22 Metric Tons of Fuel…

…per day. That’s what it takes to run this ship on water. What about on ice? Make that 50 tons per day, with all engines running. The crew gave us a behind the scenes tour of the ship, and here’s a few more stats on our floating polar home. THE SHIP’S 4 ENGINES ADD UP TO 22,000 HORSEPOWER (I’M SHOUTING BECAUSE IT’S LOUD), and if you’re on open water, only 2 engines are used. But if you’re headed into ice, that’s when the 3rd and 4th engines can be fired up. The ship is capable of a max speed of 16 knots, but when it’s crushing through ice, it’s just 3 knots max. (Not to mention it can crush through 1 meter thick ice.)

Speaking of breaking ice, even though our ship can do that, it’s not technically an “icebreaker” ship. We are an “ice class” ship. What’s the difference? An icebreaker has a flat body to run on top of ice and crushing it. An ice class ship has a keel like a regular ship, but stronger –so we crush ice, the ice doesn’t crush us. Here are Marie, Alena, and Antoine on the top level (7th floor) of the ship (and the ship still towers over them), and Drew in front of the drive shaft of one of the electric motors (just behind that wall is the propeller).

mini-IMG_0689

mini-IMG_0599

Try This at Home!

mini-IMG_0726

Today during Summer School activities, two questions were posed by instructors to students. Now we want to ask all of you readers of the blog, and invite you to comment and post your predictions – and we will let you know if you’re close. Don’t forget to explain why you made that prediction. (Even the scientists, who figured out the answers, had a hard time when I asked them how they would explain it to a non-scientist!)

1. Will ice melt faster in fresh water or salt water? Take a guess, and then you can try it at home – fill two glass with tap water at the same temperature. Put some salt in one glass and mix. Drop an ice cube in both glasses at the same time (if you like you can add food coloring to the water to compare). Were you correct? What do you think happened?

2. Will ice melt faster on metal or plastic? Here you can also take a guess, and then try it out. Put an ice cube on something metal and something plastic (and make sure it’s ok that the objects get wet). Were you correct? Why do you think that happened?

Climate Modeling

mini-IMG_0662

Here is our view of the Earth from the back of our ship (latitude 81 degrees, air/water temperature 1 degree C.) How many things that affect the climate are in this picture? (Hint: the answer is more than you think.) Dr. Drew Slater of the National Snow and Ice Data Center talked to students about the big picture of modeling the Earth’s climate – and how it has evolved over time. If you start by making the simplistic statement: incoming heat (from the Sun) minus outgoing heat (reflected heat) gives you Earth’s temperature, you will get -18°C (about -0.5°F). But isn’t the case (Earth’s average temperature is about 15°C, or 59°F), so there must be other factors involved, right?

The last few decades, more and more variables have been included in the model to make it more and more accurate. For the computer programmers out there, the number of lines of code involved in the program has gone from 500 lines to 1.5million lines. For the rest of us, if we think about all the factors that affect the Earth’s climate (like in the picture below), we can start to see why you need 1.5million lines of code and a computer to figure it out. And he said one other thing I wanted to pass on – it used to be that one person knew everything about all the factors of his or her model. Now, each person knows one piece like the back of their hand, and they work with other people who know about other pieces. This means teamwork, and local and global collaboration. Here is the picture so far, but we still need even more lines of code to figure out the entire BIG picture.

mini-IMG_0611

 

Summer School is Awesome

mini-IMG_0543

Summer school might have a negative connotation, but this Summer School onboard is unique, to say the least. Lectures by the scientists onboard began yesterday – throughout the expedition, graduate students onboard – and me – will be attending lectures given by scientists onboard – and me. (I’ll be doing a presentation about how to communicate this amazing science to other people not onboard the ship – namely, all of you reading this blog.) In the photo we are hearing about a previous year’s Summer School from 2005. This is like the coolest school ever, where you learn a lot about how the Earth works from people who look at it from all different angles – sea ice, clouds, ocean – and then there’s no test. And as a bonus, the ocean is just outside the porthole, and you just may get to take a tour of the ship too. (Here we are on “the bridge,” where the captain and crew drive the ship.)

mini-IMG_0559

 

Station #1: Glider in the Water!

mini-IMG_0579

We just found out that our first “equipment-headed-off-the-boat” operation is happening tonight! This glider, which is now in the wet lab onboard the ship (near the ship’s only working washing machine), will be going into the ocean. We are not allowed to be on the same deck as the operations team, as all the equipment and processes can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, but the rest of the scientists and students are going to go out and watch from the helipad on the upper deck. For a couple hours we will remain in the same location, while the team onboard from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the glider operator (at the University of Washington in Seattle) confirm that test measurements are successful. If so, we’ll move on and leave the glider to do its thing. If not, they’ll bring the glider back onboard (but that won’t happen.)

What is the glider’s mission? From Seattle, the driver will give it a direction and instructions where and when to re-surface. Each time it resurfaces, it will transmit data via satellite, and the driver will give it its next course (and wait in anticipation for it to resurface again). It will use its CTD to measure Conductivity (related to salt content), Temperature, and Depth (related to pressure) of water samples, and then we’ll pick it up on our way back in a few weeks!

Just for Scale

It’s hard to imagine just how big the ocean is. Even in Miami, where many people see the ocean on a regular basis, many of those people might not really think about the scale of what is in front of them (which is unfortunate I think). It’s hard for people to think about things beyond the horizon, like the Arctic, affecting them. So, to give you an idea of the scale of the ocean, and the size (or lack thereof) of the extent of sea ice, think about this. We have been driving north for a couple days now, and it will still be a couple more days before we see much sea ice. It is the summer, so we’re at the minimum annual extent of sea ice (and sadly, 2012 was also the minimum sea ice extent on record). But it’s still getting a lot colder a lot more quickly!

mini-IMG_0512 (2)

O-Bouy!

mini-IMG_0528
Carlton Rauschenberg is working on preparing the O-Buoy components for deployment.

Deploying an O-buoy is a complex and dangerous task. Even putting the pieces together takes the ship’s onboard crane to help do the heavy lifting. This is all just preparation for when it is deployed on the ice. The main job then is to make sure the ice is in a safe condition in which to work before doing anything else. If deemed safe, a hole is drilled through the ice, and a metal tube goes into the water underneath with this “antenna station” (shown in the photo) remaining above the surface. The antenna station takes measurements like temperature and wind speed/direction, and has GPS tracking (if the ice melts, you’ll be able to find it). When in the water, the top of the tube will stay afloat due to the yellow “flotation collar.” The O-buoy apparatus will be stabilized in the sea ice, and measures carbon dioxide, bromine oxide, and ozone in the atmosphere. It’s going to take the ship a couple more days to get to the sea ice (this is summer, and sea ice is at its minimum), so stay tuned for O-buoy deployment, and to see the operations in action!

mini-IMG_0536

 

Spare Parts

mini-IMG_0539 (2)

It’s hard to get a sense in pictures for the scale of this ship. From the inside, it is a labyrinth of cabins, offices, radio room, laboratories, machine rooms, hallways, and steep staircases (be sure to remember you are on the ocean, and hold onto the hand rails when you’re walking on those steep stairways). From the outside, the ship is decks full of equipment and cargo, the tower leading to the “bridge” (where the captain and watch officers drive the boat), crane, helipad… and many more features I’ve yet to learn, but hopefully will! But here is one thing that gives you an idea of scale. These are spare propeller blades for the ship. By the way, don’t touch them, unless you want black something all over your hands. (Notice that Willy the Box Turtle got curious, and you can see the size of him compared to the propellers.)

mini-IMG_0526

Getting to Know Each Other

mini-IMG_0535

 

As I have mentioned, we are more than 60 people from almost a dozen countries (and more than 70 crew). Some people might know someone else onboard, but many don’t. And we’re on a ship together for the next few weeks, so it seems like a nice idea to get to know all the people who will never be more than a few hundred feet away from you. One of the expedition sponsors/organizers, the Arctic Antarctic Research Institute in Russia, planned to help us all out by providing some food and refreshments for a “get to know each other” reception. Afterward, we went outside to stand on the ship’s helipad to get some fresh air. (The air is very fresh, as you may imagine.)

mini-IMG_0541