I have a great story this year for my birthday. I started it out at 78°N latitude and 125°E longitude, not only on a research vessel in the Arctic, but also signed up to assist scientist Kensuke Komatsu with a radiosonde balloon launch (a radiosonde is a scientific weather balloon that takes measurements of the atmosphere is it rises). Kensuke fills it with helium, and then attaches an instrument box to the string which measures atmospheric pressure, height, humidity, wind, and has GPS to monitor its position. The sound of a balloon being inflated to that size right by your head is a little disconcerting, but I was mainly terrified of letting it go too early. I was glad that Eric, a student in the Summer School, was there as another of Kensuke’s launch assistants. A couple people were also up to celebrate with me at 1:30am ship time (the balloons are released every 6 hours, day and night), and we even wrote “Happy Birthday Lindsay” on the balloon. (I also added the initials “AB” to the balloon, which are my brother Anthony’s initials.) Signing a weather balloon and releasing it into the Arctic atmosphere? Then later in the afternoon, seeing this view? Then a card with birthday wishes in multiple languages? Not a bad birthday.
And, not only was it my birthday today, but yesterday we celebrated two other recent birthdays, Sasha Chernokulsky as well as Kensuke! The students (including me and Eric) in the Russian class onboard – aka the “NABOS Summer School Choir: Children of the Akademik Fedorov” – learned a Russian birthday song to sing as a surprise at dinner. All I can say about that is we did our best. Sasha and Kensuke also got homemade cards signed by everyone, and we all had some yummy cake. We just may get to have some again later today…
Well, Happy Birthday Lindsay! I hope you have a good one (: My question for you is, would you say that you’re also interested in atmospheric pressure?
Dear Marangelie, thanks for the birthday wishes! Absolutely, pressure is one of the most common and useful measurements to take, not only of the atmosphere, but underwater as well. I think it’s awesome that you can combine a few measurements like temperature, pressure, humidity, and location, and get an idea of what the weather is doing!
Dear Lindsey! Best regards, health and harmony!
Hi Ludus, thank you!
Once The Ice Is Broken Up Does It Melt Faster ?
Hi Twanisha, it’s interesting, if you stand at the back of the ship (where you can normally see the ship’s wake in the water) when you’re going through ice, you can actually see the ice sometimes already merge back together again before you get too far away! But in any case, the ship is so small compared to the size of the ocean, that breaking the tiny bit of ice for the ship to make it through does not hurt the ocean or the ice conditions.
So happy you had such an awesome birthday and you included AB
Hey Mom, it was a great, memorable birthday, and I hope Tony got the message. I’m sure he did.
Dear Linsday:
Have you guys noticed a big deterioration on the amount of ice that used to be in the arctic because of the effect that the heat is having upon the planet.
Hi Ernesto, on the ship, we have seen lots of ice. But if you look at satellite data for the last few decades, it shows that the amount of sea ice has for the most part decreased yearly. So the changes in climate have had effects in the Arctic certainly.