Ignatius Rigor and Roger Anderson deployed meteorological buoys and AXCTD probes for the International Arctic Buoy Program, August 2011.
Field Reports
We’re back! We had a busy two weeks at home in Seattle spent catching up on the rest of life and processing as much as we could from our May expedition in order to stay ahead of the game and, critically, to try to identify problems early so that we can correct them in June and July. Shelly has been busy with the several dozen cell counts she came home with (Spoiler: there are lots of cells in the ice!) and ordering stuff that we either ran out of, forgot to bring, or didn’t realize that we needed. I’ve been…
For me, back to the lab meant back to the walk-in freezer. Things went well all morning, but when we started back up after our cafeteria lunch (which included more of the fudge-like chocolate cake to which several of the team had become hopelessly addicted and which Bonnie described as “regrettably good”), things started to go south.As one particularly-beautiful-looking thin section was nearing completion, a spider crack suddenly formed halfway through a scrape and the whole thing fell apart. I sawed off a new piece and tried again, but again once the sample was close to completion, it cracked and…
On one of our last days, the lab staff invited us to a muktuk feast, which they had prepared from whale meat that Scotty, the lab mechanic, had from being part of a whaling crew. After a prayer of thanks, they told us what was what: first, traditional frozen, raw muktuk from the previous season: about an inch-thick piece of whale skin and blubber; second, a cooked version of the same from fresh meat from the whale just caught; third, steaks of whale tongue. We were given seasoning mix to flavor it, a traditional rounded ulu knife to cut it,…
It’s been a year of planning and preparation, ordering and organizing, testing and troubleshooting, but today we’re finally off to the Arctic!We’re all feeling pretty excited to be headed North to the ice. Shelly just got back from fieldwork in Greenland little over a month ago, but she’s buzzing and anxious about this busy trip (“Gaaaah just board the flight already!! How can people be sitting? Let’s GO!”). This is Karen’s first trip to Barrow since 2001 and she’s beaming like a kid. Bonnie is toting a shiny new spectrometer that arrived Friday after quite a bit of “is it…
We spent all day today unpacking our three pallets of coolers and boxes and cases, setting up the lab, and getting everything prepared for our first day out on the ice and the experiments after that. Carie was relieved that the fancy and expensive microscope seemed none the worse for the wear after its long trip up here and that the little sensor spots she had last-minute shipped from Germany made it in on time. Monica and Karen spent the day gluing said sensor spots into little glass vials while Shelly and Julianne tag-teamed getting the whole mess sorted into…
As we begin Day 7 of our trip up here to Barrow, Carie has officially declared that “Super Fantastic Science Has Happened!”While Carie is busy in the cold room chopping up ice cores, microtoming them into thin sections and inspecting them under the microscope, keeping meticulous notes, setting up cell incubations, consulting with the PIs, videotaping the team for science outreach, singing songs to stay warm, etc. she has had barely any time to keep up with the blog. Well, almost no time. As you’ll see shortly, her thoughts are interspersed throughout this post as well. Until Carie can fully take…
Field days are what we all look forward to most, but most of our time in Barrow (and in general) is necessarily spent in the lab. Cores and other samples acquired the day before on the Chukchi Sea, it was time to buckle down and process everything. We had been in the lab until almost 2 am the night before, but there was still much to be done, and we scattered into the lab and various walk-in freezers and coldrooms.It all starts in the walk-in freezer, which I had set to -15°C, nice and frozen, with the fans blowing cold…
Bonnie and I went out today to do some optics measurements at a location close to the sampling site on the Chukchi Sea. We also recruited the BARC Senior Scientist, Karl Newyear, to help us out.Bonnie wanted to measure the following: the relative amount of sunlight reflected by the snow (albedo), the relative amount of sunlight transmitted through the snow and ice at the bottom of the sea ice (light transmittance), and the amount of sunlight that passes through the snow and ice at regular intervals down a core hole (vertical light profile).In the photo above, you can see the spectrophotometer…
After all the time cooped up working hard in the lab, another field day was a literal breath of fresh air. But first we had to wait over an hour for our bear guard, who had slept through his alarm because he was out partying the night before because a large female bowhead whale had been caught by one of the local native whaling crews. We passed the time by packing up the sled, telling field stories, and taking increasingly silly photos.We were so anxious to get out on the ice when he finally did arrive, that we didn’t discuss…
Phone call from Andy Heiberg this morning. He reported that they all arrived safe in Longyearbyen. The weather on Monday and Tuesday was blizzard like conditions with extremely strong winds but today the weather has calmed and it is a balmy 32°F. Things are on schedule and they should head to the ice camp on 4 April as planned.
Artica (Barneo) — April 10, 2015 N 89° 36′ W 018° 39′ — Cloudy, -26°C, west 2 m/s
Iridium call from Jamie Morison: Work planned for NPEO’s first full day at Barneo went well. The WHOI team succeeded in deploying both the the Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) and the Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoy about 300 meters from camp, and will leave on the flight to Longyearbyen this evening. In addition, Dean Stewart put together a successful deployment of the Ice Mass Balance (IMB) Buoy. Jamie Morison flew to the Pole in an MI-8 helicopter and downloaded another year of data from the Arctic Bottom Pressure Recorder (ABPR), which may be nearing the end of its expected battery life, but seems to be going strong. Revised plans call for the Twin Otter to arrive from Eureka in Barneo Saturday evening to begin the hydro survey.
Artica (Barneo) — April 11, 2015 N 89° 33′ W 018° 11′ — Clear, -29°C, north 2 m/s
Iridium call from Jamie Morison: The major effort today was preparing for the installation of Frederic Vivier’s Ice-T Buoy, which requires a large and overlapping hole through the ice. Ice-T deployment should be complete tomorrow. The Twin Otter took off from Alert headed north, but deteriorating weather at Barneo resulted in an Iridium call to Borek, and the Twin returned to Alert to try again tomorrow.
Artica (Barneo) — N 89 ° 30 ‘W and 020 ° 24’ – clear, no wind, -18 ° C
Monday, 13 April (Russian Orthodox Easter) Barneo – Iridium call from Dean Stewart
Installation of Frederic Vivier’s Ice-T Buoy was completed at Barneo, and deployment of the Webcam Buoys begun. Dean phoned to check on the images successfully transmitted by Webcam1. The Twin Otter arrived from Sunday evening, and it was being configured for the CTD-Chemistry stations, and a practice station was taken.
Phone call from Jamie Morison: We all arrived in Longyearbyen as scheduled, including Matt on Wednesday. Dean has located nearly all our equipment and sorted it into appropriate piles. The Antonov 74 has been loaded on the ramp for much of today ready to make its first flight, scheduled for today. It looks like that may wait until tomorrow, which would push our flight back at least half a day, to late-Saturday or Sunday.We set up Webcam#1 looking out the window of our living quarters, and sent three images over Iridium.
Email from Jamie Morison: A 40-knot windstorm is still blowing at Artica (Barneo), and the Anatov-74 loaded with camp gear is still sitting on the ramp in front of our hangar, waiting to make its first flight out. We are scheduled for Flight 4, so our departure is put off until at least Sunday. With the WHOI guys doing yesterday and Pisarev on Wednesday, we are now APL (4), Vivier (1 for Borneo plus Antonio), WHOI (3), Pisarev (1) and Tom Quinn CPS (1 for here) in Longyearbyen ready to go. The camera systems are pretty slick, and we have successfully…
Text from Jamie Morison: The first Anatov-74 flight landed at Barneo with camp gear, while the NPEO team is scheduled for flight 4. Unfortunately, on the second landing, that Anatov suffered severe damage to the right rear landing gear.
Email from Jamie Morison: We were originally scheduled to leave yesterday, April 4. But a storm at Borneo had delayed the first flight of camp gear and our departure one day. Last night we were informed the second flight had a bad landing at Borneo and ripped off the right main landing gear. Fortunately, no serious injuries. The Antonov is now stuck in the middle of the runway. They need to get a new Antonov up from Moscow and get the damaged one off the runway or make a new runway. So NPEO faces a significant delay.A British trekking party was on the second…
Email from Jamie Morison: We are still stuck here in Longyearbyen. I think the plan is to resume Antonov flights from here on Wednesday with our flight tentatively scheduled for Thursday afternoon Norwegian time. NSF has started the machinery to delay the Twin Otter operation two days.
Artica (Barneo) — April 9, 2015 N 89° 38′ W 025° 03′ — -18°C, north 3-4 m/s
Iridium call from Jamie Morison: The An-74 carrying the NPEO team landed at Barneo late this evening. After a short night, the Wood’s Hole team will try to deploy the entire buoy farm at Barneo and depart tomorrow evening. They will be assisted by Sergei Pisarev’s party who will add Alfred Wegner Institute buoys to the collection. The UW team will try to reach the North Pole by Mi-8 helicopter and download the Arctic Bottom Pressure Recorder. Associated with all the An-74 delays, the Twin Otter Schedule and the team’s departure from Barneo has been delayed two days. It will be a busy day tomorrow.
Texts and email from Jamie Morison:Photos show the NPEO team preparing to leave Longyearbyen for Barneo on the replacement An-74 at 7pm Norway time. Aboard are Andy Heiberg, Jamie Morison, Matt Alkire, and Dean Stewart of the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center and Rick Krishfield and Jeff Pietro of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The delayed buoy deployment meant that WHOI’s Kris Newhall will miss the buoy deployment and heads home from Longyearbyen tonight.