Hello everyone!
I’m inspired to tell you about what NABOS summer school has given to me. It is a good place for exchanging knowledge with each other. This is a place where everyone is a student and a teacher at the same time. How does it work?
Students do not only listen to lectures. Every student chooses a project in which they are most interested, and begin to work in a team. Our team is researching the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL). We study clouds’ classification and then we analyze all the available data: meteorological temperature profiles of the atmosphere from the MTP-5 instrument, as well as weather profile data from balloons called radiosondes, and then we compare them with each other. Several interesting phenomena, such as temperature inversions, exist in the Arctic PBL. An inversion is when the temperature increases with height (the opposite of what we would normally expect), and we study what causes this phenomenon. Every day we investigate the latest issues that scientists in oceanographic and atmospheric physics are facing. It could be issues such as how to model different phenomena, how to take into account all the conditions that affect global process like decreasing sea ice levels, what causes changes in the Arctic… and, who knows? Probably one of these issues will be solved by one of us, or you…
This is a picture of our PBL team. It was a fantastic 30 minutes on the real Arctic ice! We saw how measurements are taken of ice thickness, and then did it ourselves!
With love from the most wonderful, unique Arctic!
– Ekaterina Perminova, sixth-year student of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology State University
how long have you all been together on the expedition
Dear Kaderrus, we have been on the ship for over 3 weeks, and we have almost 2 weeks to go. And most of us only stepped off the ship one time – and that was to go stand on the sea ice and take ice measurements!
Hi Lindsay i just wanted to say that i noticed you are using alot of technology! All sorts of kinds. must be cool and confusing to use them. haha
Hi Helene, you said it! The technology is so cool (it still amazes me that we can get 2.5 miles down with scientific instruments on a cable), and there is so much to learn about the technology, the experiments the scientists are doing, what it all means for the climate, etc. It’s not so much confusing, but it’s definitely overwhelming!
Hello Lindsay! You can call me Kiki if you like. I’m a student at Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial High school here in downtown Miami and I find what you’re doing INCREDIBLE! You’re so lucky! Anyway I have a couple questions, one is if you ever stop the ship to measure the depth of the ocean under you or to collect microorganisms at the very bottom of the blue. Second question is if you have collected organisms what type of tests have you ran on them?
Thank you! Cant wait to learn more!
Hey Kiki, thanks so much!!!! I’m so happy you’re enjoying the blog! I agree, I think anyone who has the chance to come here is very lucky – I can tell you that it’s a lot of hard work, but worth it! to your questions, you hit the nail on the head, one of the most common, yet amazing, operations on the ship is something called a CTD cast, when we lower instruments all the way to the bottom of the ocean. How deep that is depends where you are – it can range from several hundred feet deep, to over 2.5 miles deep. Using the instruments on the CTD rosette we can measure (here comes the acronym) the Conductivity (or salt content), Temperature, and Depth (or pressure) of the water between the surface and the bottom. We can also take samples of water from all those levels, and some of the scientists are studying microscopic phytoplankton in the water, which are the base of the marine food chain. They put them in little tanks of ocean water on the ship, with screens over them to imitate the amount of light they get underwater, and watch their growth!
what is the age range of the students that are on the artic trip with you?
Hi Heaven, the students are graduate students, so they have already graduated college and almost all of them are working on their PhD degrees. I think most are somewhere in their 20s, and maybe a couple in their early 30s.
Is wintertime Antarctic sea ice increasing or decreasing?
Dear Denyse, in winter, ice increases from summer levels because the temperature decreases in winter. But over time, the annual extent of ice year to year has been decreasing, as seen by satellites over the last few decades.
Do icebreakers contribute to climate change?
Hi Denyse, no, not at all. Ships are incredibly small, and the ocean is incredibly huge. Also, one of the ways we understand Arctic conditions is by observing. It was also interesting to me to see that when we were breaking through the ice, if you went to the back of the ship, you could actually see the ice closing back in to the way it was!
when you went to the artic did the climate change effect your body in a major way?
Hi Heaven, I have always liked the cold weather, so I did not have to adjust much! 🙂
What’s the difference between an ice-strengthened hull and an icebreaker hull?
Dear Denyse, there is a difference in the shape. The icebreaker hull is shaped such that it can ride easier over the ice and break really thick ice under the weight of the ship. It also needs extra engine/horsepower to do that!
What is the weather like now?
Hi Denyse, well I am in Miami now, so it’s pretty hot. 🙂 But in the Arctic, where we were, it’s probably about the same as it was last week, just below freezing.