Tom Grenfell's Log
Thursday 17
March 05
Begin inquiries into ship logistics information and requirements. Start
to flesh out shipping list particularly for items to be loaded on the
ship in Seattle by early May.
Friday 18 March 05
Tasks: Develop Shipping list and send initial draft sent to Don.
Set up and Test OO Spectrophotometer; Kt-19; Optical Salinometer;
Generator. Set up newer laptop to run both spectrohotometers. Arrange
with Bruce E. to buy the Buoy Components.
Contact Dennis Darby and USGC liaison folks. We’ve heard that equipment
items that will not be on the ship already or that will be carried on in
Dutch Harbor in August (1-4) should arrive at the Coast Guard Station in
Seattle the week of May 9. Dave Forcucci can put us in touch with Chief
Snyder who will be coordinating the loading.
Monday 21 March
05 – 1 May
Work on preparing and packing equipment. Loading day has been moved to
May 16-17. We’ve been in touch with Jessica Noel and Don Snyder about
scheduling our loading and we seem to be on track and on schedule.
Monday 2 May
I still need to get some appropriate material for the sled beds, but
packing is going pretty well.
Monday 16 May
I bought the Kayak ($711) to be used for the EM-31 ice thickness sensor
on Saturday and took it down to the ship today along with 12 gal of
2-stroke fuel mixture. The loadout will last until Wednesday, which
should be plenty of time for our purposes. The boxes are pretty much
all packed and ready for labeling and loading. So far I’ve been using
my own pickup for transportation, but for the main push we’ll need
something larger.
Wednesday 18 May
We rented a 1-ton pickup from the motor pool, which reduced the number
of trips to the ship to 2. All the boxes are presently on board
including 5 each 6-gallon containers of gas or 2-stroke mix. Now I get
to finish up the work on the camera mount and the radiometer rail
mount. Jeremy has signed up to participate in the experiment, and we
have until early August to get prepared and up to Dutch Harbor.
Wednesday 3 August
The expedition begins today. I left home at 8:30 am and drove to the UW
to pick up Jeremy and his luggage as well as my big aluminum suitcase
and the Olive Drab Rotomold box. We got going to the airport at about
9:15 from the U and made it to Alaska Checkin in plenty of time. The
plane for Anchorage left pretty much on time ~ 12:15 or so and we
arrived in Anchorage shortly before Don and Bruce got in. The weather
was clear in Seattle but quickly clouded up as we went north, and it
stayed that way all day. The connection to Dutch Harbor went smoothly.
They didn’t even do a security check to get on the plane. I guess they
figured that it wasn’t necessary to got to the Aleutian Islands. Dutch
Harbor is quite rugged, green, and beautiful. I hope we get a chance to
look around a bit before we leave.
We boarded the ship right from the plane and found our
cabins. Next, we checked in the hold and found our stash of boxes as
well as the gasoline on the aft weather deck. Tomorrow we’ll get
started shuffling gear and getting set up I suppose, although there’s a
lot of cargo to load yet so the place will be pretty busy. Well
breakfast is from 7 to 8 so I’d better get my bunk set up and pack it in
for the day.
Thursday 4 August
Today we started unpacking, setting up the camera pod and the sleds,
finding things and establishing where our lab space would be. I managed
to get dibbs on about half of the wet lab. This will be an excellent
place to do the soot observations and the irradiance calibrations. I’ve
set up a lot of the gear already, but tomorrow we cast off at 10 am and
we’ll need to tie things down before we set sail.
In the afternoon, we went on walkabout into town. We
took the ship’s shuttle bus through Dutch Harbor onto Unalaska Island
(there’s a short bridge) and had a good look around. We stopped at the
general store in Dutch Harbor on the way back to the ship and picked up
some last minute supplies. Then we walked back to the ship from there.
In the evening we had the science orientation lecture
by Dennis Darby and Bernie Coakley. Then we went back and finished off
the current chores, including mounting the camera in the pod that fits
on the helicopter. We enlarged the hole a bit and it now lines up
marvelously. We chatted with the Swedes, who are working with Dennis to
analyze the cores from the ocean bottom. Then I came back and tried
getting the computer to talk to the local network. No luck so far. I
guess I’ll talk to David Hassilev tomorrow.
Friday 5 August
Today we spent going to orientation and organization meetings, finding,
sorting, and securing the gear for sea. We cast off at just after 10 am
as scheduled. I spent much of the day getting email and web access set
up. We have general web access for 2 hours per day from 8-9 am and pm.
That should be enough to download my quantum computing homework and
lectures, but the data rate is 64KB/sec, which is about dialup modem
speed so we aren’t supposed to do a lot of image transfer. The sea has
been quite gentle so far, with moderate to full cloudiness. We’re
expecting 30-40 kt winds tomorrow true to the Bering Sea, but, hey, that
will just help us get there sooner. So far the ship is riding like a
dream.
Sunday 7 August
Yesterday we did a lot of unpacking and space claiming. We got out the
Kt-19 and had a look at it, and we set up the plate on the wheelhouse
rail for the SW and LW radiometers. We also bounced around a bit and the
day was tiring, but we didn’t get seasick. We just didn’t do very much.
Today we set up the calibration box and got some
absolute incident irradiance values under really heavy stratus cover but
south of the Bering Strait. We’re going through the strait between 9
and 10 this evening. In the early afternoon, the helicopters flew into
Nome to get Kazu’s buoy parts that didn’t arrive at Dutch Harbor in time
and so had been shipped there. That went off pretty much according to
plan.
The sea has calmed a lot and the going is quite smooth
for now. We should get to the ice by late tomorrow or the day after.
Tuesday 9 August
We encountered the first ice this morning just before breakfast and the
JPC crew carried out the first bottom coring station in short order. I
spent the day working on getting the OO spectrophotometer on line.
There is still the power supply to wire up, but then if all goes well,
that will be all set.
We also did an irradiance calibration and
incidence observation in the afternoon. We got the ice watch computer
and software set up yesterday. It took a bit of time to get a good
Ethernet plug wired up. The next thing on the list is wiring up the
power supply for the Kt-19. We’re headed for Jumbo Piston Coring
station 2 and hope to arrive early tomorrow morning. We’d like to do a
flight tomorrow if conditions are favorable.
Wednesday 10 August
From Dennis Darby’s Journal. One of the most spectacular sunsets even
the veteran Arctic folks have ever seen occurred today. The high thin
clouds were highlighted by the late day sun and reflected off numerous
meltponds on the ice. The science continues with the seismic gear
deployed and collecting very high quality data of the strata several
hundreds of meters below the seafloor. We took our first piston core
today on the Northwind Ridge in the area where giant ice shelves, much
like those extending from the coasts of Antarctica, eroded the top of
the ridge. The core penetrated the recent sediments above the till
deposit from this ice shelve and into the till itself. We will
hopefully be able to date the time of this massive ice shelf, extending
from probably the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which entered the Arctic Ocean
around Banks Island in northern Canada some 1000 km from the Northwind
Ridge. Besides coring, we continued to open the cores from the earlier
cruise in June. It is now apparent from these cores that we have the
opportunity to piece together a detailed stratigraphy of the last
several climate changes (glacial/interglacial intervals).
Thursday 11 August
We got the OO spectrophotometer all assembled and running yesterday, and
we started in on the Kt-19 IR photometer. We managed to get the wiring
done properly and now we just need to find a box to haul it around in.
The silver battery box should work OK. Jeremy is busy reading up on
Polycode, so I expect that he’ll have the Polycorders humming shortly.
If not, I’ll rework existing code from a previous experiment.
The last few days have been rainy, and the ice has
consisted of small melting pans of FY ice in the 10-20 m diameter
range. So we haven’t been able to fly or get out on the ice. We have
started the ice watch – I have the 2 am shift. So we’re thinking of
things to do from the rail. The Kt-19 survey is a good candidate as
well as a upward reflectance profile of enough length to match the
satellite footprint scale. Later we did a set of Kt-19 scans from the
rail and were able to see that the leads were colder than the ice by
about 0.6-0.7 degrees C, but the melt ponds were warmer by about 0.5
degrees C.
Saturday 13 August
Yesterday morning we got to go out on the ice for almost 2 hours. Our
position was 77o14.88558 min N; -157o 02.46448 min
E. The sky was overcast with the solar disk barely visible. We did an
EM-31 ice thickness survey, drilled various thickness calibration holes,
characterized the grain structure of the upper 10 cm of the surface
granular layer, freeboard depth etc. I also got 4 quarts of surface
layer ice for soot analysis. The lead next to our floe had closed in by
the time we were ready to come home making the tip home interesting, but
we eventually made it without mishap.
In the afternoon, we worked on sorting out the data
from today and figuring out the Kt-19 traverse from Friday. We also
worked out a better Polycorder program for recording traverse data from
the rail. Our next station will be on Monday if all goes well, so we
have 2 days to scan from the rail using ASD, cameras, and Kt-19.
This morning was cleanup detail. We burned the trash,
vacuumed out the rooms and cleaned up generally. The vacuum cleaner
didn’t draw very well so that took a longish time. The canary in the
hold (the depth sounder) is chirping along merrily to cheer us up in our
endeavors.
We spent most of the afternoon doing Kt-19
observations. The melt ponds were warm as was the sky, but the sky is
cooler than two days ago. The leads were warmer today. We have the
data almost all reduced. It remains to firm up the calibrations. There
is still a lot of fog and the visibility is much too low to fly.
Tomorrow will be another day of observations from the rail before we
reach site 4.
Sunday 14 August
The weather has cleared up and we got in a photo flight this afternoon.
Don and Bruce went on the flight. In the morning prior to that, we set
up the soot filtering apparatus next to the sink in our lab. Before
lunch, we filtered tap water samples and found them to be quite clean,
but with a trace of rust. No surprise there as we find that almost
everywhere. Then we filtered the samples collected two days ago
(Friday). They appear to be very clean. We should filter together at
least twice as much ice next time though.
There was a pretty solid stratocumulus cover but it was
at several thousand feet, and there was no fog. After doing the soot
samples, we took a Kt-19 trace over the rail. The ponds were still 0.6
to 0.8 degrees warmer than the bare ice and the leads were now warmer.
The sky was colder – down to 0-1oC.
Monday 15 August
We started off slowly today because we anticipate doing an ice station
in the wee hours of the morning. We looked as the Kt-19 data a bit, and
we got ready for a helo flight scheduled for the afternoon. It’s
Jeremy’s turn to fly.
The flight took off in good style but was able to get
only a short distance from the ship before the fog started to come back,
so the flight was scrubbed. We’ll get them next time. After lunch,
Jeremy and I did another round of Kt-19 observations from the rail while
Don and Bruce did a set of optical observations.
We’ll reach station 4 early tomorrow morning, and the
ice team will be ready to go bright and early. We’ll do pretty much the
same routine as last time except for adding a few cores. I hope to get
some rest before we go out.
Tuesday 16 August
We got to the station at
around 1 a.m. as expected, and the ice team deployed onto a nearby
first-year FY floe (it may turn out to be MY ice but it’s quite thin ~
1+ meters thick). We did EM-31 surveys, cores, surface characterization
and soot sampling. In the afternoon we got ready to fly only to have it
fog in again. This is going to be a bit of a problem. In any case, we
worked on data logging and analysis. Jeremy took the guided tour of the
ship. Later on it was optics and Kt-19 observations from the rail. We
need to process the snow samples for soot tomorrow if possible.
Wednesday 17 August
First was the 2 a.m. ice
watch, as usual. That seems to be a secure job for me for this trip.
Then we had an early morning (8am) flight briefing so we could take
advantage of any flying weather throughout the day. It was quite foggy
during the briefing so our chances are only fair at this point. Again
the flight didn’t materialize. So we worked on the Kt-19 data reduction
and we got some more observations from the rail. Don and Bruce did
optics at about the same time. I’m getting much better at running the
calibration lamp.
In the evening, Dennis Darby gave a very nice
presentation about his work. From Dennis
Darby’s log: Our current position is 172deg. 44'W and 78deg. 17'N
enroute to station 5 at 176 deg 43'W and 78deg. 18'N. We expect to reach
this station tomorrow shortly after noon. The fog prevented any flight
operations and thus the ice observation group could not get out. The fog
also hinders sightings of bears or seals. The seismic gear continues to
collect high quality data as we are constantly reminded by the large
bang every 20 seconds reverberating throughout the science lab. Today
our TREC teacher, Ute Kaden held a teleconference with a group of mostly
science school teachers in the states and Captain Oliver, MST Don
Snider, and Operations Officer, Jim Dalitsch participated as did
co-chief scientists Dennis Darby and Bernie Coakley as well as Don
Perovich for the ice observation group. It lasted an hour and was a
great success despite a shaky beginning where we lost the Iridium phone
connection several times. The teachers asked several questions of the
participants about daily operations and the science. The crew and
science party on Healy can still take advantage of this satellite phone
link for short personal phone calls once every few weeks.
Thursday 18 August
It was foggy for the 2 a.m. ice watch, but cleared up after breakfast.
So we did another early morning flight briefing, and Bruce actually got
to fly. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon backing up data
and organizing our data files. Then it was another round of Kt-19 and
optics from the rail. The ice was still melting today and the weather
was overcast, but not very foggy. The Kt-19 observations show that the
water in the leads is now cold though, and freezup is ready to start
fairly soon.
After dinner we arrived on station and we got to do
another on-ice foray. I managed to get some transmission observations,
soot samples in level ice and in a MY ridge, crystal photographs of
crystals from the surface scattering layer, and other characterization
observations. Tomorrow will be taken up with cataloging and reducing
the results.
Friday 19 August
I stayed up a bit later last night than I expected. Probably I
shouldn’t have gone for midrats, even though I only got some hot
chocolate and peanuts. I did make it to breakfast just in time though –
“never miss a meal” as Arnie used to say. I found Don in the lounge
typing with gusto, but Bruce and Jeremy may have also done as I did and
then felt like sleeping in. Today we need to collect notes about our
station last night, filter soot samples, perhaps do some Kt-19 scans
this afternoon, check the crystal photographs, and get some site photos.
We appear to be taking a slight detour on the way to
the next site as a result of Bernie and Dennis’ conversation at the 4:30
planning meeting yesterday afternoon. They apparently found an
interesting feature to check out. Don reports that we should be
reaching the next site tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll get on the ice during
the day this time.
This afternoon we came upon a bear and chased it for
quite awhile – or rather the stupid beast ran away along our line of
travel. Then we did more Kt-19 and optical scanning from the rail
although I wasn’t able to observe the bear. We also managed to filter
all 8 soot sample jars from yesterday’s ice site. The weather today was
colder and freezup is definitely not far away, but we still got clouded
in for the helo flight.
Saturday 20 August
Another 2 a.m. ice watch to start the day. I seem to be getting used to
the routine. We’re going to arrive on station ahead of schedule at
about 11:30, so this morning will involve getting the gear charged,
packed and ready. We’re going to have 15 hours on Station 6 so we
should be able to manage the complete program. Jeremy is on tap to fly
the photo flight and he’s going to read up on operating the
intervalometer.
P.M. Well nothing much worked out for us. The weather
closed in so we didn’t get to fly, and there were a lot of pesky ice
blocks around the ship so we couldn’t use the boat. The ice blocks were
too small to get lowered onto so we couldn’t use the basket either.
Dennis Darby’s coring effort did take the 15 hours specified, but we
can’t multiplex without getting into logistics complications, so we
pretty much sat around and amused ourselves. I got to help with the
cleanup at dinner as part of the amusement. I still managed to get to
bed late though.
Sunday 21 August
2 a.m. ice watch to start the day, hooray. The weather remained cloudy
and foggy all day so again we didn’t get to do any flying. I ran an
absolute calibration on the OO with profiling probe attached, and I
started to decode the program to reduce the profile scans. The lamp was
reset to run at 7.9 amps and the probe was located 64 cm from the bulb.
I was running it at a power level of 1000W before, which is a slightly
higher output than the specifications indicate. We’ll need to
intercalibrate the two levels.
The updated hardware for the transmission probe has
produced some modifications in the data files, and I need to include the
absolute calibration. It will be only approximate, but it will give
nicer looking transmission spectra.
We did the usual optics over the rail in the
afternoon. I’ve given Jeremy the task of working on the Kt-19 data.
We’ve got a pretty good time series now of the relative surface
temperatures and their evolution from the melt season to freezup. It
should be worth a short paper. I sacked out before midnight today.
Monday 22 August
2 a.m. ice watch as usual. We had better weather this morning, and we
got in two flights. The first was a helo survey flight with Jeremy as
the operator. The second, shortly thereafter, was a buoy deployment
flight to make up for the delay in getting the buoy out two days ago.
In the afternoon we did optics from the rail – ASD and Kt-19. We’re set
up so that this is part of our regular ritual. The ice surface is now
below freezing, and freezup has set in for the duration - unless there
is major advection of warm air for a while. The onset is later than
usual this year as the 17th of August (or earlier) is a date
I’ve noted. The 17th was the magic date on SHEBA.
We’re looking forward to an ice station this evening.
We’re approaching station #7 and the ice concentration is high enough
now that we should be able to use the basket to get on and off the
ship. It’s “hurry up and wait” on that one though, so I get to work on
computer chores for a while.
Tuesday 23 August
Today, after the 2 a.m. ice watch, we had a false start on both a photo
mission and an on-ice flight due to rapidly developing fog together with
the usual thick stratus deck. We’ve had about 2-3 cm of snowfall in the
past to days as well just to make the albedo more interesting.
The rest of the day was spent logging and examining the
data from yesterday. I also even got to take a short nap. The Kt-19
observations, which we take every day around solar noon, are telling the
tale on the onset of freezup. That is to say, freezup has continued
without any significant warming events. Tomorrow is to be a transit and
survey day, so we’ll have the same opportunities as today with respect
to flights. I plan to blast through the data. I think I’ve got the
reduction software for the OO spectrophotometer more or less in hand.
The extinction appears to be weak, as we found at SHEBA. I thought at
first that something was wrong, but it seems so far to be in order.
Wednesday 24 August
2 am ice watch as usual. Freezup continues uninterrupted. This morning
and early afternoon was taken up with data logging and storage – burning
DVDs etc. Then we did the usual Kt-19 and optical runs a bit early
along with a relative calibration of the backup standard lamp. We are
scheduled to go out on the ice tomorrow morning at 4 a.m., so we spent
the afternoon and early evening getting the gear ready and planning.
They’re going to put out something like 11 buoys
tomorrow if all goes well. Everyone dealing with buoys will be out
there deploying. I should get a reasonable amount of time to do the ice
characterization and soot sampling this time. I’m going to bed at 9:30.
Thursday 25 August
2 am ice watch. The weather was cloudy with uniform overcast throughout
the day. It was foggy at 2 a.m., but it cleared up enough for flying
later in the morning. We got 10 buoys installed and then got out on the
ice for a optics and physical characterization. I managed to get enough
samples for soot to do a three level vertical profile. The transmission
observations went slowly and the computer ran out of gas before we
finished, but we got enough I hope for both the white ice and the melt
pond. Ute Hagen came with us and was very helpful in doing the
observations. Jeremy found a nice thick part of the floe to drill (2.5
m) for the profile and we should have a nice series. We also looked at
a nice blue melt pond for this site.
After getting back on the ship and putting away the
gear, I was spent, but a brief nap did wonders. I’ve managed to catalog
much of the data, but now I need a free morning or two to finish up
organizing the files.
Friday 26 August
2 am ice watch. We had a short morning station over the side climbing
down the “brow” onto a medium floe (Site #6). We did an EM-31 survey,
cores, surface characteristics, and soot observations. We were to move
the ship ahead a small amount adjacent to a bigger floe in the afternoon
for ice liberty. This went off as planned, although we moved further
than we originally thought. At the liberty station, Jeremy and I did a
transmission profile in some 1.25 m ice and Don & Bruce did EM-31 and
coring (Site #7). This evening I collected the notes and got the
equipment stowed away. We should have time tomorrow to look though the
data sets and compare notes.
Saturday 27 August
Ice watch as usual. The ice pack is getting more dense giving us more
opportunities for favorable ice stations. In the morning we went over
the side in the basket for Site #8. We had most of the morning to work
and managed the full suite of observations including albedo. In the
afternoon we completed most of the filtering of the soot samples. Only
the ice core remains to be sectioned up and filtered. We also got in a
Kt-19 run after dinner.
Sunday 28 August
Ice watch at 2 a.m. – and on-ice site #9. The site was an abbreviated
repeat of Saturday’s effort. Jeremy and I did the transmission profile
on both white ice and on a melt pond. The melt pond surface was frozen
and the surface ice was 7-8 cm thick – enough to stand on. The weather
was pretty nice for everyone but us optics folks. The sun was out for a
while but the clouds came back toward the end of the run.
In the afternoon we did a datorama in the lounge and a
Kt-19 run after that. After dinner I continued looking at the data
cataloging. I need to get to the transmission profiles soon. I’ve got
the program running now with absolute calibrations folded in.
Monday 29 August
2 a.m. Ice watch – as usual. We got a slow start today, this being
Monday, but went down to the lab and filtered snow samples for soot,
finishing up just in time for lunch. I was hoping for a nap to clear my
mind for cataloging data in the afternoon. But it was not to be; at
1:45 Don came and got me to tell me that we had an ice station in 15
minutes, but not to hurry because the brow wasn’t set yet. So after a
bit of a thrash, Jeremy and I got the gear together and roared out onto
the ice.
Today we had Åsa Lovenvald (journalist), Eva Grønlund,
and Howie Goldstein to help us. We got in the full suite of
observations – spectral transmission, crystal photography, soot samples,
and surface characterization. The data cataloging would have to wait
until after dinner. But wait, we’ve just stopped again at a dirty floe
to get some samples and a core or two. Don and Bruce did the honors
though, so I got to keep sorting data. I’ve got things more or less
worked out now.
Tomorrow promises to be very similar to today. That is
to say a couple of quick stations for us.
Tuesday 30 August
Ice watch at 2 a.m. on time. In the morning we filtered the soot
samples we collected yesterday. To my dismay, the snow sample – 6 jars
– was contaminated with rust from the lids. We will have to be careful
to dry everything after use from now on. I may also have to retire 6 of
the lids or we will need to insert a layer of plastic to keep the rust
away from the snow. The weather was cloudy with even overcast, a good
day for transmission.
We got ready and deployed onto the ice at about 1 p.m.
We got a full set of observations. After coming in we got a short Kt-19
run over the rail. The ice was cold as expected and there was a large
area of open water for comparison. The water TB varied from –0.3oC
or so at 20 deg nadir angle to –1.5oC or so at 70 deg nadir
angle. Is this consistent with Fresnel reflection?
Getting the data logged is a bit of a chore these days
as the ice stations become more abundant. We’ll do our best to keep up.
Everyone on the team is tired.
Wednesday 31 August
2 a.m. ice watch followed by morning preparation for the ice station,
which chewed the early afternoon. The sky was cloudy but with a few
patches of blue. We also managed a short Kt-19 scan in the afternoon.
Bernie Coakley gave the science lecture this evening about “Plan B”
science and acoustic sounding from submarines and surface ships.
We’ve just joined up with the Odin, and their officers
flew over here for a meeting. I think we’re only a day late, but that
will mean some extra steaming to get back on schedule.
Thursday 1 September
2 a.m. ice watch. In the morning we had another round of data
cataloging and organization. I get to oversee the soot observations,
Kt-19 scans, transmission data, and site characterization. We had web
conferences at 10:30 and 17:00 with schools in Texas and New Zealand
respectively organized by Ute Kaden. The communication was not
particularly good, but we did manage.
In the afternoon we continued with the data a bit, did
optics from the rail, and got ready for an evening ice deployment - in
addition to the 17:00 teleconference. The deployment kicked off after
midnight and lasted until about 2 am. The floe was a serious candidate
for breakup, so they didn’t put out the buoys as originally planned.
That’s all for the better I think.
Friday 2 September
I didn’t have to do an ice watch last night as the ship was on site at a
coring station. Got to breakfast as usual and then to the data. The
morning started slowly and I’m using the time to log last night’s
observations and do some bookkeeping – not to mention the ship’s
crossword puzzle. The afternoon is a bit uncertain, but we’ll start off
with an ASD calibration and some more data cataloging and reduction.
There should be another ice station later on this afternoon or just
after dinner so we’ll need to get set for that too.
But before the ice station there was the talent show
for the new aspirants for Polar Bear status. Jeremy took part, as did a
number of the other scientists. It was pretty amusing all in all except
for the part where they had to get up at 5 a.m. and run around the
halls.
After the show there was a two buoy deployment lasting
past midnight including ice characterization but no optics. It’s
getting cold outside now and the melt ponds are frozen over and easy to
walk on. It’s time to put the hip waders away I think. The pair I
bought from Big 5 was rather poorly insulated. I think Cabella probably
sells properly insulated waders.
Saturday 3 September
We started off the day with a midnight ice station mentioned above,
involving the installation of Jamstec and CRREL buoys (one each). That
all went off smoothly, including the surface characterization – although
I got a mite cold. After we woke up – having missed breakfast – I
started in on the data and filled in some of the holes in the record.
I’ve been keeping an archive on the 250GB external hard drive I bought,
and Don & Bruce have a parallel record on large capacity drives they
brought alone.
The ship has been traveling ESE overnight so we’ve lost
some ground on the next site, an SDT profile by folks on the Odin. That
means our next ice stop is also delayed. Perhaps a nap is in order -
but, not until we’ve done some filtering of soot samples and a Kt-19
run.
Sunday 4 September
The 2 a.m. ice watch provided some interesting action. Oden got stuck
up ahead and I waited on the bridge awhile to see what would happen.
After 6-7 rams, they called and asked us if we could punch through the
ridged area. The captain was called and they brought another engine on
line we finally punched through. I went back to bed before that.
When I woke up again (8:20) Odin was 7 miles ahead of us,
so instead of an ice station, we have to catch up with them. After
lunch we caught up and passed them, but their station had been completed
so we didn’t get to do ice sampling for the moment. But we’re ready.
As of the evening no site opportunities have come up. We’re going more
slowly than anticipated and trying to make up time. In the afternoon,
we did soot filtering and a Kt-19 run, but we didn’t get to use the
Kt-19 on any dark nilas this time.
Monday 5 September
Ice watch as usual. It was a transit day so there were no ice
stations. We filtered samples, did Kt-19 scans, and the other
from-the-rail observation sets.
Tuesday 6 September
Ice watch. We had a short (blitz) station from about 9:30 pm through 11
pm on a dirty floe. Measurements included EM-31 scans, snow profiles,
and snow samples. That was all we had time for. I managed to put my
foot through a crack in the ice and into the water below. No big deal
though, just a soggy foot.
Wednesday 7 September
Ice watch at 2 a.m. on schedule. This morning we filtered samples from
the blitz station and checked out the instruments. In the afternoon we
continued the soot filtering with Ute as an observer, chatted with her
awhile about our program, and did some data transferring. The ships
were doing more maneuvering in the ice looking for the elusive notch in
the Lomonosov Ridge.
I swapped computers to use Mawson for the OO spectra.
I have 2 batteries for it and can rig a battery pack. GAMdell isn’t
lasting long enough outside any more – in fact it never lasted overly
long.
Thursday 8 September
Ice watch at 2 am as usual. The ships are in a big polynya at the
moment and maneuvering is easy so they are surveying and doing acoustic
soundings. We should have another blitz-station later today or this
evening, and perhaps a reconnaissance flight will be possible in the
afternoon. This morning will be good for filtering the short ice core
for soot and making sure Mawson (the laptop I’ve been using in my room)
works with the OO spectrophotometer. Perhaps I’ll manage to find the
plug to make a battery pack with the gell cells. It turns out that the
battery pack for the computer is 14.5 volts so the external pack won’t
work. We’ll just have to see how well the existing ones do and make
sure they have a good charge and aren’t cold soaked when they get out
onto the ice.
No station materialized today, but we’ll get one early
tomorrow. They’re saying 5 a.m.
Due to the onset of fog during a VIP meeting on the
Oden, they wound up with some of our passengers and visa versa, but the
fog was too thick for flying. So in the early afternoon the ships
parked together and exchanged passengers by basket. This was repeated
later in the day when the Captain came back aboard here. Oden backed up
to our bow and the VIPs were brought across by basket. It was a pretty
slick bit of shiphandling to make all that work without undue incident.
Friday 9 September
Well I rushed down to the lab at 5 a.m. to find that the station was to
be at 6 a.m. No big deal. The instruments are charged and ready – or
reasonably so.
Dang, Mawson’s batteries gave out faster than I
expected. In future, we’ll just have to keep them well charged and warm
until we’re ready to use them. Other than that, the station went off
pretty much as planned. We got the last buoy deployed and went through
the standard set of observations - but missed breakfast. The station
took us about 2 hours in all. Now I have a large backlog of soot
filters to look at. Perhaps this afternoon I’ll be able to get that
done.
We’ve just heard that Jeremy has been accepted at UAF.
Hooray.
The word around the ship is that the notch in the
Lomonosov Ridge we were trying to survey is much smaller than we
expected. This is kind of a big deal, as it alters the theory on
circulation of Atlantic water in the central basin. It also has
implications for international sovereignty claims currently under
negotiation.
We skipped the latest coring site because the bottom
was too sandy and are proceeding to the next one. This will give us
another midnight ice station if we’re lucky, and then perhaps it’s off
to the pole.
Saturday 10 September
We did a station just after midnight on a strongly ridged floe with a
few flat areas. I did an optics run at a single white ice site. I was
also going to do some crystal photography, but we had freezing rain and
the camera has enough trouble as it is without covering it with an ice
crust. We got the data and pretty much all the boxes got covered with a
layer of ice. Then we got back for 4.5 hours of sleep just in time for
the next site. There I did everything but optics, that is, snow
sampling for soot, crystal photographs and snow density. That lasted
until just about lunchtime. After lunch, I worked with Kazu on cleaning
up the lab – mopping was a lost cause as the bottom core folks were
continually schlepping mud all over the place. Then we began a
datarama, which lasted into the evening and took up most of my
computer’s resources. The XO was not pleased about how dirty the floor
of the lab was.
Sunday 11 September
Ice watch at 2 a.m. Tair is just above zero due to a storm
that came in from Russia. We looked at data in the morning and did a
data exchange during the first half of the afternoon. Jeremy and I then
filtered snow samples up to and then just after dinner. We are indeed
approaching the pole with the expectation of getting there tomorrow.
There are lots of stations in the offing plus a 10 hour time shift early
Tuesday morning.
Monday 12 September
Today was almost exclusively occupied with getting to the North Pole.
We reached our northernmost point of 89o 59.35’ (just 0.65
miles from the GPS pole) at about 9 a.m. We will get a more precise
number from the ship’s GPS log. We got geared up for a blitz science
run before the ice liberty got too far underway. Jeremy and I did a
transmission run and a core to go with it, but no surface
characterization. Later I added a token Kt-19 run with the ship stopped
to catalog the white ice surface temperature. Tair was about
–7.3oC. After the observations, we relaxed on ice liberty
with the crews of Healy and Oden. Some folks played soccer and drank
beer. Others mainly drank beer. I hiked over to Oden with a bunch of
other folks and went on board to visit. It’s a very comfortable ship.
The bridge is modern and superbly functional, and the accommodations are
rather plush. I had a look around the ship’s hull close up too to check
out its design. It has a flat nose and the hull is wider than that of
Healy although it has about half the Healy’s displacement. It isn’t
what I’d imagine for high Arctic work, but it seems to be doing pretty
well.
After the liberty was over, I sat down with the data as
usual to catalog everything in. We still have some soot samples to run,
but we’re pretty much caught up. I need to check through the recent
transmission data though. Tonight we make the big 10-hour time jump to
put us on European (Norwegian Daylight) time. It’s like flying to
Europe. I remember how much fun that was.
Tuesday 13 September
2 a.m. ice watch on the new schedule – that is to say around noon on the
new time schedule. When I got there I found Takahashi and Hiro doing
the noon ice watch, so I didn’t have to worry about it. Later in the
day we filtered a few snow samples and ran through the filter
calibration of the backlogged stack of samples. Then there was the ice
station in the evening to cap off the perfect jet-lag day. All seems to
have gone off well though.
Wednesday 14 September
2 a.m. up and at ‘em. We did filtering of snow samples throughout the
day with an ice station after dinner. We measured a single optics hole
while Don and Bruce did EM-31 surveys. Alejandro and Howie came out
with us. The weather was clear but the site was in the shadow of the
ship giving us diffuse incident radiation. We got done quite fast.
Thursday 15 September
2 a.m. ice watch as usual. Data transfer in the morning and getting the
gear ready for an afternoon ice station. The ice station materialized
in the evening lasting from 7:30 to 9:00 pm. I did the surface
characterization in anticipation of a transmission site tomorrow. Today
we switched back to using the Primary standard lamp for ASD
calibrations.
Friday 16 September
2 a.m. watch time came around just in time for the ship to start moving,
so I got to do it. We worked on data later today for most of the time,
as the ship hasn’t reached the next site yet. The latest projection is
that we’ll get there sometime between midnight and tomorrow. We did a
couple of calibrations, some incident spectral scans, and a Kt-19 run in
the afternoon and ran through the calibration of the latest batch of
soot filters.
We still have more soot samples to filter from
yesterday’s ice site, but we should be able to get to those tomorrow.
In looking at the transmission observations, it’s clear that we are
running out of light. We’ll have to wait for a daytime station if we
hope to get any more transmission data. At the moment, the ship time
corresponds closely to solar time – within an hour and our stations seem
to be happening at night.
Saturday 17 September
2 a.m. ice watch as usual and I was headed back to my bunk, but then the
fireworks began. Jessica Noel called and said we were on station and
the deck crew would be ready to put us on the ice at about 3:30. So we
scrambled and did site #27 winding up at about 5 a.m. The rest of the
day has been spent in reducing data, filtering the remaining samples for
soot, doing a Kt-19 run from the rail, Don’s radiation observations, and
more data cataloging and reduction. I’d love to have more transmission
data, but they have to be taken near noon now since the sun is too low
otherwise.
We are looking at getting to the bottom-coring site
tomorrow, conditions permitting. That should give us a full on-ice
suite. But until then it’s data crunch time.
Sunday 18 September
After the 2 a.m. ice watch and breakfast, it was a question of waiting
to arrive at the coring site. That gave us another chance to work over
the data. I think I’ve got the data on the hard drive pretty much up to
date. Jeremy did a parallel pass on the soot sample analysis, in most
cases getting the same thing I did. Finally at about 4:30 p.m. we got
out onto the ice. It was too dark to do optics so I did surface
characterization and soot sampling. The station lasted until 6:30 or so
and we got back in and cleaned up by 7. The JP Core hasn’t finished as
of 8:15 pm so we’re still waiting on site.
Monday 19 September
2 a.m. ice watch as usual. We did data cataloging in the morning and in
the afternoon soot sample filtering and KT-19 scan. What a day. Our
progress is too slow and the science is starting to crack. The Jumbo
Piston Core also bent on a big rock during the coring last night.
They’ll need to rebuild it. I think it was decided to press on to the
ice edge and thence to the Yermak Plateau for our final efforts. Now we
just need to get to the ice edge, but the ice in the vicinity here is
much heavier than we expected. I figured it the other way – thick in
the northern Beaufort Gyre and thinner over here in the transpolar drift
stream. So much for my model. In any case the CDT/Ice station for
tonight has been cancelled and we will press on southwards.
Tuesday 20 September
The 2 a.m. ice watch went off fine. The ice pressure seems to be easing
a bit. Unfortunately I was unable to de-ice the radiometer domes as my
hands got too cold to melt the ice, and since icing conditions were
still present I just left it to go and enjoy the night’s sleep. But it
was not to be. At 4 a.m. Don came in to tell me we were on station, so
it was off to the ice. Actually conditions were pretty nice. The wind
had died down a lot, and the temperature was about –10oC.
The full moon was out and the sun was pretty low, so we skipped optics
once again. That seems to be the way of things these days. Following a
nap after breakfast, we filtered the snow samples and did the Kt-19
scans. The ice surface has warmed to –5oC for now. So who
knows what tomorrow will bring. We should be ready to spring into
action at need. After dinner we sat around and waited, busying
ourselves with various tasks. The data sets are in pretty good shape
from here as far as I can tell.
Wednesday 21 September
Today seems to be shaping up as a traveling day. There was the 2 a.m.
ice watch of course, but the rest of the morning I spent catching up on
data logging, reading and email. The modifications to my travel plans
came in at a somewhat higher cost than I expected, but I have to get
home don’t I? Still I’ll miss the lost visit to Scotland.
Thursday 22 September
2 a.m. ice watch. We seem to be making better time this morning. As of
9 a.m. it looks like we’ll be out of the ice sometime tomorrow. So
today we did a Kt-19 run and the visible and NIR incident and
reflectance observations from the rail. We haven’t had time for station
#30 yet, although there’s still a possibility at the Yermak Plateau
coring site. I’m now trying to firm up my airplane reservations and
travel plans. Part of the drill today was to tie our gear down in
preparation for open sea operation. Our gear is in good shape, but I
have concerns about some of the Swedish equipment in the hold. Tomorrow
will tell.
Friday 23 September
2 a.m. ice watch – it seems so long ago. Well we did get to the ice
edge zone today and headed west to get out of the Russian economic zone,
where we aren’t supposed to gather data. Nevertheless we did a Kt-19
run in the morning to look at some of the dwindling ice. The rest of
the days was data management and reduction plus hurry up and wait. I’ve
just walked out of some sort of vampire movie. It was pretty funny
actually, but I’d like to get a little sleep before tonight’s ice watch.
I asked Jeanne (back in Seattle) to lock in my
reservations, and I guess she’ll let me know tomorrow if she’s managed
to get it done. Then we’re off to the last site – perhaps tomorrow or
perhaps Sunday, and then it’s back to Norway and home.
Saturday 24 September
Ice watch on schedule. As we now have real nighttime, the photographs
were pitch black except for the rail lighted by the flash. Perhaps if I
turned the flash off…
Jeremy went on a reconnaissance flight in the morning.
I took the time to clean up our lab space. I also mopped into the
mud-processing area too. Nevertheless, muddy boot prints appeared
almost immediately on the floor. Sigh. The XO seemed to like our
efforts this time, though, and didn’t flunk us. I also cleaned out the
soot filtering apparatus again as we got some pink algae (but no soot)
on the last control filter suggesting that the filtered water had been
sitting around a bit too long. The Kt-19 run in mid-afternoon was the
observational high point of the day. We did some data exchanging
afterwards.
Sunday 25 September
Ice watch at 2 a.m. There was a first-class polar bear sighting just
after lunch KT-19 rail scan. The bear walked along side of the ship for
quite awhile. I combed through the data files again, watched a movie
(Pale Rider), and read on in Mel’s thesis.
Monday 26 September
Ice Watch at 2 a.m. We’re definitely in the marginal ice zone now. The
floes were broken up into 20-30 m disks and there was episodic swell in
the ice. The morning ice station didn’t materialize because the ice was
deemed to be unsafe so I spent most of the morning on the bridge
monitoring the photo flight. The sky conditions were total overcast,
but the helicopter managed to fly at 1000 ft. elevation. We also
spotted from the bridge a bear out on patrol in the general vicinity of
the flight path. Perhaps the survey photos will pick it up.
Well we got a brief impromptu ice station just before
lunch. Don and Bruce went out and bagged a core and a set of soot
samples including a 20 cm ice core.
We spend the afternoon filtering the samples and doing
the KT-19 rail scan. The snow was indicative (not sedimented), but the
ice contained a lot of sediment. The ice samples will give me a good
sediment absorption spectrum come to think of it. With the KT-19 we
didn’t get any open water as the MIZ pack has closed up on us - probably
due to the big storm to the south. We lost power to one of the main
generators so we’re heading for the ice edge and home. Dennis said that
the seismic folks will get to look at some territory along the ice
margin before we head south. Time to do the last minute things and then
pack up for the crossing.
Tuesday 27 September
I did my last ice watch this morning. In anticipation of reaching the
open ocean, we got almost everything tied down last night and did the
finishing touches this morning. Our cases and the CRREL boxes are tied
down and labeled for the trip to Seattle. Noon today was the official
end of scientific observations, and we’re now headed south for Tromsø.
In the afternoon and evening we went through the data sets, got things
collected on the 250 GB hard drive, made copies of the ice watch log,
and we’re running a hard disk backup with the CRREL 80 GB drive right
now. We’re also beginning to get some swell and a bit of pitch, but I
think we’re ready.
We got into open water by noon. It’s all southward
from here.
Wednesday 28 September
Apparently we bounced around a bit last night, but the gear did fine and
I pretty much slept right through it. We’re in transit for perhaps 2
days now, and I plan to take it easy and read Mel’s thesis. I might
also vacuum the room again.
Thursday 29 September
I got Mel’s thesis read and marked up. We pulled to within sight of
land – Northern Norway and Tromsø Fjord – where we’re going to wait for
a while. We’ll sail in tomorrow morning to arrive precisely on time
without spending a bundle on docking fees for an extra day.
Friday 30 September
As promised, we got in to Tromsø right on time after a beautiful ship
ride through the northern Fjordlands. Don and Bruce were ready, and
right after breakfast, they mobilized – shipped off the sensitive gear,
headed out to the airport and were gone. Jeremy and I will spend
tonight on the ship and fly out tomorrow. This will give me time to see
that our gear is stored efficiently for the return voyage of the ship
back to Seattle. We’ll unload our gear there and ship the remaining
CRREL gear back to NH from there.
Saturday 1 October
It was up early and off to the airport for Jeremy and me. Jeremy is
headed to Germany to visit relatives and it’s the long flight back to
the USA for me. My Scottish relatives have been silent, so I’ve
rerouted to fly back to Washington DC. Then I’ll rent a car and drive
down to NC to see family there. My flight schedule takes me through
Heathrow and I overnight on the plane.
Sunday 2 October
A
fter a weary flight and a long drive with the odd nap along the way, I
arrived in Greenville NC for a little R and R. Toward the end of the
week it was back to Seattle and other obligations for now. |
