Category: Uncategorized

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

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!