The more I learn about this ship, the more I am in awe of it and anyone who knows how to operate it, and deal with ice conditions. Every morning there is a briefing meeting with the Captain, the expedition’s Chief Scientists, the Director of the NABOS Summer School, and a couple lead scientists. I have been invited to join the meeting, which starts out with sharing the weather forecast – here, weather doesn’t just mean air temperature and wind, it also means ocean temperature and sea ice conditions. Based on anticipated ice conditions in our path for the day, they decide the best route to take to navigate through that ice, and estimate how long it will take us to get to our planned “stations” to deploy instruments, take samples, and make observations (thicker ice = slower ship). Yesterday they discussed an operation for the day that would take some extra tactical planning. Throughout this cruise, we have been deploying moorings. (For any new readers, a mooring is a series of scientific monitoring instruments dropped into the ocean on a cable, that reaches between an anchor on the sea floor and (nearly) the surface). But they were talking now about retrieving a mooring that was put in place a few years ago. The goal was to get a signal from the mooring, then retrieve it by “trailing,” meaning the ship would drop a cable near the mooring’s position, and “trail” it through the water until it was “hooked.” But the ice that many people are here to study is changing the plans. We are not able to get through the ice to that mooring, so the route is being updated to get to the next series of stations. Stay tuned!
Is there a barometer available in the ship to measure the atmospheric pressure or did the scientists have to bring their own along?
Dear Amanda, the ship has weather instruments onboard, which include a temperature with radiation shield, a barometer for air pressure, an anemometer (and 3D anemometer) to measure wind speed and direction, and more. Some of the instruments that scientists put out on the ice or in the water also measure water pressure at different depths as well (as you might imagine), the deeper you go, the higher pressure there is!
Hey Lindsay, how does the ship break through the ice? Does it have a special front end on the hull that alows it to just plow through ice?
Hi Juan, yes the ship is designed especially for breaking through ice. It has a reinforced hull which also has a different shaped keel, and it has more engine power. It’s amazing to think not only how strong the ship has to be to break the ice, but also, how strong the ice must be that it needs a ship that strong to break it!