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High Arctic Change 09

Hey Mike, You guys rock!!! I would be like you though and not be able to get up on the skis. Some of my fellow teachers want to know, what was the water and air temperature there? I'll see you online for your live event, but I have no students that hour. They will have to watch you later. Betsy

Thu, 08/06/2009 - 15:56

Tim Martin

Mike,
 I am REALLY envious of you getting to try the Water Skiing! That is AWESOME!!!!  Although no expert, I can get up on skis and would love to say I skied on the Arctic Ocean!  Of course when I was up at the Arctic Ocean a few months ago, we were walking on 1 or 2 meters of ice!
 Glad you are finding time to have some fun!
Tim Martin

Sun, 08/09/2009 - 10:29

Mike Rhinard

Betsy,
Sorry, I forgot to answer your fellow teachers' questions. The air temp when we were "trying" to water ski was about 40*F.It's actually almost unbelievable to me how mild it is here. Water temps seem to range from about 0-5*C, according to our CTD measurements. But that's taken near the glacier, so I'm sure it goes up as you move down the fjord, where we were skiing.
Some thoughts on the weather/climate here: The west side of Svalbard gets warm(er) water from Gulf Stream currents. So that keeps it mild here, that is, for this far north. Now, with Earth warming slightly, so does that Gulf Stream water, and then so does Svalbard. That, in turn, increases the rate of glacier recession. Then, as you know, all of that can increase exponentially with the decrease of glacier ice and snow. And then that . . . you get the picture.
PS: Polar bear siting yesterday on a small island in the fjord. It's not too near to where we are working. And, we are working almost exclusively from boats. But there was a Dutch group working with goose populations on one of the islands and they spotted the bear on an adjacent island. So, they let the geese they had go and packed up on the boat. Just to be safe.We took our boats near a couple of the islands on the way in today, but no "ice bear".
Mike