Don's Log

   1 September - 12 September: To the Pole

Thursday 1 September
Northbound in the Arctic Ocean
85 06.042N, 154 28.352 W
Just like yesterday I awaken to quiet, further enhancing the “Groundhog Day” effect that all field work gets after a while. All the days start to feel the same. It seems like another stop and another chance to get out on the ice. But a quick trip to the bridge shows that all days are not the same. It is quiet, but we are moving and moving fast at 6 knots. There are two new, remarkable sights this morning – a huge lead and another ship. We have rendezvoused with the Oden and are now heading northwest in a huge system of leads. We are following along behind the Oden. In a lead it doesn’t matter, but in the ice following another icebreaker will provide some additional protection for the seismic string that we are towing behind the ship. We are in a hurry to get north, so it looks like this will be a slow day for the ice team and a good time to get caught up on data.

Bruce and I do the usual optics in the afternoon, spectral incident and spectral reflectance from the surface as it goes by. And the sky conditions are the usual, complete overcast with the solar disk occasionally visible. The afternoon reflectance survey was a little more challenging. Usually we set up on the starboard side and make a set of measurements every minute. Since we are above the bow of the ship there isn’t much of a problem with ice broken by the Healy. However, today we are following the Oden which is 20 feet wider than the Healy. We do our own version of the Keystone Kops as we race from port to starboard looking for unbroken ice. It may be comical, but it actually works pretty well.

During dinner we get the news that today may get busy. There is a coring station coming up that will start around 2300 and last for about 6 hours. The JAMSTEC group would like to try to install their large oceanographic J-CAD buoy. The station is long enough and is in a good location for their purposes. If they do install, we will put an ice mass balance buoy next to it. Bruce and I gather the buoy equipment and haul it up to the flight deck, so that we are all ready to load gear into the basket when we stop. We are all ready to go by 2030 and the waiting begins. And continues over the next few hours and we enter a region of large leads, thin ice, and dense fog. The geographic location may be good for a deployment, but what will the ice be like? In dense fog we approach the station and midnight. We will get the answer tomorrow.

Figure 1. The Swedish Icebreaker Oden breaking ice northbound in the Arctic Ocean.

Figure 2. Oden helicopter and Captain on the helipad of the Healy.

Figure 3. Strange patterns in the ice. The new ice in this lead is very thin, about 10 cm, and is called nilas. It is soft and pliable and is often deformed into interesting shapes.

Friday 2 September
Northbound in the Arctic Ocean
85 52.140N, 161 34.760W
By the time we got on station the weather had improved dramatically. Unfortunately the ice had not. The floe we moored to was thick enough, more than 2 m in many places, but it was small and riddled with melt ponds. There were so many melt ponds that you couldn’t get from point A to point B without crossing them. Bruce, Takashi, and I inspected the floe and deemed it inadequate for a buoy deployment. The Ice Squad quickly switched to plan B. Bruce and I did a short 500-m-long snow/ice thickness survey. It was hard to go even that far without getting wet. Definitely a confirming sign that this is not a good floe for a buoy deployment. Tom did surface characterization and soot sampling, while Jeremy did a melt pond survey. On the ice at 0015 and back in bed at 0315.

I woke up in time for breakfast, but decided to pass and rest a little longer. I had a couple of blueberry pop tarts. Tasty and blueberries are supposed to be heart healthy. I spent the rest of the morning working on data. It was a beautiful morning, easily the nicest weather of the cruise. The sun was shining brightly and there was plenty of blue sky everywhere. Unfortunately no flight operations are planned since the primary objective today is to move as fast as possible. After the late night and no breakfast I was standing in line waiting for lunch to start. Macaroni and cheese it was delicious.

After lunch? What else but optics in the afternoon. I was really excited that this would be a chance to measure the incoming sunlight under sunny skies. Unfortunately by 1230 the sunshine was gone and the clouds had returned. So once again it was the incident solar irradiance under complete overcast. Since we were cruising down the middle of a big lead there wasn’t any reason to try to measure the reflectance every minute. What I did do was measure the albedo of the nilas ice that was in the lead. Measuring albedo from the rail of a ship isn’t ideal because the ship influences the reflected values. However, jumping off the ship didn’t seem like a good idea, so albedos from bow it is. A correction factor will be applied in the data analysis.

Meanwhile in the midst of all of this sophisticated science, activities of cosmic import are under way. Activities involving wigs and blue noses. Those are terms that refer to people who haven’t crossed the Arctic Circle or the International Date. People who will have the opportunity to join the ranks of the Polar Bears. The initiation is a voluntary, two day process involving numerous activities including sea water showers, waiting on people, eating strange concoctions, memorizing poems, and best of all a talent show. The talent show was great it included songs, skits, and things that were hard to define. For example there was dance duet with 4 people stuffed into 2 Mustang Survival Suits. There was a game similar to a team version of Twister, with four people on a team. The referee gave a command like 4 feet, 3 hands, 1 head. The team of 4 together needed to put 4 feet, 3 hand, and 1 head on the floor. There were two indelible memories. One was two of chiefs pretending they were Madonna and singing. The other was the can of rotted fish, a Swedish delicacy that Ruben brought. It was the equivalent of a toxic gas leak. The stuff smelled terrible. The stench was so bad that they had to open the hangar door.

Once again a slow day got fast and an early bedtime got late. I found out at dinner that we would be stopping for 2 hours starting around 2300. This is another opportunity to install the buoys. Bruce and I can easily install the ice mass balance buoy in an hour, but the JAMSTEC J-CAD buoy is more complex and takes 3-4 hours. An innovative solution is devised for this problem. We will get most of the buoy installed, then when it is time to leave everyone but Takashi will board the ship. A helicopter and crew will wait on the ice until Takashi is finished and fly him back to the Healy. Of course all this is predicated on finding a good floe. A task that is complicated when you are sailing in the middle of a 300-m-wide lead.

We arrive on station a bit early and at 2200 Takashi and I are in the Aloft Con, picking a floe that we hope will suffice for our buoys. Selecting a floe under time pressure is difficult, similar to deciding what play to call at the line of scrimmage. There is a floe that looks pretty good. It appears to be fairly thick, with some ridges to protect it and only a few melt pond. There may be a problem getting from the edge of the floe to the center, but there probably is a way. Let’s give it a try. While the ship is parking I go to get dressed. Is the floe substantial enough to install the buoys? Stay tuned tomorrow for the answer.

Figure 1. Drilling a thick ridge. That's 10 feet of ice drill.

Figure 2. Bruce taking an ice core. These cores will be analyzed back in the laboratory to determine the properties of the ice, including its salinity, crystal structure, and isotope composition.

Saturday 3 September
Westbound in the Arctic Ocean
86 13.765N, 172 37.890 E
We got on the ice at 2230 last night. Bruce, Takashi, and I found a path from the edge of the floe towards the center. There was a small ridge and a refrozen pond to traverse, but otherwise it was easy going. A quick hole showed that the flat part of the floe was 2.5-m-thick. This floe is a go for buoy deployment.

Eight of us headed out on the ice. Tom was working on soot and snow grains. Bruce, Jeremy, and I concentrated on the CRREL Ice Mass Balance Buoy. Takashi, Hiro, Kazu, and Ruben had the difficult job of installing the J-CAD. It is an ocean buoy and is quite heavy. A tripod is set up to drill the hole and then assemble the buoy and lower it into the ocean. But first you have to drag 1000 pounds of equipment to the site. Our planning the sequence of the installation paid off. The CRREL buoy was completed by midnight. Bruce went to help with the J-CAD, while Jeremy and I did a snow/ice thickness survey. At 0100 the helo landed on the ice. The J-CAD installation was far enough along most of the equipment and people could be loaded directly on the ship via the basket. We hauled 1000 pounds out and about 200 back. We were all on-board by 0130, except for Takashi and the helo crew. After a site there is about an hour of wrap-up, including stowing the gear, putting the ice cores in the cold room, taking photographs from the bridge, and getting the position. It was great to complete this double buoy site. 12 buoys installed and two more to go. I was in bed by 0230 and asleep shortly thereafter.

But not for long, at 0530 there was an incredible racket consisting of announcements over the PA system, people shouting, pots and pans banging. No it wasn’t the end of the world. It was just a wakeup call for the wogs and bluenoses to start their final day of initiation into the ranks of polar bears. Not being a wog or a bluenose, I rolled over and went back to sleep. At 0800 another announcement heralded the ascension of the wogs and bluenoses to the rank of esteemed, exalted polar bear.

After back to back midnight stations there is some catching up to do, both on data and on sleep. Data calls, so we work on that first. The four of us compare notes on the recent stations to make sure we have a complete record of the measurements. “Every point is precious.” You don’t want to expend a lot of effort to make a measurement and then misplace it.

Afternoon optics was postponed due to a dead battery in the spectroradiometer. It was no great loss since we spent the afternoon cruising in a lead so reflectance would not have been interesting. The sky conditions were the familiar complete overcast with the solar disk not visible.

“Run to Daylight” is a classic sports book written by Jerry Kramer about the 1960’s Green Bay Packers. The essence of the offense of the Packer dynasty was a strong running game where the linemen created holes and the running backs “ran to daylight.” That’s what the Healy and Oden are doing today, “running to open water.” We are traveling east to west in a major lead system looking for an easy way to head north, just like a running back sweeping wide looking for a hole to turn upfield. The seismic string has been pulled in and we are racing along to the west at 10-12 knots. Of course when a running back goes wide, the color commentator always says football is a north-south game, not an east-west. Same for us, ultimately we need to go north.

Notice that our longitude has shifted from west to east. During our westward run we crossed the international dateline. The next ocean station on the Oden is set for 86 30 N. We may do an ice station there. The plan is if there is a lead we will tow the seismic line and if there is ice, we will do an ice station. If there is an ice station we will keep it simple, surveys and soot samples. The gear is ready and by 2300 our position is only 86 16 N, so why not go to bed, with the pager nestled by my ear.

Figure 1. Site 16 with CRREL Ice Mass Balance Buoy and the sun low on the horizon.

Figure 2. Installation of JAMSTEC JCAD buoy. The bear guard is standing sentry in the background.

Sunday 4 September
Westbound in the Arctic Ocean
86 40.199N, 171 53.405 E
The day started early with the beeping of a pager at 0530. Could this be the ocean stop and our chance to get on the ice? No, it was Howie’s pager. The seismic gear is going back in the water and the marine mammal watch is back on-line. After another hour of sleep its time to get up and go to the bridge and see what is going on. Surprisingly we haven’t reached 86 30 N yet. As was the case yesterday east to west traveling is pretty easy, but south to north is quite difficult.

The sediment laden ice so common a few days ago appears to be gone. In its place is an abundance of algae. The algae is brown and is evident on the underside of upturned blocks. Also the underwater shelves at the edges of floes look green rather than brown.

The Oden stops for a CTD cast, but we keep going since we are in a lead and it is a great opportunity to extend the seismic observations. At the end of the lead, the seismic gear is brought in and we roll ahead, right into heavy ice. There was a multiyear floe about 2 to 3 meters thick, with a couple of old ridges. Its too thick to cruise through, so its back and ram time. 21 times the ship goes back and forth, working to break through the floe. This is big-time ice breaking. The icebreaking process is interesting. For thick ice it is not like a knife cutting, rather its putting a heavy weight on top of something. When breaking thick ice, the Healy moves forward with tremendous momentum and rides up on top of the ice at which point its weight breaks the floe. And the Healy is heavy, approximately 16,000 tons. Its like dropping a building on the ice. Sea ice is strong in compression, but weak in tension. Riding up on the ice creates tension breaking the ice.

After spending 30 minutes going 200 m it is back to the east-west system of leads. First we go west, then back to the east, then back to the west. We’re a running back looking for daylight. But we are a very powerful running back, with tremendous vision. Our vision comes from observers in the 90-foot high aloft con, from helicopter reconnaisance flights, and from satellite imagery. When we put it all together, we have a good view of the surroundings.
While we are searching for a hole to the north, there is a strategy meeting on the Oden to formulate a plan for the next week. It will be a challenging week with seismic surveys, ocean measurements, ice sites, and sediment coring. The heavy ice conditions add a major complication. Step 1 of the plan is to go west, way west to about 155 E and then try to head north. The Russian ship Federov had success a couple weeks ago heading north in the same region.

During the afternoon it was optics from the rail on a very windy day. Up on the flying bridge the average wind is 25 mph, with gusts up 35 mph. As usual it is completely overcast and the sun is not visible. The temperature is -3 C, not too cold, but the wind is definitely a factor.

Figure 1. The Swedish Icebreaker Oden

Figure 2. An overturned block showing brown algae on the bottom. Note that the underwater ice looks green instead of blue due to the presence of algae.

Monday 5 September
Westbound and then northbound in the Arctic Ocean
86 58.514 N, 157 56.992 E
This morning we are still running west looking for northernly leads. After several hours we finally turn the corner at 155 W and start heading north. Today is a holiday, Labor Day, which means there is no afternoon muster and that lunch is from 1000 to 1200 instead of 1100 to 1200. Speaking of lunch, the food on the Healy is excellent. There are ample quantities, fine quality, and a range of choices. Best of all the food is always delivered with a smile. One of the amazing things about the food is that there is still lettuce. We've been gone over a month and there still is some good looking lettuce. The tomatoes seem to be fading and the grapes are gone. The apples and oranges are still strong though. They must have a secret. Lettuce only lasts a week in the refrigerator back home.

After lunch, once again for the 25th time, its optics from the rail. The sky conditions were completely overcast and the solar disk was not visible. Now it may be boring reading those words just about every day, but its actually pretty interesting making the measurements. For example, today we were following a lead system and so we saw a wide range of young ice. If sea ice were like people, I would be the equivalent of multiyear ice, I don’t change much, just get thicker and older until one day I leave the Arctic Basin and melt away. First year ice is more interesting. Its the teenage years, salinity and brine volume are changing, growth is rapid. But it’s the early stages of ice that are really exciting – newborn to infant to toddler, or for the ice – open water to frazil to dark nilas to light nilas to young ice. There are tremendous changes in the ice in the first 30 cm of growth. And its fun to stand on the flying bridge and watch the ice go by. Even if its blowing 25 mph. Today rather than try to get a representative sample of the ice, we selected particular targets and tried to get a reference of each ice type we saw.

After dinner we continued northward. We are heading towards a series of ocean stations, where we should get a chance to go on the ice. Our next stop after that is the Lomonosov Ridge. The LR is a key site for the seismic work and the sediment coring on Healy. The next week should be very exciting.

The many faces of young ice.

Figure 1. Cracks in young ice caused by the passage of the Healy.

Figure 2. Naturally occurring rafting of young ice.

Figure 3. Usual patterns in the young ice.

Tuesday 6 September
Northbound in the Arctic Ocean
87 39.610 N, 150 54.091 E
We are plowing northward through the ice Healy and Oden taking turns in the lead. Both ships are powerful icebreakers, but they have different styles. This gives me a wonderful opportunity to further abuse my football metaphor. Oden is more manueverable, quicker to turn a corner, and slippery because of its bow washers; a Gale Sayers kind of running back. The Healy is a big straight ahead back. It just runs over the ice in front of it and once it gets going watch out; its the Jerome Bettis of icebreakers. Each running back is good by itself, but the combination of the two is even better. So the Healy and the Oden slash and smash our way north.

It looks like a slow day for the ice group. Its foggy, so not a good day for a flight and there are no stops scheduled for many miles. In other words a great time to spend the morning doing laundry and working out in the gym. The workout is particularly important since lunch is Mexican food, a favorite treat. But there is a surprise, at 11 AM the word comes that the Oden has stopped for an impromptu CTD cast and we'll be on station for about 5 hours. So we race into action. Well, we eat lunch first because its Mexican day. Shortly after lunch the Healy is parked next to a floe and we are headed down the brow (gangway) for a full ice station. Its typical weather, limited visibility, 25 mph winds and driving snow, just another beautiful day in paradise. But off the north there is a thin line of blue sky. Hmmm, blue sky in the north, winds coming from the north. There is some potential here. Sure enough the line of blue sky marches towards us and a half hour later there is an announcement for a flight briefing on the bridge. Bruce and I stop the thickness survey. He heads to the hangar to mount the camera, while I go to the bridge for the briefing. Meanwhile our camera man Jeremy is assisting Tom with a transmission profile. Jeremy gets back just in time and the flight goes off. Bruce and I return to the ice to continue our measurements. The floe was fairly flat in the middle with some easily identifiable refrozen ponds. Virtually all of the refrozen ponds are thick enough to walk across making our surveys more of a straight line than the tortuous meandering of a few weeks ago. There were also some major ridges, including a huge one with a 3 m sail.

Once the helo tookoff the weather deteriorated somewhat, as low clouds came in. The a long triangular pattern to the northeast was flown at altitudes between 500 and 750 feet. Over 1500 photos were taken during the flight. A good ice station and a nice helo flight, not a bad day’s work. But the day is not quite over yet. We are moving again by 5 PM. I do the 1800 ice watch and then start to work on the days data.

At 8 PM I'm paged, there is some dirty ice ahead and the sediment folks want to stop for an hour. Do we want to get on the ice? You bet! One of the challenges of a cruise such as this one is that things are always in flux, always changing. You try to be ready for anything at anytime. There are a lot of audibles to call at the line of scrimmage. A one-hour stop, no problem, that’s “22- split fly 1K”. Or more prosaically Don and Bruce do an ice thickness, snow depth survey line at least one kilometer long, while Tom and Jeremy do soot sampling and snow characterization. This evening its ice via the basket at 2100, one bear guard, three dirty ice samplers, and five ice party members. Asa is coming along to see what the ice people do. This is a small heavily deformed floe. Its mainly melt ponds, rubble, and ridges. We do several back and forth transects across the floe. Each transect is less than a ship length. The topography results in snow drifting and depths greater than one foot. The snow is still loose and fluffy and you sink in.

We’re back on the ship at 2200. Everything is put away and I’m in bed by 2330. It was a pretty good day.

Figure 1. The Oden off in distance during Ice Site 17.

Figure 2. The Healy in the ice, with the brow down.

Figure 3. Bruce and Asa doing a snow depth / ice thickness survey at Site 18.

Wednesday 7 September
Northbound in the Arctic Ocean
88 03.296 N, 156 07.68 E
Upon awaking I head straight up to the bridge to see where we are and what is happening. Surprisingly we are only a few miles away from where we were when I went to bed. It has been a difficult night with heavy ice, lots of backing and ramming, and some circular motion. There is the “as the crows flies” point to point distance and then there is the “as ships travel through the ice” distance. Sometimes they are the same and sometimes the ships distance is much longer. Today was supposed to be another major day, with a early CTD stop and then a major sediment coring station later in the day. However, those will probably be delayed.

Dense fog suddenly appears precluding any flying for the time being. We know where we are and where we want to be. What we don’t know is the best way to get there, where the leads are. Rather than go off in the wrong direction we stop and wait for the visibility to improve. It takes four hours, but finally it clears and Hotel Indigo takes off. Hotel Indigo is the Oden helo. After a quick survey leads are found and we are in motion once again.

It’s a wintry day outside. The air temperature isn’t terribly cold, about 20 F, but the winds get your attention, a steady 30 mph and gusts over 40. Up on the flying bridge you really get blasted by the wind. During a storm like this a ship is much more comfortable than a tent on the ice. Because of the wind and the fact that the ship was stationary, it was an abbreviated version of optics in the afternoon. I just made a set of incident scans under the usual complete overcast, solar disk just barely visible. I had to hang on to keep the computer from being blown away.

Bruce and I spent an hour getting the last ice mass balance buoy ready to deploy. We’re hoping to do it at the next coring station. That may be tomorrow or the day after. We will be ready whenever it is.

The last recon flight of the day returns. It brings good news. There is an extensive system of large leads ahead, some that look like lakes.

Figure 1. Cruise tracks of the Healy and Oden from 1100 PM on September 6 to 1100 AM September 7.

Figure 2. This picture is not out of focus. There is blowing snow in the air.

Thursday 8 September
Northbound in the Arctic Ocean
88 25.414 N, 145 09.603 E
At 0700 we are in a huge, huge lead, just cruising along. It is a couple a kilometers wide and just goes on and on. We’ve hit an area of leads and thin ice in just the perfect place, the survey and coring sites for the Lomonosov Ridge. We were barely moving yesterday, and today we are zipping right along. For the past few days I’ve tortured a football metaphor to explain our progress. Don’t worry, no more football. A long two-month field experiment like this really isn’t a football game, its more like a baseball season. You need to dampen out the highs and lows, just like you need to do in a long baseball season. Hours stuck in the ice are just a tough at bat, a 10 hour run along a lead is just one home run. There are good days and bad days and what matters is having more good ones than bad ones, and to keep hustling every day.

We’ve actually encountered thinner ice the past few days as we’re headed north. Don’t get excited and stop the presses. This isn’t as big a deal as it might sound. If there were only thermodynamics, melting and freezing of ice, then we would expect the ice to get thicker as we move further north. But there is another process that affects the ice, dynamics. The floating sea ice cover moves in a way driven by winds and currents and also affected by the land masses that surround the Arctic Basin. The thickest ice is usually found offshore of the Canadian Archipelago and Ellesmere Island due to the prevailing ice circulation piling it up there. The bottom line is both thermodynamics and dynamics impact the mass balance of the ice.

Since we are cruising through thin ice in the morning I decided to break tradition and do morning optics at the rail and on the bow. A different time, a different place, but the same sky conditions, complete overcast, solar disk barely visible. I went up to the rail for the spectral incident and down to the bow to measure reflectance from the thin ice using the bare fiber optics probe. The idea was to get closer to the surface to sample a single ice type. I also measured the reflectance of open water. Since the reflectance of open water is well known (0.07), it can be used to calibrate the other measurements.

In the afternoon the fog lifts and two things happen. A flight brief is held and then I race to quickly do some spectral incident scans under what passes for sunny skies. I get the optical scans done quickly. It will be interesting to compare the sunny sky results to the many cloudy sky cases I have. As the helo lifts off the fog rolls back in. Rather than a nice box pattern at 2000 feet, the flight is a convoluted path at 500 feet. Some of the photos are excellent, even showing the shadows of the pressure ridges. The clear skies bring another hint of winter, as the temperature drops to -15 C (4 F).

We never quite made it to the first sediment coring station of the Lomonosov Ridge today. At 2330 we are told to be ready to hit the ice at 0500. It will be an early morning.

Figure 1. Photos of broken young ice taken from the bow of the ship. The pieces are about one meter across and 10-20 cm thick.

Figure 2. Aerial photograph of multiyear ice. The surface topography is evident in the shadows cast. The dark area is a refrozen melt pond that has been scoured of snow.

Figure 3. Not abstract art, not atmospheric patterns on Neptune. Young nilas ice in a lead photographed from an altitude of 500 m. The ice is 5-10 cm thick.

Friday 9 September
Surveying the Lomonosov Ridge
88 38.72 N, 163 42.9 E
It’s a very early morning with a wakeup alarm at 0415. We are parked next to a very good looking floe. This is quite an accomplishment for this area, which is full of open water and nilas. What we hope to do this morning is to install the last of our CRREL ice mass balance buoys and to install a NOAA PMEL web camera. We need a good floe that has a decent chance of surviving. This floe looks like a good candidate. At 0630 we ride the basket onto the ice and start hauling the gear. The weather is definitely wintery. There was fog, there was wind, there was snow, and it was -12 C. It was a wonderful morning and a great day to be on the ice.

There are 4 people, 4 sleds, and 400 pounds of gear, a perfect match and time to start hauling. It’s a large floe with some ridges and ponds. We pick an area that is not heavily ponded, to avoid summer flooding of the buoy. The buoy site is a few hundred meters from the floe edge protected by a couple of pressure ridges. With the large amount of deformation in this area, we want to minimize the chances of the buoy being crunched. The ice is surprisingly thin, only 1.5 m. It makes for easier drilling. The installation goes quite quickly and a final check indicates that all components of the mass balance buoy are operating correctly. Now if the buoy will just keep working for the next couple of years we will be in good shape. All 14 buoys have been deployed now and the ship is a couple of tons lighter.

After the buoy is installed Bruce and I do a snow depth ice thickness survey. There is definitely more snow now. The average for the floe is 10 cm, with a range from 0 to 44 cm. The snow will eventually evolve into a hard wind-packed snow cover that is easy to walk on. Right now though it is still light and fluffy and you sink into it. Wading through the drifts carrying a 10 foot long antenna can be somewhat challenging, particularly when traversing the broken terrain of a ridge or rubble field.

Tom and Jeremy have taken an ice core and made some light transmission measurements through the ice. The cold temperatures have brought them battery problems, but they get one site completed. We are back on the ship at 0930 and are counting the minutes until lunch. Breakfast was a pop tart eaten on the helo deck while waiting for the basket. Working in the cold does build up an appetite. At lunch I break out a bag of M+M’s to celebrate the last of the buoys and Jeremy’s acceptance into graduate school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

There are supposed to be two more sediment coring stations today, one at 1730 and the other at 2330. We get everything ready for the next station; we clean all the equipment, fuel the motor, recharge the batteries, and eat dinner. Then we wait. And wait. And wait. Finally just before midnight, in the middle of a vast lead, we are on station. But will there be ice accessible for measurements? We will soon find out.

Figure 1. Installing the fourth and final Ice Mass Balance buoy of this cruise. The picture appears dark because it was taken near solar midnight.

Figure 2. A close up look at the surface of young ice. The picture is about 0.5 m across. The white clumps are a combination of frost flowers and blowing snow. A frost flower forms when ice grows directly from the vapor phase. Like in a freezer.

Saturday 10 September
Surveying the Lomonosov Ridge
88 56.54 N, 173 36.3 E
Another late night, early morning situation. In fact, we had a doubleheader with both a late night stop from 0100 to 0300 followed by a few hours of sleep and another site from 0900 to 1100. Bruce and I concentrated on surveys of snow depth and ice thickness. At the first site we did a 1250 m long line and over 2000 m at the second site. Tom and Jeremy made a set of transmission measurements at the first site and did a surface characterization at the second. We also drilled several holes for direct comparison with the electromagnetic induction device.

The weather changed markedly from yesterday to today. Yesterday morning it was cold and snowing pretty hard. At Site 20 it was freezing rain. By my calculations the accretion rate was about 2 mm per hour. That’s how much was on the instrument after an hour of walking around. This wasn’t a problem since the instrument is weatherproof, but we got totally covered as well. With the mustang suits you don't notice, but I had to stop periodically to clean the ice off my goggles. We were all covered with ice by the end of station. For the 0900 station the precipitation had stopped, but it was hot, a balmy 0 C. That meant that the mustang suits, which were a little chilly a few days ago when it was -12 C are now saunas. Even just wearing regular street clothes I was completely drenched with sweat. Good thing I didn’t have my cold weather gear on.

The floes were quite different as well. The first site was heavily ridged, with car sized blocks of ice scattered around. The edge of the floe was a maze of upturned blocks jutting up at odd angles. The second floe was more mundane. It was large, over a kilometer across and fairly flat. The only topography was some old ridges and some mature melt ponds. The refrozen surface of the ponds on this floe were typically about 40 cm below the unponded surface.

After a very busy morning, the afternoon was slow and easy, with data reduction and archiving. I did the short version of optics in the afternoon measuring the incident sunlight at 1440. Guess what, the sky conditions were complete overcast, solar disk not visible. It was even darker than usual. This was a combination of the being far north, heavy cloud cover, and being in an area of open water and thin ice. With a low surface albedo less light is reflected to the sky and there is less available to be reflected back to the surface.
We are only 63 miles from the pole and heading north.

Figure 1. Stonehenge of the north. Ice blocks at the edge of a floe.

Figure 2. Site 20 pass, elevation 1 m. We had to navigate through this pressure ridge to reach the main portion of the ice floe.

Figure 3. Icicles. As brine drains from the sea ice blocks it freezes forming these lovely icicles.

Sunday 11 September
Northbound to the Pole
89 28.58 N, 164 42.6 E
* * * Dateline North Pole. Scientists reported today that there were enormous areas of open water only 50 miles from the North Pole. Ice over 10 feet thick was expected in this region, but today there is only water and ice a few inches thick. “We’ve been cruising in open water for days and are having a hard time finding ice thick enough to walk on,” one scientist stated. Also temperatures are above freezing and the precipitation was not the expected snow, but rather rain. These observations mean…* * *

Of course that is the question. The observations presented above are true. It is indeed what we have seen the past few days. But what does it mean. Its important to make in situ observations like we have been doing the past 40 days. We can make measurements that can’t be made from space and can’t be simulated in a computer. Our measurements are an essential component of understanding the current state of the sea ice cover. But they need the proper context. On a visceral level, its been easy the past few days to feel the sea ice cover is doomed. However, only a few days ago we were making zero progress through very thick ice and it was easy to believe that the ice cover was invincible. We need the context that can be provided by integrating our observations with other tools including remote sensing data, data from other manned and autonomous stations, and models. By integrating all the available information, we can determine the why as well as the what. For example, whether the open water and thin ice are due to ice divergence caused by a recent storm or by a long summer melt season.

Today was advertised as a transit day to the pole. But we had a pleasant surprise at 1630 when the ship stopped next to a dirty ice floe and we had a chance to get on the ice for an hour. The floe was very rugged with rubble and some huge ridges. One ridge stood over 15 feet high. The underwater portion could be five times bigger giving a total ice thickness of 80 or 90 feet. Since it was a quick stop Bruce and I did a snow depth / ice thickness survey, while Tom did a surface characterization. Jeremy recruited a couple of other people and drilled holes for a thickness comparison.

Tomorrow the pole.

Figure 1. A long lead with waves of loose ice crystals downwind of the lead edge. The thickness is just a few centimeters.

Figure 2. Pancake ice forming in a very large lead. Its name comes from its distinct shape. The pancakes were about 10 cm thick.

Monday 12 September
On Station at the North Pole
90 N
There was quite a crowd this morning on the bridge watching the countdown on the navigation system. It was a cross between watching the ball drop on New Years Eve and watching your car odometer roll over to 100,000 miles. Well, actually it was a lot better than that. While the ice here looks the same as anywhere else, it is the top of the world.

The Healy and Oden were parked about 400 m from the pole in a huge floe. We had Ice Liberty from 1030 to 1430 and it was a truly festive occasion. There was beer, pop, and champagne. A huge number of photographs were taken with countless combinations of people, flags, and banners. There were sports galore, soccer, mountain biking, golf, frisbee, and snowboarding. Yes, snowboarding on Mt Pressure Ridge, elevation 10 feet. There was even sunbathing (no sun and an air temperature of -4 C) and a visit from Santa. There was a continuous stream of visitors walking back and forth between the Healy and the Oden. Bruce, Jeremy, and I walked over to the Oden and visited the bridge. The Oden’s bridge has two wings that extend out beyond the ship. Its like an atrium 70 feet above the ice.

We did do some quick science including a transmission set and a thickness survey, but we didn’t let it interfere with the festivities. Today was one fine day.

Figure 1. Bruce, Tom, Jeremy, and Don, the Ice Team at the North Pole.

Figure 2. Soccer at the North Pole.

Figure 3. Bruce talking to Santa.

Back to Rendezvous with the Oden

South to Fram Strait