Join the Polar research team as we use technology to join Dr. Carin Ashjian this summer as she continues her research in the Arctic! I will be posting Dr. Ashjians journal details of this summer's research expeditions. We first catch up with her onboard the icebreaker U.S.C.G.C. Healy and then will follow her onboard the R/V Anika Marie where she and her team members will continue their Barrow-based research studying the oceanographic conditions of the bowhead whale habitat.
Journal Entry
Ice over the Hanna Shoal. August 2013. Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.
We are now working our stations here on Hanna Shoal. As we sailed to the north across the western portion of the Shoal, we came into sea ice. Small fragments at first, with a lot of space in between the floes. The further north and west that we went, the more closely packed the floes became and the slower we could move. The first hit on a floe is always exciting to me. When and where else does one purposefully drive into a hard object than on an icebreaker? I love moving through and breaking ice, the bumps and scrapes as the ice hits and rubs past the hull, the shuddering as ice is milled in the props, the sudden lurching of the ship as an ice floe tips her to port or to starboard.
Ice brings calmer seas and a plethora of ice dependent wildlife, from the microscopic to megafauna such as marine mammals. Earlier I wrote about the gray whale garden. Today we sailed through a walrus bathtub. All around our track we could see walrus, wallowing and splashing in the sea and hauled out placidly (until we came along) in massive, dark piles on the sea ice. We have also seen many seals, some on the ice, some in the water, and some that just cannot make up their minds as to if they should stay on their ice floe or undulate over to the edge and slither off when they see us coming. I watched a seal today that was undecided about what to do, and looked at us, bobbing its head, up and down, left and right, up and down, should I stay? Should I go? Panic! In the end, the seal did not leave its ice floe and we passed by. Today we saw polar bears, including a mother and yearling pair on a nearby ice floe. Behind the ship, gulls and kittiwakes dive to retrieve prey exposed as the ship overturns ice floes. Some succeed but some are robbed of their prize by a hoard of parasitic jaegers.
We’ve done a number of tows with our nets, collecting copepods and other plankton. We’ve had some adventures with the nets. Early this morning, in 9/10 ice cover, the ice suddenly closed around the stern while the net was in the water. After some vigorous pushing of ice floes with the ice poles, the net finally was freed and recovered.
Net Recovery! (left to right) Hangzhou, Heather, Jeremy, and Phil bringing the Bongo net back on board after its close encounter with an ice floe. Note the dense ice floes in the background. Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.
This evening, one of the nets on the Bongo frame became detached from the frame so that when the Bongo came up, we saw only one net. There was a brief moment of panic until we saw the second net, still secured to the bottom cross-weight of the bongo. We carefully brought the Bongo up until we could grab the errant net and bring it safely on board. Despite some unwelcome moments, we are collecting good samples. For some stations, we examine the plankton using microscopes to select animals for genetic and metabolic condition analysis.
Picking Pods! Phil and Heather in the lab picking copepods from one of our samples. Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.
This evening we sailed to the southwest, out of the heaviest of the sea ice. As I write, the CTD is in the water and the nets are being readied to fish again. The evening is cold, with a steady drizzle. Luckily, our Mustang suits will keep us dry (mostly).
Trackline: Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.
*PolarTREC Journal written by research scientist Dr. Carin Ashjian. Journal and photos posted by Springs School PolarTREC Educator Lisa Seff.