Sometimes people refer to “scientists” as if it has one definition. One of my favorite things about this cruise, and a message that I hope you have gotten by reading this blog, is that all of these scientists are so different from each other. “Unique” is one of my favorite words in the world, and I love that I can say that this cruise is full of people with unique research interests, unique personalities, and unique ways of looking at the world. So here are a few more unique presentations from our Summer School students!
Mathieu (who is from France, and lives in the US) brought more biology to the expedition, and talked about organisms called foraminifera, or foram. Benthic forams live on the seabed and have a good life, their main activities being eating, breathing, and reproducing. They don’t do photosynthesis like some of the planktonic forams that live near the surface and use the sun’s energy. They just need oxygen and organic carbon as a source of food, so if there are a lot of benthic forams, there will be less organic carbon in the sediment. This becomes important when you realize that the carbon in the sediment is connected to the amount of carbon in the ocean, which in turn is linked to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. So despite being microscopic, they can still have an effect on the entire carbon cycle.
jake (from the US) is the resident mathematician of the group, and talked about something called data assimilation. Here’s what that means. In any system (the ocean for example), you start with initial observations. Then you make a model to analyze or predict how the ocean system will evolve. But when the initial observations aren’t enough to create a clear initial picture, you can “assimilate more data” into your model, to improve its accuracy. So, models give a sense of what is happening in a system (like the ocean), data tells you what’s going on in the details, and data assimilation helps you make it better.
What is the average size of iceberg
Hi Kelvin, icebergs can range in size by a LOT. Even small chucks of ice the size of suitcases are technically icebergs, but they can get huge, many many many feet above sea level, like buildings, and even many many many more feet below sea level!
Hello!
My 4th grade technology class from Amherst Elementary in the Jackson School District (OHIO) would like to know what types of animals have you seen? Is it hard for your ship to move through all of the ice? Do you live on the ship during your whole stay in the Arctic? Any fun facts you have found out about the Arctic that you would like to share? Hope you are enjoying your trip!
Miss Mann’s 4th graders!
Hello Miss Mann and all your students! I’m so excited to hear from a school in Ohio – my home state! Everyone will love to hear what animals we have seen – we have seen walruses, seals, several types of birds, like skuas, a few fish, crab, and even…. polar bears! Everyone was so excited especially for the polar bears. Of course everyone didn’t see all of those animals, because you have to be lucky enough to be outside and looking around at the right time. I was lucky enough to see most of the animals I listed above at least once, including polar bears. Since they are white, and the ice is white, they can be hard to see since they are usually pretty far away. But the 2 that I saw one day seemed curious about the big red noisy thing (our ship) going through their land! The ship was designed to handle ice up to 6 feet thick, so we can make our way through most of the ice (remember this is even summer). Isn’t that amazing though? When we’re going through thick ice, it feels like “bumps in the road” and it also sounds like a cross between a huge thunderstorm and a construction zone – and sometimes you have to try to sleep through that! But sometimes, we get to ice even thicker than that, and in that case we have to “wiggle” out of it and find another route to where we want to do our experiments. We stay on the ship the entire time, yes. There a few experienced and lucky scientists and technicians that leave the ship and go out and walk on the ice (which is so cool) to set up buoys and other instruments that will measure things like air and water temperature, ice thickness, air pressure, and more (different instruments do different measurements). They actually gave everyone the chance to go out on the ice one day to learn how to take measurements of the ice – we drilled small holes in the ice along a straight line, and measured the thickness of the ice. It was AMAZING to walk on the ocean! And we even got lowered onto the ice by a crane! But other than that, I’ll be on the ship for 5 weeks straight. Fun facts – there are so many. Here is a cool one, especially since you’re all in a technology class, but we have a huge apparatus on the ship that deploys things called moorings – we drop an anchor down the bottom of the ocean (in some cases that’s more than 2.5miles deep) on a cable, and then string scientific instruments on the cable, between the bottom and nearly the surface, and then leave it there to take measurements until we come back to get it next time! I hope you are enjoying the blog, because I am enjoying sharing all the amazing stories, and I hope you continue to follow along!
What is the difference between rubble ice and pressure ridges?
Hi Denyse, your question made the ice researcher onboard happy to hear it! Rubble ice occurs in a few situations (for example, when two ice floes scrape or bump against each other, or when a single ice floe breaks apart), and the “rubble” is basically busted up pieces of ice. Pressure ridges occur when two ice floes converge and in the process, a ridge forms where they meet, and is pushed up by the force of the two floes moving together. This ridge is also known as a “hummock” or “sail” because it can catch the wind, which makes the ice more mobile in the water. There is also the same ridge effect that happens under the ice as well, when two ice floes come together. This is called a “keel” (or a “bummock” because it’s the “backside” of the hummock). Lol!
Is the Arctic environment changing?
Hi Denyse, yes, absolutely it is changing. The clearest way to tell is from direct observations from ships like us, and from satellite imagery. What all of that tells us is that the Arctic sea ice is decreasing almost every year (2012 was a record low, so we’ll see what the minimum for 2013 ends up to be), because of warming temperatures. It’s a little scary when you see the images. If you go to the “Learn Animate Experiment” page of the blog and click on animate, I think the first animation will show you how sea ice has changed over the last couple decades.
Hello, my name is Emily Morales and I attend Law Enforcement Officers Memorial High School and my question for you would be what would you say has been your greatest discovery yet?
Hi Emily, tough question! I think one of the coolest things I have seen firsthand on this ship is that the Earth is a system that no one scientist has all the answers for – one person knows the ocean, someone else the atmosphere, someone else the ice, and someone else knows how to write computer programs to put all the data together to see how all those things work together. I think that is awesome. (I have also discovered that seeing a polar bear in its own world is one of the coolest things ever too.)