Lindsay in the Arctic

This ship can crack through sea ice several feet thick, and keep on going. Think about that. It’s still amazing to me. But there are still times when the ice gets to be too much and we have to go to Plan B – which recently happened. We had to change our track slightly a day or two ago because there was too much ice concentration in the planned route, after finishing one of our transects. (A transect is a series of stations which follow a line from shallow water (hundreds of meters) to deep water (thousands of meters), where we stop to deploy instruments. Have a look at the map on the “Expedition Route” page of the blog website to see where we are now, at 81°N latitude and 138°E longitude.) We were not able to head east through the ice to the next planned transect, so we had to head south again to relatively clearer waters, to then start north again on our next transect. So, the water has become temporarily, and relatively, ice-free, but we’re heading back into it again! That is one option when we are heading into lots of ice. The other way around it, which has also already happened a couple times on the ship, is wiggling and even backpedaling the ship when we got to a point where the ice became too thick too continue forward. Having multiple options is always good when you’re in the middle of a frozen ocean.

Here’s a peek into a complicated-looking little nook of the engine room that helps get us through the ice.

Hi everyone! Happy (belated) first day of autumn! My name is Alena Malyarenko and I’m from Moscow. I wanted to go on this adventure because I was desperate to listen to people with different backgrounds, and I haven’t been disappointed. We have in this Summer School the most diverse group I’ve ever been a part of. We have people who studied theoretical Math and Physics, some of whom have gone into environmental fields later. There are people who studied Geophysics and then went into Meteorology or Oceanography. There are also biologists and people who create physical models from scratch. And here I am: I studied Oceanography from a geographical point of view, without using as much Math and Physics as others. So it’s safe to say that we all have different point of view on every topic. 😉

 After I gave my presentation about water masses from a global scale point of view, we had a very heated conversation about using math to go for precise results. The main idea of my presentation was that sometimes you don’t have to use so much math, statistics, or great models that describe every process to learn something about the ocean. You can just look at observations and results, and create a hypothesis about ocean processes. And if you have good experience in the field, your hypothesis will probably be true.

 And this idea can be spread to every area of science. In recent times, our definition of “better” has come to mean “smaller, and more numbers after the period,” instead of meaning “closer to reality.” For example, we look at brain cells, and try to find out how small parts of our bodies work. Some of us actually try to find out how water molecules interact with each other. But sometimes, in all this rush, I fell like scientists can forget about the big picture. There are like a bazillion different molecules in the world’s oceans. Not only do we not have powerful enough computers to calculate all of that, but more importantly, we don’t necessarily need it. There has to be a line drawn of sensible decisions about where to stop. Think about how oceanographers worked in the 1970s. They had a little bit of data about the ocean, but there weren’t very powerful computers for them to use, so they used their imaginations, and created some awesome techniques for analysis of ocean processes. And now we just forget about them in the rush of racing for precision. I think that it would be nice to try to combine the old methods with the new data we can get from modern instruments.

 Personal PS:  Happy Birthday to my first cousin once removed – Arseniy!!! He is 1 year old today!!! Love you!!!

And my dearest family, please answer my emails!

 NOTE TO EVERY FAMILY / FRIEND WHO DIDN’T GET AN EMAIL Check your spam folders, please!!! The address we use ends in  @rambler.ru ! We are all waiting here for your answers!

 – Alena Malyarenko

Take a guess: into what category do these words fall? Frazil… Shuga… Pancake… Nilas… Brash… Bergy Bit… Hummock…

Breakfast foods? Plants? Muppets? These are actually categories of sea ice. A researcher onboard, Alice Orlich from the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University Alaska Fairbanks, has spent the last 6 summers conducting sea ice observations in the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean.  This season, she is instructing IARC Summer School students to observe the sea ice conditions along the NABOS cruise track. Visual shipborne sea ice observations are made from the “bridge” (where the Captain and crew drive the ship) which has the highest view of the ocean and ice cover from the ship – plus there is access to navigation information like latitude, longitude, wind speed, and ship speed. (Working on the bridge also takes some “navigating” of ship protocols – in other words, don’t get in the way of the captain, officers and crew.) Panorama photos are taken for each hourly observation to capture the ice conditions around the front of the ship, and more are taken to focus in on some features to document what’s really going on in the ice. And there can be a LOT of things going on – the World Meteorological Organization has defined 120 terms (!) in 11 categories to describe sea ice and its relation to the atmosphere and navigational issues , based on its formation, scale, age, thickness, etc. What are some of the things we have seen so far?

Nilas (thin ice, about 10 cm thick, that has formed within the current ice growth season) with “frost flowers” (the tiny white dots) forming on it. For scale, the biggest cracked piece of ice here is about 6 feet (2 meters) across.

This first year ice floe survived the recent melt season and has refrozen. This “amoeba” (not an official term, but it looks like it anyway), is about 5 feet long (less than 2 meters). It is slightly raised from the ice surrounding it (that dark color is thin, refrozen ice – not water), and the white areas are dryer ice where the water has drained from it.

This 4 foot (less than 1.5meters) thick ice was just cracked by the ship. It is first-year ice that formed at the beginning of last year’s growth season (late summer/early fall 2012), but since we are coming around to that time of year again, this would also now be known as second-year or multi-year ice. The white layer is the top, and in the bottom layer, you can see sediments that were in the ice as it formed. The blue layer is the clearest, most compressed layer.

Trick question – where is the open water in this picture? (This will be good to know if you’re ever stuck in Arctic ice.) You can tell by the “water-sky” effect. See where there is a dark layer of clouds in the distance? Those are actually areas where not as much light is being reflected back up to the clouds. So the answer to the question is: Below the water-sky.

Hi, everyone! I’m Anna, one of the summer school students.

I have spent a lot of time in the Arctic, but always onshore. I collected samples in bogs and swamps near the Barents Sea, watching and envying those who study marine organisms. And now I’m here. A bog changes over time, but these changes are traceable. Here I feel a little bit lost: everything around me moves – water, ice, and clouds – and there are no reference points I can rely on.

 Onboard I help in the hydrochemistry laboratory measuring silica content in the water, which is brought up by the rosette (it’s a big frame with some sensors and 24 bathometer tubes, which an operator closes at different depths to sample water as the instrument is coming up through different depths). It helps to understand the vertical and spatial distribution of diatoms (part of phytoplankton), the most important primary producers in the ocean (they produce oxygen and are a food source for other things). You can see on the picture a long row of bottles waiting to be analyzed. All those bottles are from only one station! (A station is a location where the ship stops to do measurements.) And there are a lot of stations… and a lot of work. But right now we are going to the next location and there will be no stations for two days. It seems I can finally finish the skirt I am knitting.

 I am participating in the cruise to learn more about relationships between diatoms and sea ice. I hope I will reach that goal by processing and combining the information from the lab and visual observations.

 I always knew that diatoms live at the bottom of sea ice. But it was a revelation for me when I saw yellowish spots at the surface of the ice (which you can maybe see in the photo). Can it be diatoms too? Unfortunately, I couldn’t have a closer look yet and have to live with doubts for now…

 – Anna Nesterovich

                Photos from Anna Nesterovich

 

We have just completed our first ON THE ICE operation! Only the necessary few technicians actually went out on the ice to put our first “ice-tethered profiler” of the expedition through the ice and down into the water. One of the scientists will be telling you more about that tomorrow’s post, so stay tuned for details, but it was so exciting that I took Willy the Box Turtle from Miami out to see the action from the ship’s deck. It was a first for both of us! I still can’t believe that the view off the ship’s deck is OCEAN. It’s still so unreal to me. And very different from ocean views in Miami!

Learning teaching is also a learning process. If you are a young scientist, many things that the “old guys” do on a regular basis are a first for you. This time was a first not to talk directly about my own work but to stand in front of a very diverse group of people and try to teach them about a complicated topic in a short time.

 My experience is that learning how things are derived is the only way to truly understand the topic to a satisfying level. This however, takes a lot of time, and oftentimes you just want to give a quick overview. In this case, it is important to stick to the big picture and not to get lost in every single detail. This might leave some inaccuracies, and since you know the topic you might be bothered about those inaccuracies, but no one else will feel that way. They are maybe even new to the topic and are happy when they understand the bigger picture. The idea is to create interest, and not confusion by overwhelming them.

 Another thing is, things that are clear to you might not be as clear to others. Different branches in science have different languages. I have felt that already a few times while on this ship, and discovered that it is important to react to that.

 What unites these two ideas is that clarity is crucial.

 -Tobias Wolf

We started a Russian language class onboard the ship, and so far, it has provided some of the biggest laughs and scary moments of the cruise. Svetlana, a scientist onboard who is “half student/half instructor” of the Summer School, volunteered to lead the class. She is a good instructor, but tough. So you have to listen and behave (hence the periodic bursts of laughter, as grown scientists try to behave and get the right answer). I’m excited that after a couple days, I can recognize the letters and what sounds they are supposed to make, so when I see signs around the ship, I can at least sound out the words (this does not mean I can necessarily pronounce the words however). Want to try it?

Here are some familiar (and not so familiar) letters, and some examples of words that start with that sound:

A a (Anna)

E e (Elena)

К к (Katya)

М м (Masha)

Н н (Neck)

О о (Olga)

С с (Steve)

Т т (Tobias)

Р р (Robert) – make sure to rrrrrrroll your “r”

Г г (Gift)

Д д (Delta)

Л л (Lamb)

П п (Pie)

У у (Ooze)

Ф ф (Phillip)

Х х (Help)

Ы (at the end of a word, adds an “ee” sound)

Now try this Russian tongue twister:

Карл  у  Клары  украл  кораллы,  а  Клара  у  Карла  украла  кларнет.

 

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.”