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Every day people on this ship say things so inspiring that I’m reminded why I love science. One student said people today always “think smaller” and are zooming in to closer, smaller scales, but that she loves “the global” and wonders why things on global scales, like the ocean, seem to have lost our attention. She will write more about her inspiration and work later in the blog, but for now I’m learning so many things as she and other students continue to share their work. Here are a couple more that I hope inspire you too.

Alena (who is from Russia) talked about how water masses from different places, like the Arctic or Atlantic, each have a “fingerprint” of unique chemical, physical, and biological characteristics. When the mooring detects changes from one depth to another, it is detecting a separate water mass. If it detects changes over time at a certain location/depth, it means there were changes in conditions at the origin of the water mass (even if it was 1000 years ago or an ocean away). And this applies worldwide, from the Arctic to Miami and back again.

Meri (who is from Finland), told us about the two water currents from the North Atlantic Ocean. These two “branches,” the Barents Sea Branch and Fram Strait Branch, enter and are distributed around the Arctic, partially mixing with each other and other Arctic waters. This massive mixing mostly occurs north of the shallow Kara and Laptev Seas, and causes changes in temperature and salt content. This is one of the reasons why our ship is there as we speak.

Here Alena and Meri are in the ship’s hangar (imagine a helicopter fitting in here) learning about components of the instruments that will go into the ocean and tell us even more about these global effects.

Scientists throw around the words “system” and “coupling” a lot. In general, they both mean that how one thing works is linked to how another thing works, and you can’t understand one without understanding the other (actually you need to understand both things at the same time). Vladimir Alexeev, Director of the Summer School onboard, used a great “science communication” strategy that we have talked about during his presentation on polar amplification (which refers to the fact that warming effects on Earth are stronger in the polar regions than in the rest of the world). He explained the Arctic Climate System using an analogy with everyday objects – a boot, a shoe, a string, and his paycheck (because his paycheck depends on him understanding the Arctic system). If you use shoestrings to attach those objects, there is no way that one will move without affecting the other. Now add an external “forcing,” which in this case is Masha Tsukernik, another instructor onboard, pulling on the green attached string. How does all this apply to the Arctic climate? It is a “system” which includes the ocean, atmosphere, vegetation, sea ice, clouds, soil, life forms, and of course human activity. What affects one thing will affect another.

Here’s a challenge for all of you: what can you see in Miami, or wherever you live around the world, that is “coupled” or that is a “system?” Look at the beach, at the sky, at your school, the park, anything. What are all the parts of that system? Now try to find ONE thing that is not linked somehow to anything else. The Arctic is a system, and that’s why we need such smart people and cool technology to understand it.

Here is some trivia for you. Our ship, the Akademik Fedorov, was THE ship that planted the Russian flag – on the ocean floor – just a few years ago. The goal was to symbolically name the waters between Russia and the North Pole, and therefore all related potential resources, for Russia. But of course there are lots of international politics involved. Any area beyond the continental shelves is considered international waters, but in the Arctic, where waters around Canadian, Russian, and Alaska all meet, it’s not so easily agreed upon. But the fact that the ship we are calling home has been to the North Pole, and that we’re going to be nearly there, is pretty awesome, to say the least. Here are Masha and Kensuke standing in our watery, icy “front yard.”

It takes several hours to put in a mooring (for readers new to the blog, a mooring is an anchor, along with scientific instruments, on a line that reaches from the ocean floor to nearly the surface). We recently did one of our deepest mornings, going almost about 3800meters down into the ocean (almost 2.5 miles). After we found an open water space, lowered the anchor and scientific instruments down along the line, not only had we drifted, but the ice floes were drifting and closing in on us as well. The wind was strong (16meters/second or 36 miles per hour), and the water currents strong as well. Over several hours, you may guess what happens to a ship in those conditions. So we had to move to continually stay in open water. The thing is, in 2 years we need to be able to find this mooring to bring it back to the surface along with all instruments. So we needed to “triangulate” its exact location now. This involves the ship circling (or triangulating) around the general location of the mooring – then, using the signal from multiple locations, we can calculate its exact location. We have completed several moorings along the 126°E longitude line, which follow the red line in the photo below (you can also see the little red ship turning). Having moorings along this line, or “transect,” allows scientists to monitor water conditions from shallow waters (250meters) straight into the deep waters (nearly 4000meters) of the Amundsen Basin. Now we’re headed off further to the east, and we’ll be putting buoys under the ice soon!

As our NABOS Summer School continues, students have the chance to share what they know about climate. But everyone focuses on a different piece on it. Some students have already been doing their own research, and some have not yet started their own research, and are looking to expedition activities to get some inspiration and direction on their potential future work. What have we learned so far?

Marie (who is from Germany and lives in Sweden), talked about processes and variability of polar sea ice. She focuses on years with extremely low ice levels, then analyzes what was happening in the atmosphere at that time that may have affected ice conditions. In those low-ice years, more clouds and water vapor were present in the atmosphere during the spring. This enhanced the greenhouse effect, making it warmer and contributing to more ice melting.

Tobias (who is from Germany and lives in Norway) talked about the atmospheric boundary layer, which is the lowest part of the atmosphere dominated by surface effects. For example, on a clear winter night you’ll feel cold (well, maybe not in Miami). This cooling is stronger because only the boundary layer is being cooled (not the entire atmosphere). Think about sleeping under a blanket – it’s easy to warm the air under the blanket, but much harder to heat the entire room with your body. Same idea.

For me, one of the great things that came out of the lectures so far is that a student scientist approached me afterward and said, “is it ok if I write a blog on not just communicating science to the public, but also communicating science to colleagues from other disciplines, who may know the big picture, but still don’t know your specific topic?” This made my day.

I have unraveled the mystery of the seemingly random baby pool sitting on the helideck of the ship in the Arctic! Of course it’s not random. Everything is here for a purpose. In the case of the baby pool, when you bring seawater samples onto the boat to study the growth of microscopic life forms, you need to recreate the conditions in which they live. So you keep them in a “bath” of seawater, which is the same temperature as the ocean, while you study how they live and grow in certain light conditions. So, for those of you in Miami (or any of you who spends a lot time outside), which conditions do you want to control when you’re out in the Sun? You want shade (in other words, you want to control the intensity of the light), and you want sunscreen and sunglasses with ultraviolet (UV) light protection. Two scientists here, Janghan and Howon, are doing the same for the phytoplankton. They take the bottles with water samples in them and put some in quartz bottles (which allow UV light through), and some in polycarbonate plastic bottles (which do not allow UV light through). Then they cover the bottles with screens to darken the inside of the bottle (to simulate the amount of sunlight that reaches the depth where the phytoplankton normally live).Here’s where the baby pool comes in. They put the bottles into the pool, which has water at the same temperature as the ocean. And there you have it: a perfect little phytoplankton habitat in a baby pool, to watch them grow.

It was my turn to entertain the people with a lecture on the basics of satellite remote sensing. Since our students have very different backgrounds, I explained everything very carefully. We started with a short survey just to make people think about the topic. The funniest question was probably one about the animal that had been first launched into the space. We started the lecture with a discussion on why it is possible to investigate the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere remotely. The main reason is that all bodies have a temperature above absolute zero (which is the “absolute” coldest temperature possible), so the molecules in them move and emit electromagnetic waves. Additionally, bodies can also absorb and reflect those waves. Then we discussed “active sensors,” which can emit this radiation and receive it, and “passive sensors,” which only receive and measure the radiation emitted by other bodies. It is of importance also that some sensors get images instantly (just like a digital camera), while others get images pixel by pixel (just like scanners in offices).

 A funny thing happened when we were discussing satellite orbits. Florence proposed to build a model of a satellite moving along a sun-synchronous orbit. Satellites on these orbits always see each piece of the Earth’s surface at the same time of day. She needed two assistants to make the model. Thus our Summer School Director Vladimir became the Earth, while Ioana became a satellite. Soon came the idea that sunlight was also needed, so Florence got a flashlight to simulate it. Then in a similar way we also approximated a satellite moving along a geostationary orbit. On these orbits, satellites always see the same part of the Earth’s surface. It was a great fun to observe these simulations and the audience was laughing and enjoying it. Due to this funny demonstration we realized how complicated the movement of satellites and other bodies in the Solar system are.

 – Svetlana Karimova

I don’t think the general population has a real image of what goes into weather and climate forecasting. Vladimir Alexeev, Director of this NABOS Summer School aboard the expedition, has challenged students with a WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) project. This does not mean predicting that the Arctic will be “cold today, cold tomorrow.” Students are doing extensive programming and modeling to attempt to simulate the 2012 Arctic cyclone event. They will take variables that influence sea ice conditions, like temperature and wind, and use a numerical weather prediction model to better understand processes in Arctic systems. And even though “forecasting” is in the title, these models are not just there for predictions. The idea is to study processes where we don’t have the direct firsthand observations – we can’t have a weather station every few feet, especially in the Arctic! So we need models and computers to fill in the gaps between the places we can actually study firsthand. This is a hard-core data project, and right now the students are just learning – and they know way more than me. So as they figure it out, I’m hoping one of them (maybe Eric, Sveta, Vladimir, Tobias, or Ioana, in the photo) can tell you more soon about what is going on in that colorful photo below! But one thing I do know is that modeling is the best way to figure out all those tiny details. Because here’s the equation I can tell you for certain: limited money + limited time + endless ocean = nearly impossible to do it otherwise.

Let me start this post by saying that I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here in this remote part of Earth – especially being part of an effort to better understand it. But in the interest of giving everyone an idea of what it’s like to live on a ship in the Arctic, here is a big observation. Sleep is a luxury! First, I’m sure you know that the Sun is up for a longer time during the summer than the winter. But this is taken to extremes when you’re near the north or south pole. We’re in the middle of summer here in the Arctic, so it is daylight ALL the time – which can make it hard to sleep. Second, we are on a ship, crunching, cracking, and scraping our way through sea ice (which is SO COOL). But imagine trying to sleep and having your bedroom window/porthole and a ship’s hull be the only things between you and the noise of this piece of ice breaking apart. (In the photo you can see the railing on the ship’s deck for scale.) Another funny thing – imagine being in your bedroom and having a voice speaking in another language suddenly come on over a speaker. You can’t understand it (at least I can’t), but you just go about your own business as if it’s none of yours (you hope it’s none of your business anyway). Add all of that to the INCREDIBLE array of scientific operations and summer school activities onboard to watch, participate in, and learn about (not to mention all of the stories that I am so excited to write to all of you), and you have a recipe for lots of waking hours!

In the middle of attending summer school lectures, being “on watches” at all hours to observe clouds and ice, working on projects, deploying instruments and doing experiments around the clock whenever the ship reaches its decided-upon “station,” everyone tries to have a little fun, get a little exercise… and get their laundry done. Rule #1: Be creative, in all cases. If you want to play a game, you can use dice that someone brought, grab a cup and a piece of paper, and make your own Yahtzee game (like Eric, Marie, Antoine, Ioana, and me). If you want to relax, there’s a sauna that has times allocated for men and women. If you want to work out, you can go to the gym, which has one stationary spinning bicycle, a ping-pong table, and what looks like a ladder bolted to the wall, for you to grab onto a rung and do leg lifts and ab crunches (there are times allocated for the gym too, for crew and expedition members). Here’s me doing the obvious first choice at the gym, with Kseniya (FYI, this is more difficult on a swaying ship). Or you can go to the impromptu cardio or yoga session that some have started onboard in a meeting room. Of course, exercising adds to the laundry needs. When there are only 2 washers (and no dryer) onboard for over 60 expedition members, that can be a challenge, especially when one washer is in the science lab (which you don’t want to disturb too much), and the other is temperamental and periodically not working (as Antoine, Ioana, and Alena are discovering here). How many scientists does it take to make a washing machine work? It varies day by day.