P= 983 mb
Science time! It is time to write about the science happening around here. The weather has been great and the scientists and technicians have been busy in the boat. So much is happening here that it is hard for me to organize the journal. First let us contemplate the moon with an iceberg…
An iceberg as the moon rises
What is the purpose of sailing for two months on a boat around half of the Antarctic continent? To collect marine data that will help us better understand physical, chemical and some biological processes in the ocean, and to see how they are changing with time. But, what kind and how is oceanographic data gathered? you might ask.
The simplest way for me to describe what we are doing here is with a medical analogy. It is like when you visit your doctor for an annual check and she sends you for blood analysis. The doctor wants to know what is and how much of it is in your blood. So you go to the lab where you find your friendly lab technician with a syringe and multiple little bottles to be filled. Each of these bottles has information that identifies you (like your name, birthdate and your doctor's name) and some information that identifies what and when it was measured (today's date and the name of the compound tin your blood). The lab technician will use a different technique for measuring each component of your blood, and at the end of the analysis he will send the results to your doctor, who will interpret them, hopefully, to conclude that you are a healthy person. Let me point out a key assumption made by the lab technician: that the blood characteristics are the same no matter from which of your vein it is drawn from. He only needs to poke you on your arm, because poking from your leg would give the same results.
Aboard the boat, we are doing pretty much the same with the ocean. We are the lab technicians that collect and analyze the water samples, and the scientists that make a quick and rough interpretation of the data. Similarly, our big assumption is that it matters from what part of the world and at what depth the water is drawn from. Instead of poking the ocean at one single spot, we need to collect water samples from many different spots at many different depths.
One more thing before we leave this analogy. The moment the lab technician puts a gauze on your arm and asks you to hold it while he wraps your arm on a sticky bandage, you know the doctor will ask you later, perhaps in a year or two, to come again and see how much has your blood changed with time. The same is true with the oceans; they change over time and we need to repeat the analysis.
I hope you are following me because this information will help us understand the rest of the science that is being done in the boat. If I lost you on this explanation, please ask me questions through the 'Ask the Team' tab and I will modify the text to make it more clear.
On this entry I will only focus on the syringe that he lab technician uses in the boat. I will cover the particular analysis that each group is doing in later entries. Actually, let me stop here and ask you to design a way to collect water at different depths and positions in the ocean. Write to me, through the with a design for an instrument or apparatus that you could use for collecting water samples at different depths and that you can reuse at different locations. We will worry about how to measure things later.
I will continue writing on the blog about how we collect data. I propose that you think about your own device and write to me before you move on to the next entry. And I say goodbye with another iceberg.
An iceberg as seen from the Palmer.