Author: lindsay

What is my research all about?

 I am analyzing periods with low air quality in Bergen, Norway. Bergen is a coastal valley city at 60°N latitude, located between steep topography (mountains) and a sea inlet. The days in winter are short, and under fair weather conditions the city experiences frequent episodes of a phenomenon called “temperature inversions.”

 In such a situation, the temperature rises with height (instead of decreasing with height, as it normally would). This is caused by the cooling of the ground that can occur during the long winter nights, in conditions of little to no sunlight and cloud-free skies. Since cooler air is heavier than warmer air, it stays low in the valley, and therefore, mixing with the warmer, cleaner air above is suppressed. When we also have low wind speeds, the air will “stand” in the valley, and emissions that would be diluted right away under normal conditions, keep accumulating, leading to poor air quality.

 In my project I use a device called an MTP (Meteorological Temperature Profiler) that can measure the temperature profile of the atmosphere up to 1000meters above the valley ground (this device is an extended version of the instrument we have here on the ship). I also use data from local air quality stations. Later, a very high-resolution computer model can then simulate the small-scale turbulence of the atmosphere, and we use the model at an accuracy of within 40meters. My research will help us understand the occurrence of temperature inversions and the accumulation of pollutants in this valley, and hopefully improve the predictability of these occurrences.

 Temperature inversions are also a common state of the lower Arctic atmosphere, due to the weak solar radiation in the polar regions. In the photo below, you can see the result of a temperature inversion occurrence in Bergen, with the layer of smog sitting low on the ground. In the next photo is the beautiful Arctic atmosphere during our expedition.

 – Tobias Wolf

The IARC (International Arctic Research Center) Summer School onboard has involved many more hours of mental activity than physical activity. Being confined to the ship has resulted in inventiveness when it comes to expending energy and getting limbs moving.

 One of the common rooms occasionally serves as a makeshift gym – some portable speakers and an iPod, and lots of enthusiasm, get people moving. Ocean chemistry colleagues from the Hydro-Lab put on a brutal “High-Intensity” workout every day at 5pm (which is the start of their day, i.e. the night shift). A 6am yoga session has been organized, and the occasional afternoon ballet-based exercise routine has left some summer school participants unable to move after supper.

 There are alternative methods of burning calories, such as the six levels (12 flights) of stairs to climb from sleeping quarters to the level of the ship’s Bridge for ice observations, and the Flight Operations room for cloud observations. One more flight of stairs outside puts you on the fly-bridge, which is the best place to watch wild weather or scope the horizon for polar bears.

 However, for recreation, Ping-Pong is king! The post-supper tournament can turn mild-mannered scientists into paddle-wielding warriors. Some of our Russian colleagues even brought their own paddles in anticipation of stiff competition. Contenders line the bench and everyone gets a game. It’s a great way to get to know your fellow expedition members.

 – Drew, Summer School Instructor

Read the title of this post again. Atmospheric River. When I first saw the title of this presentation by one of the scientists onboard, who is also one of the Instructors of the NABOS Summer School onboard, I don’t think my brain processed how cool that really sounded until I read it twice. It sounds like something you might read about in a fairy tale, but really it is cutting-edge area of atmospheric research, and a phenomenon that is still in the process of being completely understood. Masha Tsukernik of Brown University talked about these occurrences based on her experience and research at the OTHER end of the Earth, in Antarctica. Atmospheric rivers are filamentary features of high water vapor in the atmosphere. Imagine that – water vapor organizes itself in a stream of at least 2000 km long and less than 1000 km wide. At the surface, atmospheric rivers are associated with strong precipitation events. One of the most well-known atmospheric rivers is called the “pineapple express.” This is associated with water vapor originating in Hawaii that gets deposited as extreme rain at the California coast. New data have shown integrated water vapor in the atmosphere that can be seen as “rivers” that stretch all the way from the Indian or Atlantic Ocean to the coast of East Antarctica. Such atmospheric rivers are an important connection between the tropical regions and polar regions. I am completely enthralled by this connection, which has not been directly studied until now.

We are already in the second half of the expedition, and people seem to have adjusted to the routine. Breakfast at 7:30, work, lunch at 11:30, work again, tea 3:30pm, work, dinner at 7:30pm, sauna, then bedtime. Everybody knows all the latest news about the moorings, other ship operations, and where we are – we are one big family. Even our satellite phone cards have a ‘family discount’ on weekends. Some people are very excited all the time, other not so much – we are all different. But there is one thing that we all have in common – most of us are not in our usual space, and therefore our ways of looking at everything is different from each other.

 Summer School is a very easy way of entertaining students: we are all on a ship and therefore there are none of the “usual” distractions – movie theaters, cafes, restaurants. All the lectures are very interesting and it seems like people are opening up, asking questions, and participating in discussions. More importantly, questions and discussions do not happen in a feisty, “conference-style” mode – people really do want to understand what’s going on. We have developed a good, friendly atmosphere, and it feels very nice.

 I am sure we will all go home good friends and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again at future meetings. The IARC (International Arctic Research Center) Summer School family has grown bigger and stronger, again.

 – Vladimir Alexeev (International Arctic Research Center (University of Alaska-Fairbanks), and Summer School Director)

A few days ago, I wrote a post for all the students following the blog, especially those who were asking about how physics and math could be found onboard (and off). I got some responses to this, and I hope even more of you have thought about the questions I posed! Here are the original pictures & questions (with hints), along with the answers:

Why does this weather balloon rise, and why does it pop when it gets high enough? (Think about density and pressure.) The balloon is filled with helium gas, which is less dense than the air around it, so it rises through the atmosphere. Air pressure decreases with altitude, and when pressure outside is less than pressure inside…pop!

The yellow object is made of foam – for scale, you can see me in the picture. Why would this help one of our scientific buoys float, and why is it so big? (Think about density and buoyancy.) Less dense objects float on top of denser liquids. In this case, the foam by itself will float, but it’s so large because it also needs to keep scientific instruments afloat that would otherwise sink.

What do you see in the photo that would help you lift heavy objects? (Think about the path of the rope and the forces on it.) When heavy instruments and long cables are being lowered into the ocean, a system of gears and pulleys support some of the weight of the objects, therefore lightening the load.

Why does the screw shape on the drill make a hole in the ice more easily than a spike? (Think about the motion of the two tools entering the ice.) The motion of a screw helps to translate the rotational force into a downward force, to help drill the hole. And if held in place in the hole, the motion of the inclined plane spiraling around the screw will bring matter (ice in this case) up, ejecting it out of the hole.

Why does the ship fire its sideways thrusters in conditions of wind and strong currents, to stay in one location? (Think about balancing forces acting on the ship.) In order to stay in one place, the ship has to compensate for currents and wind, so thrusters push the ship in the opposite direction, balancing the forces on the ship.

What makes one layer of ice more transparent than the other? (Think about trapped air pockets.) Different layers of ice form in different conditions, and have different characteristics, like the amount of trapped air pockets. The more air pockets, the more light is refracted (or bent) as it passes through the ice, which makes the ice appear less clear.

This is as high as the Sun gets in the sky at this time of year. Why is that? (Think about our location.) This is maybe easier to understand with a globe (or a ball) and flashlight (for the Sun). Shine the flashlight on the globe. Now imagine standing on the globe in the tropics, and then in the Arctic. No matter how Earth rotates from day to night, the Sun will never get as high over your head in the Arctic as it does in the tropics.

Why and how do scientists turn data into pictures? (Think about all the data we collect from the ocean.) Graphs help visualize numbers & data. Step 1 in analyzing data or information is to look for patterns, or where patterns break down. There are lots of variables in the ocean (temperature, salt, living organisms), and graphing helps us see the “big picture.”

I have talked a lot about climate, and I know that brings up notions of things like land, atmosphere, ocean, and ice. But one thing that is intertwined with all of those environments is life. Student presentations from the Summer School have continued, and these next two student scientists talked about life from very different perspectives, and with such fascinating variety, that it reminds me how utterly cool it is that we are all on the same ship.

Florence (who is from the US) has had a lot of experience on the water, and talked about her work with the BASIS project (Bering Arctic Subarctic Integrated Surveys). The project is unique, as it combines fisheries and oceanographers to inform sustainable fishing practices – fisheries know fish, oceanographers know the environment. She talked about the entire spectrum of work, from collecting fish, plankton (and the odd ton of jellyfish) in various nets, to studying and preserving samples. To understand the role of microscopic phytoplankton in the ecosystem, she filtered samples to test for the presence of chlorophyll, oxygen, and nutrients, and put samples in a freezer if they needed to be preserved and later studied in the lab. How cold is the freezer? It’s -80°C!

Anna (who is from Russia and lives in the US) talked about another kind of life that you may not have heard about. Diatoms are a kind of photosynthetic algae that you can find as a single cell organism one-millionth of a meter in size, or in long threads called colonies that can be up to 5meters long. Why should we care about them? By studying their remains in sediments (they have a silica shell that preserves well), we can learn about the conditions (temperature, salinity/salt content) of the environment where/when they lived. If that didn’t convince you, here’s another reason to care: they can be found anywhere in the world, and provide 25-35% of the world’s oxygen supply. So for every third or fourth breath you take, you can thank diatoms!

 

Being a physicist, it’s funny that being on the ship messes with my sense of space/time. I have mentioned on the blog that time becomes kind of irrelevant on the ship. Day and night are hard to define when the ship clocks (on Norway time) say it’s daytime, but according to the Sun and the time zone we’re in, it’s nighttime. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are also hard to define (given the available technology that I’m working with to get these blogs to you), because I may be describing an event from yesterday (when we were at Point A), and by the time you read it, we are now at Point B – not to mention that you readers are all in different time zones around the world too. But, want to know how and when we have been getting from Point A to B? (And how the temperature has varied – or not so much – day by day?) Here are the navigational coordinates I have logged every day. Keep in mind that on most days, we moved around a lot. Remember I talked about transects? These are straight paths along which we stop at several “stations” to deploy instruments into the water or onto the ice. And remember what I said about ice conditions – that we have needed to make route adjustments a couple times when ice on the planned route got to be too much? So, even this list can’t quite track our entire route. I made a couple notes about some milestones along the way. But of course there were LOTS of super cool operations along the way – mooring deployments, conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) casts, ice-tethered profilers (ITPs), and more. So go grab a globe or a map. Happy mapping!

Here’s how the data is listed below:

Date

Latitude, Longitude

Air Temperature, Water Temperature

8/20

69°43’N, 30°03’E

15°C, 13°C

*At our port town of Kirkenes, Norway

 

8/21

75°03’N, 46°22’E

8°C, 8°C

 

8/22

76°11’N, 50°32’E

7°C, 7°C

 

8/23

80°59’N, 72°55’E

3°C, 3°C

8/24

81°40’N, 88°52’E

1°C, 1°C

*About the time when we first got to sea ice

8/25

79°32’N, 105°32’E

1°C, 1°C

8/26

77°12’N, 124°50’E

0°C, 0°C

8/27

78°09’N, 125°48’E

0°C, 0°C

8/28

79°57’N, 125°59’E

0°C, 2°C

8/29

80°47’N, 125°42’E

0°C, -1°C

8/30

80°48’N, 132°37’E

0°C, -1°C

8/31

79°37’N, 143°19’E

-1°C, -1°C

9/1

80°37’N, 137°39’E

-2°C, -1°C

9/2

79°59’N, 152°01’E

-6°C, -1°C

* About the time when the Sun came out, along with the not-too-far-off pair of polar bears

9/3

80°13’N, 155°48’E

-2°C, -1°C

*When we went out on the ice to deploy multiple buoys and instruments (ice-tethered profiler, ice-mass balance buoy, o-buoy, met buoy, met tower), and students practiced taking ice measurements

9/4

79°35’N, 148°05’E

1°C, 1°C

9/5

78°33’N, 133°45’E

0°C, 0°C

9/6

77°38’N, 125°51’E

1°C, 1°C

9/7

79°45’N, 125°46’E

3°C, 2°C

9/8

78°26’N, 125°53’E

0°C, 0°C

9/9

80°00’N, 115°25’E

0°C, -1°C

9/10

79°56’N, 107°42’E

-1°C, 0°C

9/11

82°03’N, 112°17’E

-4°, -1°

*Where we are “now” (as I’m writing this). We are stopped to deploy an ice-tethered profiler; notice the sea ice outside now – no waves. Calm ship = calm tummies!