It’s been weeks since
I’ve written a post, and I thought it’d be nice to write this one
once we got internet back so I don’t have to limit the quality or
quantity of photos included. Speaking of which, I just updated the
photos from my last post, View from the top, to have higher
resolution, so be sure to revisit those.
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| Map in the galley that only goes as far north as 84°N. Our first station located south of 84°N on our southward journey was on September 19th, so I guess I’m a week late with this post, although, we did just get back on the internet map at 77.5°N (our current location). |
About three weeks ago on
September 5th, we arrived at 90°N, and to be honest, I
was a little disappointed. I had imagined that there would be
expansive sheets of sea ice, covered in thick layers of snow with a
giant candy cane marking the geographic North Pole, and Santa waiting
to greet us with mugs of hot cocoa. Surprisingly, when the GPS hit
90°N, we were presented with pools of open water (covered in thin
ice) and Santa was nowhere to be found.
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| Reaching the geographic North Pole on September 5th. Photo taken at 8:09 AM, only one minute before photo featured in View from the top. |
After two days of
sampling and thinking about where Santa might be, we realized that he
likely drifted away from the geographic pole with the snow-covered
ice. Sure enough, once we finished sampling, we navigated to the
largest ice floe near the pole and found Santa waiting for us there,
like we had hoped. Looking back, I realize that sea ice—whether at
the North Pole or further south—is constantly in motion due to the
influence of the wind and surface currents (like the Transpolar
Drift — see About the Arctic Ocean), possibly explaining why we found
less ice at the pole than we had expected.
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| Santa and me at the North Pole on September 7th, shortly after finishing my mug of hot cocoa. Photo taken by Katlin Bowman. |
Following our visit with
Santa, we began our southward journey along 150°W. After reaching
the 85°N Super Station over the Alpha Ridge (see About the Arctic Ocean and map below), it became very clear to us that we had
previously made the right decision by taking A turn in the left direction and doing the planned cruise track backwards. Much of
our southward journey consisted of backing and ramming our way
through thick ice floes (what the Healy was designed for),
while our northward journey was a smooth ride that bought us some
extra time to sample, however, provided less ice for ice sampling
stations. Since we went through so much thick ice on our way south,
we occupied four ice stations to total six for the cruise, while we
had intended to occupy a grand total of ten. A lot of factors
contributed to our total of only six ice stations, but it is clear
that our number of ice stations was limited simply by there being
less ice in the Arctic than there used to be. To learn more about the
2015’s fourth lowest ice extent on record, check out Arctic News.
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| Ice station at the North Pole. Ana can be seen dressed all in white where she and her team collected trace-element-clean ice cores and seawater. |
In addition to the thick
ice we went through on our way south, we also experienced a number of
bitter cold, whiteout snow days. These whiteout days coincided with
the mid-point, or “hump day” of the cruise, providing little
escape from the monotony of our sampling and analysis schedule.
Rather than keeping a calendar and counting down these monotonous
days, in the carbon van, we’ve been keeping a station map and
counting down the stations. Lately, it’s been pretty exciting every
time we leave a station, because not only do we get to add an “X”
to the map, but we also get to take a step back and look in awe at
the wonderful work we are accomplishing out here.
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| The Healy cutting a crack through the ice ahead, extending to (or near) the horizon during one of our whiteout days. Photo taken at 3:08 AM on September 9th. |
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| Photo of the station map we have taped up in the carbon van. We are currently at Full Station 14, which is the northernmost white triangle that has not been X’d out yet. |
Over
the last couple weeks, the seascapes have changed from white on white
to having some variety as we gradually made our way through thinner
and thinner ice, and into some better weather. We’ve finally made
it back to open water, and more importantly (for you and this
posting), we’ve finally made it back to our internet
connection.
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| The Healy nearing open water. Towards the horizon, a dark streak can be seen, which is a sign of open water or an open lead. This feature can also be seen reflected off the overlying clouds. The carbon van door is open as I say goodbye to Ryan before heading to the conference room towards the end of my shift. Photo taken at 7:53 AM on September 25th. |
Thanks for following —
it’s great to be back.
—AA
