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!
is it possible that the little sheet of ice you are passing throw can expand in the different climates or will it just stay the same
Hi Jonathan, good question, sheets of ice will definitely change over time – there is even something called the “ice growth” season (which is when summer turns to winter), and an “ice melt” season (as winter turns to summer). So annually the ice changes in size, thickness, and location (due to winds and currents). But the full extent of sea ice over the entire Arctic has been for the most part decreasing over the last few decades (since we have been watching with satellites), which is an indication of a warming overall climate.
Hi Lindsay! I was wondering how thick does the ice have to be for the ship to be able to pass/ cut through it? Also, in case of an accident how many life saver boats does the ship have?
Hi Yanelis, the ship can break through ice up to 6 feet thick (which is amazing to me). If it gets thicker than that, we have to back up or wiggle our way out. There is enough room for all of us on here on 4 hard motorized lifeboats, then more life rafts onboard as needed, and we went over the procedures for what to do in an accident. But let’s assume we won’t need them. 🙂