Author: lindsay

Yesterday we had another moment of mass hysteria. Many of us were quietly working, as usual, in the common room where we have lectures and presentations. Something in Russian came over the intercom system, and one of the Russians in the room shouted: “polar bear!” Everyone put down their laptops, and ran – I mean SPRINTED – out of the room, through the dining hall, and out to the deck, with no thought of coats.

We have been seeing icebergs the last couple days, but not the big flat ice floes, so no one had been expecting to see a bear. And we went outside, it still looked as if there could not possibly be a bear. There was no ice! But looking in the water, there was a big, adorable, furry white head swimming nearby. He swam back and forth, seemingly curious about the ship, and then swam toward the back of the ship. And of course we all followed toward the stern as well. Everyone was smiling and happy, but there was also a look of fear and a little sadness on many people’s faces. Where was the ice? In what direction could he swim to get back to the ice? Rationally, we know that polar bears are classified as marine mammals and are capable of swimming for a day or more at a time. But that extent still seems extreme. So we all want to think that he was out for a swim and will happily swim back to ice that is just beyond the horizon. Look how amazing and beautiful he is!

Hey guys! Lindsay asked my partner and me to write a post about our presentation. So I’m writing it. 🙂 Elena Khavina and I don’t have our own research projects yet, so we decided to give a presentation about geographical discoveries and exploration. The theme of our presentation was the First and the Second Kamchatska Expeditions, which were organized in the 18th century to compose a map of the Russian Empire, in accordance with an order from Peter the First. At the time, nobody knew if there was a passage between Asia and America, nor about the outline of the northern shore of Asia and the size of Siberia. In December 1724, Vitus Bering was appointed the chief of the First Kamchatka Expedition, which took place from 1725-1730. Over those five years, the Deomedes Islands, St. Lawrence Islands, and other points were discovered. The main results of this expedition were the first map of the eastern shore of Russian Asia, and actual proof of the existence of a passage between Asia and America (that was later named the Bering Strait, in honor of Bering).

In 1732, Anna the Empress ordered the mapping of the northern shore of the Empire to be continued, from Archangelsk (on the northwest coast of the Russian Empire) to the Bering passage. She also ordered that they reach the American continent to gain knowledge about it. The Second Kamchatka Expedition began the next year, with about 500 people taking part, including V. Bering, A. Chirikov, P. Lasinius, M. Shpanberg, G. Miller, S. Malygin, Ch. Laptev, D. Laptev and S. Cheluskin. The Second Kamchatska expedition was then divided into two parts: The Great Northern expedition and The Second Kamchatska expedition. The goal of The Great Northern expedition was to map the northern shore of the Russian Empire. The crew was divided into five squads, and each squad was responsible for describing a part of the shore. This resulted in the first “modern” map, created 1734-1742, of the northern shore, from Archangelsk to Bolshoy Baraniy Cape. Cheluskin Cape and many other points were discovered, despite of the facts that lots of people died of scurvy, and that ranks were reduced due to false accusations aimed at some commanders of the squads.

 The Second Kamchatska expedition was dramatic too. The ships were built in Ohotsk in 1737-1740. During this time, the crew mapped the shore of the Kamchatka peninsula and discovered Avacha Bay, where Petropavlovsk-Kamchtsky was founded. The expedition started on the 4th of June, 1741. Two boats left Avacha Bay and moved east, but on the 20th of June the ships lost each other in the fog. The first ship that was navigated by A. Chirikov, who reached America on the 15th of July. He sent all the boats to the shore but they didn’t return, so the ship started its way back, and on the 11th of October returned to Kamchatka. Bering and the second ship reached America on the 20th of July. Bering sent G. Steller ashore to get drinking water and to make their first description of American continent. The next day, the expedition started its way back, and on the 5th of November the crew of the ship saw land and exclaimed “Yahoo! Kamchatka is over there!” But they were mistaken! The ship was broken apart by waves on the rocks and only after that did the crew realize that it was actually a small uninhabited island. By this time, most of the crew were ill with scurvy. They built a winter camp, and the following spring built a new boat from the fragments of the old ship, and left for Kamchatka. On the 27th of August, 1742 they returned to Avacha Bay.

And what about Bering? He died on the 8th of December 1741 on the small island, which later was named after him. The main outcomes of this expedition were the first Russian knowledge about the American continent, and the first well-composed map of the northern and eastern shores of Russian Empire. People used this map for the next 200 years and named a lot of points after the commanders, chiefs and sailors of this expedition. So, this long story is really dramatic and sometimes sad, but unfortunately there was no other way to discover the Northeast Passage!

– Maria Parfenova

At about 4am the other morning the ship started to slow down for a CTD station (salinity, temperature and depth measurements of the water column). We were stopping east of the Severnaya Zemlya islands for what was the last station of a section across the slope and along the shelf near the islands. A quick glimpse through the window resulted in an even quicker decision to put on clothes and rush to the deck, quietly so as not to wake up anyone sleeping in their cabins. But what waited outside was too amazing not to be shared: Icebergs, bergy bits, growlers, all around us. Even a glimpse of the islands. And sunshine! The quiet and calm of the morning combined with being still half asleep created an almost magical experience.

 Glacier ice, or “ice of land origin”, as it is formally known in ice identification nomenclature, floating in the ocean is classified into different categories depending on its size and shape. The more time the glacial ice remains in the ocean and is moved about by wind and waves, or pushed into other pieces, the more it cracks, crumbles, rots, or becomes smooth. There are names for many different forms and features of the ice. The smallest ones are called growlers (because that’s the sound they can make when colliding with a ship and also because sometimes they are just beneath the surface and go unseen until making contact); somewhat larger pieces are called bergy bits; and in order to be classified as an iceberg, glacier ice needs to stand more than 5 meters above sea-level and be at least 15m long. We have seen tabular, wedged and irregular bergs, and bergy bits that came in so many shapes, but that also might have to be classified as irregular.

 -Marika Marnela

In this photo, you can see just how many bergy bits and small bergs were afloat in the area where the ship stopped. The ice team leader onboard from the Arctic and Arctic Research Institute (AARI) in Russia identified the source of the ice to be from the northern and central islands of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, and said that most of the ice enters into the Laptev Sea to the east of the islands, rather than to the west into the Kara Sea.

Notice the diagonal dark stripes in the irregular bergy bit in this photo. Those lines are composed of very fine sediment from the island where this ice formed.  At its highest point, the ice is about 3 meters (9 feet) out of the water and it has been exposed to a lot of weathering (melting and aging) which now gives some areas a smooth surface.

The curious structure of the tabular berg which looks a bit like cauliflower or mangrove tree forest, is actually ice that is a couple of meters high (about 6 feet) and has been washed so long with waves that the weaker areas of ice have rotted away.

 The Canadian Ice Service has produced a helpful ice observation manual (for details MANICE: Manual of Standard Procedures for Observing and Reporting Ice Conditions) which included the attached figure 2.3 of different iceberg sizes along with references to common things like bicycles, stadiums and skyscrapers.

MANICE Manual from the Canadian Ice Service

At this point in the cruise, many students are devoting their time to group projects. I am currently working with a sizeable group that is using a computer model called WRF to simulate the 2012 Arctic cyclone. I am familiar with the setup process, as well as the ensuing frustration when things don’t go smoothly, because I use a version of WRF in my own research. WRF is an atmospheric model, which simulates the dynamics (motions) of the atmosphere, as well as atmospheric “state” variables such as temperature and humidity. It can be used both for weather forecasting (the “W” and “F” in WRF) and for research (the “R” in WRF). It is similar in many respects to global climate models, yet it is smaller in scope, so a simulation may run for hours or days (instead of decades) and will usually only cover a region of Earth. However, this also enables us to run the model with a higher resolution (meaning smaller grid boxes), so that it may simulate atmospheric phenomena in more detail. I use a slightly different version of the model (WRF-CHEM) in my research. WRF-CHEM couples the effects of aerosols and other gas chemistry to the radiation and cloud physics routines from the standard WRF model. So I can use that to investigate the effects of aerosols on clouds and radiation in the Arctic. As for our group on this expedition, we will use output from the standard version of WRF to run a sea ice model called LIM3, which is used by one of our group members (Antoine) in his own research. Hopefully, we will gain some interesting insights into the effects of different wind and temperature forcings on sea ice during Arctic storms.

 Because our project doesn’t involve going outside, it sometimes feels like I’m just working in an office. A quick look out the window reminds me that yes, we’re still on a boat in the Arctic Ocean. But I also feel it is important to spend some time outside. It isn’t always cloudy like it was in the first part of the trip, and the sight of the Sun reflecting off the sea ice is quite memorable.

 – Eric Stofferahn

This is something that someone could write a story about. I was walking around the deck yesterday, to get some fresh air and check out the latest cast of the CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) rosette instrument into the water, which will allow scientists to better understand the conditions of the ocean from the surface to the seafloor. After seeing this amazing feat of science and technology, I came across a different kind of artistic handiwork. On some crates on the heli-deck, with the Sun in the sky in the background, was a mama and baby polar bear watching over a snow-woman (I know this from later talking to the artists). That is just begging for a story to be written about it!

Although my bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in mathematics, I have a deep fascination with climate, wildlife and the environment, and I really like to apply my math knowledge and skills to study climate dynamics in the real world. I hope the research I’m doing will give some insight into the changes that are going on right now in our Earth’s climate, and I’m happy I work in a field that gives me the feeling I’m doing something good for the world.

 Currently I am a graduate student in the Climate Dynamics PhD Program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia (USA). Under the supervision of Prof. Edwin K. Schneider, my dissertation investigates several aspects associated with the 20th century variability of the North Atlantic (both forced and natural variability). Using climate model experiments, we study how temperature oscillations in the North Atlantic (on multi-decade time scales) are affected by the interaction between external forcing sources (like the Sun or human effects) and internally generated weather noise (anything that appears in climate models or observations that can’t be predicted).

Our work is important because when you make weather predictions, you want to know how much you can predict, and how much is due to “noise,” therefore can’t be predicted. Also, recent studies show the North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean are linked, via water exchanges through the Fram Strait, and through atmospheric transport from middle to high latitudes. Therefore, the work we’re doing is also important in order to better understand the link between the Arctic and North Atlantic, as well as to gain insight into the future of the Arctic.

Last but not least – last night at 2am, when the sun was low in the sky, somewhere in the Arctic Ocean, unexpectedly from the grey thick fog I saw a shining white rainbow and a field of icebergs. As it grew stronger and brighter I realized that this encompasses really how amazing the process of doing research is for me – you have never seen it before, it is beautiful, magical, and unexpected, and it keeps you curious and intrigued about what you see, and least but not last – although sometimes it might make no sense for others (like a white rainbow in the middle of a foggy day/night), it gives you a beautiful feeling of accomplishment because it is unique and brings unexpected results!

– Ioana Colfescu

Most days here in the Arctic have been cloudy, so it’s exciting whenever we see the Sun peek from behind the clouds – and rare sunny days have caused pure glee. But we don’t just say “cloudy,” “partly cloudy,” or “sunny,” like on the news. The Arctic climate depends on the whole system, which includes the atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice – and how all these things affect each other. So it’s vital that we have detailed observations of what the atmosphere is doing. Sasha Chernokulsky has been leading the cloud observations, or “cloud obs,” on the expedition, and several of the Summer School students are working with him to learn the process.

Step 1: Go out on the top deck to get a full 360° view of the sky. This is where the experience comes in – you identify cloud type (cumulus, stratus, cirrus, or all the combinations of those, like stratocumulus, cumulocirrus, etc), and how much sky is covered by that cloud type on a scale of 0 to 10; 10 being full-sky coverage. (This is the standard Russian scale; according to the World Meteorological Organization, the scale is 0 to 8.) On this day, Irina and I were with Sasha out on the deck. Sasha explained that observations around the horizon are not reliable, so here we officially observed “total coverage” of flat layers of clouds with some rounded feature details (type: stratocumulus, scale: 10).

Step 2: Record your observations back in the Flight Tower (it’s a pretty sweet office, or lab, with a view of the ocean and the ship’s heli-deck). Make notes of cloud type, cloud coverage from 0 to 10, degree of visible Sun from N (not visible) to 2 (fully visible disk), and cloud height, as measured by the ceilometer. (This sends a laser upward, which reflects back down off the clouds. We know the speed of light, and we measure the time it takes, so we can calculate the height of clouds.)

Step 3: Come back in 1 hour, and repeat!

The climate is changing, and while we can globally observe a temperature increase, the Arctic is warming at double that pace (the Arctic warmed by about 2-3°C in the last 60 years). However, this temperature increase is just a response of the climate to other processes that are going on in our atmosphere. The temperature increase can be related, for example, to an increase of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as greenhouse gases “trap” heat in the atmosphere (similar to a real greenhouse). As a response to the temperature increase in the Arctic, the sea ice is also observed to be declining (by as much as 12% per decade since we started to observe sea ice with satellites in 1979). In short, many of the processes we are observing in the atmosphere are just a response to other processes that are happening at the same time (or even earlier in time, as sometimes the atmosphere tends to react slowly to changes). In this example, increased greenhouse gases lead to temperature increases, which lead to Arctic sea ice melt.

However, one should not think that the ice extent is continually lower year after year. Some years show a higher/lower ice extent than others. For example, the summer of 2007 and 2012 were years with an extremely low sea-ice extent, while the years 2008 to 2011 showed an extent larger than these other two years. In my research, I am trying to investigate which processes in the atmosphere are responsible for such variability in the sea-ice extent. So I use data from climate models combined with observational data. Why do we have years that show a higher/lower sea-ice extent than others? Can we attribute this to atmospheric processes? And if so, which processes are responsible, and to what extent (thinking about the cause and effect)? Some processes to think about, for example, are the effect of clouds and greenhouse gases in the Arctic in different seasons, changes in the transport of heat into the Arctic due to storms originating in lower latitudes or other large-scale weather systems, the effect of strong winds on the sea ice, and many others…

 – Marie Kapsch

 

I have shown you pictures and told stories of the amazing scale and capabilities of our ship, and also pictures of the stunning details and beauty of sea ice. I have also told you about how we have had to adjust our route a couple times because the ice became too thick for the ship to safely navigate. But what does it look like when the spectacular ice and this magnificent ship interact? Here is the view off the back of the ship, as it has dramatically changed over the last couple weeks.

In open water, the wake is already impressive – for scale you can see the red apparatus we use to lower the moorings into the water. (This is the red arch, which in the photo is lowered down, as opposed to being lifted up as it is for mooring operations.) Also for scale, you can see the little life preserver on the left. Now let’s see what the wake looks like when it meets different kinds of ice.

Here is thin sea ice that has cracked, almost like glass. You can see the amazing translucent blue color (my favorite color, that I have only seen in ice) lining the edge of the wake. The ice is being “mulched” up into small pieces, some of which have been forced under the edge of the ice cover. This changes the ice cover’s thickness along the edge, giving it the bluish color. In the lower right is the thickest part of the ice floe, which is why you don’t see the mulched ice effect underneath it.

On this foggy day, Willy and I were out watching the ship’s wake from a slightly different angle. I wish you could hear the sound in this picture! I now have an appreciation that the sounds of sea ice breaking are nearly as stunning as how it looks. You can see the size of the chunks getting bigger than in the last picture, because the overall ice thickness is greater. In the unbroken ice, the whiter areas are slightly higher and drier than the darker areas (which have experienced some melting and refreezing processes).

I love this picture (on a rare sunny day) because for me it shows how small our impressive ship really is in the big picture of the ocean (you can see again the little life preserver for scale). What you can’t see is this ice floe is many kilometers wide, and there is very high ice concentration in this whole area. To cut through it, the ship needs a lot of power, and you can see that the wake appears much shorter than in the open water. This is because the pressure from the surrounding ice floe works to close the gap, not long after the ship passes through the ice.

So next time you’re doing dishes, or taking a bubble bath, run your finger through the bubbles, and test how quickly the bubbles close in on the “wake” from your finger, depending on if you have total or partial “bubble concentration” on the water!

Fridtjof Nansen was a humanitarian and an oceanographer. He was a polar explorer who crossed Greenland on skis and made it almost all the way to the North Pole on his ship Fram (Norwegian for “forward”) in the late nineteenth century. We can only try to follow in his explorer’s footsteps! Here are 10 more facts you didn’t know.

 1.    He was 7 when a fishing hook got stuck in his lip and his mother cut the lip with a razor to get it out. And they both were absolutely calm the whole time.

2.    He won the National Cross-country skiing Championship of Norway 12 times, and at 19 he beat the world record in 1-mile ice-skating.

3.    He earned a PhD in Biology. The story goes that people didn’t fully understand his results, but he was awarded the PhD anyway because people did not expect him to survive his upcoming Greenland expedition.

4.    The preparations for the Fram expedition took him 3 years. He refused to leave until he was absolutely ready, had best equipment possible, and went through all possible scenarios in his head.

5.    His sketches, made with pastel and water-colors, are so full of life that you feel as if you are in the middle of Arctic yourself when looking at them.

6.    He was a great writer. His diary notes are like R.L. Stevenson and Jules Verne combined (plus, his books are now 100 years old so they are copyright-free).

7.    For the winter of 1895-96 that he spent in Franz-Josef Land, he ate bouillon with meat for breakfast and fried steaks for dinner.

8.    He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. “Nansen’s Passport,” which he invented for prisoners of war and refugees, is still in use and acknowledged by 52 countries.

9.    He was really disappointed he couldn’t do a lot more scientific research after the Fram expedition, but he made sure to give away his ideas to other scientists to work on.

10.   The last paper he published was about skiing techniques.

 – Alena Malyarenko