Hull Glacier-2 and the Getz Ice Sheet
What is inside the plane is just as amazing as what is outside the plane. The phrase NASA uses is “the most sophisticated suite of instruments ever assembled”. The scientists and engineers working onboard are just as impressive as the landscape and instruments themselves. What most people don’t realize about this kind of work, is that the scientists are all working on different projects that are interrelated, and are onboard because of the access to the ice through Operation IceBridge flights. Not surprisingly, the “teams” tend to stick together socially as well, as they come from the same home institutions, such as Lamont Doherty, University of Kansas, University of Colorado, and University of Maryland. The cross over and gap-filling that each instrument does for the others is really interesting.
Scientists sit with their instruments throughout the long flights.
Sea Ice Discussion
Newly arrived and on board today is NASA’s Alec Petty. He is a Post Doctorate fellow at the University of Maryland, studying sea ice to learn how the texture of the ice, including roughness, ridges and keels, influences ice floe thickness and movement. His work focused on the Arctic gyre and sea ice thickness in both polar regions.
The Arctic Ocean gyre circulates the water in the northern polar region. It is quite different around Antarctica.
Old ice used to be the thickest, as new snow accumulated on top of old, the mass increases each year. Now, the older sea ice is the thinnest. He is curious to see whether that is true in Antarctica as well, but cautions that the complexity is much higher here than in the north. This may be caused by ice floe flooding as the floes become heavy with snow, which might cause them to become low and tippy, and covered in sea water. Modeling what may be happening is made extremely difficult by the possible complexities.
The complexities of sea ice are fascinating.
The Hull Glacier is interrupted by mountains, making for an exciting low altitude flight
Curious about changes to ice floe salinity over time, we discussed how the salt in freshly made ice (one year ice) contains about 10 ppt of salt to water, and as time passes, the salt drains down through the ice through gravity and percolation of melt water. After 2-3 years, the ice contains as little as 2-3 ppt salt.
Preflight Preparation
The pilots, scientists, and instrument teams all have work to do before the flight. Checking the weather is top priority because it will determine which campaign we choose for the day. Reading weather imagery is done by the pilots, navigator, engineer, and project scientists, as well as airport personnel. Understanding how to forecast weather is a central skill to this mission, as the instruments need clear skies to collect data. Flying 4 hours to a cloud target site would be a huge waste of resources, so choosing the correct location for work is their first order of business. A pre-flight briefing is held at 0900 hours to confirm flight manifest, weather conditions, length of flight, fuel load, etc. Then we board the aircraft and get set up. For the scientists, they will go through their instrument calibration after electrical transfer is made from the ground to the plane.
Trevor Traynor assists Dr. David Gallaher start the Mini-Rad
Wildlife - Lookout Below!
The OIB team works really hard NOT to see wildlife. Sorry if that is disappointing! The Antarctic Treaty ensured that scientific endeavors on or above Antarctica would not disturb the wildlife, and NASA does a remarkable job upholding that expectation. When an area has been mapped as significant, the flight plans need to go at least 1 km away from them – OIB makes sure to go at least 2km away.
The pink locations are colonies that we avoid. Flight plans can be altered because of penguins, seals, and birds.
A peek at the hidden topography of the bedrock below the ice.
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