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I have a great story this year for my birthday. I started it out at 78°N latitude and 125°E longitude, not only on a research vessel in the Arctic, but also signed up to assist scientist Kensuke Komatsu with a radiosonde balloon launch (a radiosonde is a scientific weather balloon that takes measurements of the atmosphere is it rises). Kensuke fills it with helium, and then attaches an instrument box to the string which measures atmospheric pressure, height, humidity, wind, and has GPS to monitor its position. The sound of a balloon being inflated to that size right by your head is a little disconcerting, but I was mainly terrified of letting it go too early. I was glad that Eric, a student in the Summer School, was there as another of Kensuke’s launch assistants. A couple people were also up to celebrate with me at 1:30am ship time (the balloons are released every 6 hours, day and night), and we even wrote “Happy Birthday Lindsay” on the balloon. (I also added the initials “AB” to the balloon, which are my brother Anthony’s initials.) Signing a weather balloon and releasing it into the Arctic atmosphere? Then later in the afternoon, seeing this view? Then a card with birthday wishes in multiple languages? Not a bad birthday.

And, not only was it my birthday today, but yesterday we celebrated two other recent birthdays, Sasha Chernokulsky as well as Kensuke! The students (including me and Eric) in the Russian class onboard – aka the “NABOS Summer School Choir: Children of the Akademik Fedorov” – learned a Russian birthday song to sing as a surprise at dinner. All I can say about that is we did our best. Sasha and Kensuke also got homemade cards signed by everyone, and we all had some yummy cake. We just may get to have some again later today…

 

As you probably can guess from the title of my post, today is the “equator” of our trip to the Northern seas. And also it’s my turn to write the post for the blog, so I think it’s a good idea to sum up everything that’s happened to me during these two and a half weeks onboard. I’m not going to do it in detail but I will try to remember the most wonderful things for me.

I came here from Moscow as a student of the Summer School, and this is my first experience participating in an Arctic expedition, so I have mixed feelings about things that are happening here to me. On one hand, I am in almost total isolation from the entire world and my friends and family, and I know about news only from letters from my friends. During my first week here it was a real problem for me, although after 2 weeks passed I finally realized that the absence of internet and a mobile phone is not as catastrophic as it seemed to me in the beginning. On the other hand, this certainly is not the most interesting thing, as there are really A LOT of exciting events happening here, and the experiences I am having seem really unique. All the lectures here are given by real professionals and have no chance of being boring, the fieldwork we take part in is very exciting, and all of the people and the atmosphere onboard are pretty nice and friendly. For example, problems with taking measurements or some other scientific problems can easily be a discussed at lunch, just because the people at the table are really interested. It’s a pleasure for me to listen to a person that is telling me something that he or she is very excited about! Sometimes people just share the impressions they had from doing one of the observations or experiments. The most exciting activity for me was walking on the ice and drilling a hole in it to find out how thick it is. For me, what I am most curious about here is the view of the scientists and students from different countries on climate change and global warming problems, and I am looking forward to starting my own research in this field.

 So I feel like the two and a half weeks I’ve spent here are definitely one of the most interesting and memorable experience I’ve ever had.

 – Maria Parfenova

Carry out field studies in hard-to-access regions of world oceans… Obtain unique data on Arctic environment… Check new instruments and methods… Collect new data on global climate variability…

These are lofty aspirations, but they are the goals of this expedition, and NABOS (Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational Systems), an international collaborative project launched in 2002. Chief Scientist Vladimir Ivanov took some time to talk with students onboard about how NABOS continually monitors water properties in the Arctic Ocean. Of course it’s not possible for us to physically be in the Arctic to do research at all times. How NABOS does it is by deploying autonomous, anchored buoys and moorings, with instruments that continually measure things like temperature, salinity (salt content), oxygen levels, current, and pressure. (And that’s ALL the way to the bottom, over 2.5miles down).  NABOS started as a collaboration between the International Arctic Research Center in the US and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Russia, and is funded by the National Science Foundation. And it has now turned into a global effort with multiple countries working together – which is also helpful when you have to navigate politics and geographical boundaries in addition to the ocean. What’s new for NABOS 2013? Students! The NABOS Summer School was included to give graduate students a chance to get a firsthand look at the Arctic, and Arctic research. (What an opportunity!)

What has NABOS found over the years?

An abrupt warming (0.8°C) in Atlantic water layer, captured in the Laptev Sea in 2004 A distinct seasonal cycle of +/- 1°C, revealed deep in water under the pack ice A temporary disappearance for 1 month of an Atlantic water layer at the East Siberian Sea slope A continuous warming in Antarctic water layer …And more to come!

This picture is for my boss, who wanted me to bring home some Arctic ice! 🙂 This is a piece of ice from yesterday when we went off the ship and onto the frozen Arctic Ocean, to do observations of the ice. (I still can’t believe we all got to do that.) Look at the layers! Talking with our resident ice researcher Alice Orlich, the clear layer would actually be the lower layer (I’m holding it upside down), and it is clear because it’s more dense with few air bubbles. The white layer is called snow-ice, and it is made of snow that has melted or been flooded, and then drained of water and refrozen. It is less dense than the clear layer, and all of those interlocking air pockets in the ice structure make it opaque. It was so beautiful, I had to take about 1000 pictures of it from every angle. It’ll come back to Miami with me, but probably in a different form…

I am constantly astounded at what these scientists/students are doing in their work. It’s not just about what they do or what their field of research is (which is impressive enough), but also that they are so passionate about what they do, and are still so interested in working together and learning more from each other. My background in science (physics and astronomy) is completely different from anyone else’s here, so I am also learning every day too as part of the onboard NABOS Summer School. Here’s more “greatest hits” from our ongoing student presentations.

Marika (from Finland) talked about the Fram Strait, the only deep connection between the Arctic and the rest of the oceans. Located between Greenland and Svalbard, it is an important place for the exchanges of water between the Arctic and Atlantic. Water masses transport heat and salt as part of global circulation. In the Fram Strait, warm water heads north (and recirculates back), and cold water heads south. She referred to understanding Arctic Ocean circulation as one of the most important challenges in the field.

Antoine (from Belgium) works on models to understand and predict conditions in the oceans and sea ice. He uses NEMO – the Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean – as a “globally-forced, coupled ocean and sea ice model.” Here’s what that means. “Global” means it’s a simulation of the whole world ocean… “Forced” means he inputs atmospheric conditions like temperature and wind into the model. “Coupled” means there are interactions between the ocean and sea ice… and “Model” means that these things are numerically computed step by step. Now everyone else wants him to teach them how he does it.

Svetlana K. (who is from Russia) started her presentation with beautiful satellite images of Earth, then explained the methods and applications of how remote sensing of the ocean works. Satellites use radiometry (which means they measure the radiation from the Earth’s surface), but as detailed and colorful as those satellite images can be, there are limits to the resolution. And resolution doesn’t just mean how sharp the image is. It can also refer to how well the satellite can differentiate slight color differences or light intensities, and even if the satellite is able to take multiple images of the same place at different times.

It’s an unofficial maritime tradition. The idea is that when you’re on a long expedition, you start with lots of excitement, anticipation and momentum. Then you get into the routine of being busy with your work, and being “on the go” all the time. So, an “Equator Party” (even when you are nowhere near the actual equator of the Earth), symbolically celebrates the mark of being half-way through, and is meant to reinvigorate momentum for the second “hemisphere.” We actually celebrated our “equator” a day off of the actual middle point, in order to also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the discovery by Russian explorer Vilkitskiy of Severnaya Zemiya (a set of islands north of Asia at about 100°E longitude). So we’re now headed back west! We all gathered in the canteen (aka, the dining hall) for a special meal, and a short acknowledgement by our Chief Scientist Vladimir Ivanov. He reminded us that we are following in the footsteps of great explorers, and “standing on the shoulders of giants” to learn even more about the Earth. And with the next generation of scientists onboard, we should expect even more in the future.