography of the ice floes, and the bear tracks.
Tonight is the last Saturday night of the cruise. The Chiefs prepared pizza for dinner. It was delicious. It was casino night. Everyone got $2500 in Healy script money. There was blackjack and roulette. The blackjack tables were crowded, so I tried roulette, betting “red”. I hit seven straight times clearing a quick few thousand. Remember the chance of a “red” after seven straight “reds” is still one-half. The roulette wheel doesn’t have a memory. Unfortunately, I had to leave for the 2000 ice watch, so I passed my money on to Jeremy and Frederik. At the end of casino night, your winnings can be used in an auction to buy various prizes like a night’s hotel stay or an X-box. Lots of fun. Of course the key to success in the auction is forming alliances and pooling money. Think of it as Survivor – Arctic. The most intense bidding was for the free hotel room in port. The winning bid was 125,000 Healy dollars. After months at sea some privacy is worth a lot.
Figure 1. Partly cloudy, solar disk clearly visible, with multiyear ice, new ice, and open water in the foreground.
Figure 2. White ice, blue sky, and a half moon.
Figure 3. Jeremy and Don making measurements at the bow of the ship while in transit.Sunday 25 September
Westbound in the Arctic Ocean
80 46.291 N, 13 30.2 E
Once again the ice throws us a curveball. We were prepared for a morning coring and ice station after 40 nautical miles of travel. However, the easy going of yesterday suddenly came to an end as we made 6 miles from 0100 to 0600. Time for a new plan. The extensive transect of the Yermak Plateau will be modified into a more straightforward east to west transect, with a coring station part way across. First we will head south towards the ice edge hoping to find easier going.Today marks a major milestone - the last Sunday hamburger and hot dog lunch. Nothing like those Sunday burgers to start the week off right. After lunch its time once again for optics in the afternoon. And once again it is complete overcast, solar disk not visible. Spectral incidence was measured on the flying bridge and reflectance from the port bow. While Bruce and I were measuring reflectance from the bow, we noticed bear tracks on the ice. Looking ahead we followed them and presto - there was a bear. The bear saw the ship and started walking away from us. He didn’t seem to be very concerned about the ship and eventually wandered off to the left.
There have been buckets of birds around today. At one point I counted 20 gliding back and forth across a lead. They were fishing for Arctic cod. The going has gotten progressively easier as we have headed southwest. No more backing and ramming and we are back up to 6 knots. We will probably be on station early tomorrow morning – ice permitting.
Figure 1. An interesting piece of nilas showing rafting and frost flowers.
Figure 2. A polar bear who was interested in our optical measurements.Monday 26 September
Westbound in the Arctic Ocean
80 17.848, N 06 22.2E
One last site, one last curveball from the ice. We were prepared for a morning coring and ice station. Around 0200 I briefly woke up feeling a gentle rolling back and forth of the ship. We were in a swell, even though we were 20 miles deep in the ice pack. There must be some major waves out in the open ocean. At 0430 Jeremy woke me up and I went to the bridge to find that the swell had broken the pack up into small floes about 20 m across. Our ice station was scrubbed because of 1) the small floe size, 2) the need to keep some open water on the starboard side for the sediment coring, and 3) the 5 degree rolls we are getting from the swell.On the bright side (literally and figurative) there is no fog and we have a chance for one last photo flight. In an unprecedented occurance the fog doesn’t even roll in during the flight briefing. Jeremy is off and they complete a 30 x 10 nautical mile box taking over 1200 photos and most impressively from an altitude of 1000 feet. The photographs are very interesting because they show how as you move towards the edge of the pack the floes get smaller and smaller because of wave action.
Of course you never know what will happen and its always good to have a plan. And we do have a plan. Since the floe is small, why not a small ice station. Two people, 15 minutes to take a core, grab a soot sample, and do a snow survey. Once the sediment coring is done, we get our chance. Bruce, the bear guard, and I take the basket to a floe that is about 15 m across. It's surprisingly thick, 2.4m, and so it takes us 20 minutes to complete our mission. Site 30 is done and that is probably the end of our on-ice work for this cruise.
After lunch (pasta bar) it's one last day of optics on the rail. Today was just a set of incident scans from the flying bridge followed by a final intercalibration using both lamps. Then it is time for a highlight of any field experiment – packing. We are still leaving a few items out, just in case, but its time to pack away most of our gear. We hope to air freight two boxes back from Tromso and let everything else ride the Healy back to Seattle. The 50+ ice cores will also ride through the Carribean, the Panama Canal, and Mexico on the way to Seattle. They will be safely ensconced in a cold room at -20 C. To celebrate packing boxes I hit the gym after dinner and ride the bicycle for an hour.
We probably will be in open seas by tomorrow morning, so everything must be secured for sea. In other words tied down in such a way that if the direction and magnitude of gravity changes it will stay in place. The Greenland and Norwegian Seas are known for their bad weather. Right now the prediction is for 15 foot seas. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Figure 1. Aerial photographs of ice floes near the ice edge.
Figure 2. Aerial photographs illustrating the breakup of the ice close to the ice edge.
Figure 3. Site 30 a small but thick floe.
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