Most recent posts on top, older ones below
***********************************
March 28, 2020
Last of the deployments on the R/V Nathanial B. Palmer and prepping for unloading
So now that our science operations aboard the ship are done, what are we doing? Believe it or not, we are still pretty busy! Just like how we had to work with the technicians on board to get everything organized and ready to start doing science at the start of the cruise, we now have to do the reverse and tear everything down. The NBP is used for multiple scientific expeditions every year, so we want to make sure we leave it better than we found it!
 |
| Linnah is our Marine Lab Technician. She helps us make sure our labs on the ship are safe and operational and also is helping us pack all of our samples. |
 |
| The marine geologists have a lot of samples to take home! Each of these coolers will be taken as luggage on the plane rides home and the cores stored on the shelves and in the back left corner will be either driven by van or sailed by ship up to the States. |
 |
| We keep the whiteboard updated so everyone knows what is going on each day. Today’s science talk is about work currently being done at Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. |
 |
| Isa (left) and Lily's (right) selfie with DSC Falcons. |
 |
| Matt with DSC Falcons. |
 |
| Bye bye DSC Falcons!!! |
- by Lily Dove
***********************************
March 27, 2020
An infinite desert of ice...
with an escape and a little bit of yellow
The final part of the cruise has been a rollercoaster. As we were getting out of the Amundsen Sea, the sea ice had grown thick and compact, making our way out particularly challenging. The NBP crew worked non stop to find a lead in that unforgivable desert of ice.
It’s incredible how much
the ice could change in just a small distance..and with that, the wildlife! At some point, we
were surrounded by (literally roaring)
crab-eater seals. They were everywhere! And then, some minke whales popped up in between some sea ice
floes, sometimes jumping out of the
water to crack the ice or maybe scared by the presence of the ship, hard to know. But, hey!, what a view!!
And after a few days of
cracking ice, stopping, looking around, tirelessly trying, and a little bit of help from
some winds that pushed the ice away, allowing
for some opening in this impermeable desert, all of a sudden we were out. Free. The dark blue of the ocean was all
around us.
Just a few more kilometers
from the ice edge, still some icebergs towered around us. The sun rays against their shell reflected some
spectacular colors. And
in this beauty, on March 19,
2020 at 0:55 UTC, at 70.4S, 103.2W the 4th SOCCOM float on this cruise, Amaroq, was deployed. What a beautiful name! Amaroq
is the Brooklin (NY) JHS 223 - The Montauk School’s
mascot. The Amaroq is a “gigantic
wolf in Inuit mythology, said to stalk
and devour any person foolish enough to hunt alone at night. Unlike wolves who hunt in packs, Amaroqs hunt
alone.” Just… WOW!! Wolves are among my
favorite animals, and now even more! :-) And, how cool is this!, the school’s teacher, Sarah Slack, is
one of the science party onboard!!
Sarah has been blogging, videoing, writing to her students, working non-stop for science outreach,
under the PolarTrec program. I highly
recommend to read her beautiful blog posts on tinyurl.com/thwaites2020. And to follow the fate of Amaroq, click on the SOCCOMviz website (https://www.mbari.org/science/upper-ocean-systems/chemical-sensor-group/soccomviz) and search for float #18861.
I’m sitting down at my desk, thinking about all that happened during this cruise, and my heart goes to the peace of that land of ice, with its so many shades of white. I miss that, I miss the chill, the wildlife, the silence, and the stillness. What spectacular views we had in front of our eyes during this cruise!
The final part of the cruise has been a rollercoaster. As we were getting out of the Amundsen Sea, the sea ice had grown thick and compact, making our way out particularly challenging. The NBP crew worked non stop to find a lead in that unforgivable desert of ice.
 |
| Shades of white |
 |
| "Roar!" says the crab-eater seal |
 |
| Madeleine and Becky with Amaroq before the deployment. |
| And with the familiar blue, we approached our last few science activities: the deployment of the last two SOCCOM floats, the last two CTD casts and the recovery of the gliders that we deployed at the beginning of the cruise. |
 |
| Ryan is deploying Amaroq. |
I’m sitting down at my desk, thinking about all that happened during this cruise, and my heart goes to the peace of that land of ice, with its so many shades of white. I miss that, I miss the chill, the wildlife, the silence, and the stillness. What spectacular views we had in front of our eyes during this cruise!
- Isa Rosso
***********************************
March 16, 2020
The Amundsen Sea: Why Here?
Antarctica
is a large continent - it’s about twice the size of Australia.
The continent and surrounding region also play a vital role in our climate system, with the bright white ice and
snow reflecting shortwave radiation
back out to space and the Southern Ocean circumnavigating
the land. It is home to amazing wildlife found nowhere else on Earth, including the Southern Elephant seals
and Emperor penguins. So, if we’re
lucky enough to have two months to explore offshore
questions about this amazing continent, why is our cruise (NBP 20-02) focused on the Amundsen Sea? Here are a
couple reasons you might find
compelling:
 |
| Some views of the Antarctic Shelf - photos by Isa Rosso |
1. The Amundsen Sea is home
to Thwaites glacier and Pine Island glacier, two glaciers of great concern to scientists
who study sea level rise. These
glaciers are considered to be some of the most unstable on our warming planet. As ice shelves decay, warm water
is able to get to the grounded ice,
raising the sea level and putting coastal cities and populations in danger. We are already seeing the
effects of climate change-related
flooding in places all over the world, from Venice, Italy to coastal Bangladesh. Scientists are working to
understand what makes these glaciers so
unstable and vulnerable. There are many geological, oceanographic, and atmospheric processes to consider
to understand the past and future of
these glaciers.
2. In the Amundsen Sea, the
Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) that was formed hundreds of years ago in northern latitudes
reaches the continent. And this water
is relatively warm (at a balmy 2 degrees Celsius!).
When warm CDW gets onto the continental shelf, like it can in the Amundsen Sea, the warm water is available for
ventilation to the atmosphere and
glacial melt. The ACC only flows over the continental shelf in very few places around the continent, so
this is a very special aspect of the
Amundsen Sea.
3. Even compared to other
parts of Antarctica, the Amundsen Sea (and its neighbor, the Bellingshausen Sea) is
understudied. The main American research
station on the continent is McMurdo Station near the Ross Sea. Palmer Station, another American Antarctic base, is
on the West Antarctic Peninsula. Both
of these stations are hundreds of kilometers away from the Amundsen Sea, making it hard to get regular measurements
here. It takes about a week to get to
the Amundsen by ship and the moving sea ice
and icebergs make it challenging to navigate safely. Any data we get here is extremely valuable and informative.
 |
| One of the Hudson mountains, north of the Pine Island Glacier. Photo by Isa Rosso |
Our cruise has
oceanographers, marine biologists, geophysicists, and other
scientists working to understand some of the machinations of this amazing part of the world’s most mysterious
continent. What an amazing place to
work and play!
 |
| Sea Ice and the sunrise - photo by Isa Rosso |
- by Lily Dove, CalTech
March 6th, 2020
I was sitting writing my thesis in my lab after dinner when I got the call. I was chosen to ride on the zodiac to see seal tagging. I was assigned to help Mike, the filmmaker, get the footage he required. We climbed over the side of the ship down a ladder into the zodiac, an inflatable rigid-hulled motor boat. Once everyone was loaded, we were off at around 8 pm. Since it is still summer here, there was plenty of light. We rode in the boat, holding onto ropes on the side, glad for our layers of clothing in the wind. We drove around enjoying the views and watching the seal tagging, getting good camera shots. The techs driving the boat brought out snacks and hot cocoa and hand warmers to lift our spirits and body temperatures!
The seal tagging team climbed up onto the ice floe, a floating piece of sea ice covered in snow. They `danced' with the Weddell Seals until they wiggled their way into the catching bag. Then they tagged the seal, only on 1 meter of sea ice, with no land underneath, in one of the most exotic and beautiful ecosystems! After tagging 3 seals, we headed back to the Palmer, zooming along at full throttle past sea ice and icebergs and through fresh new sea ice. I was glad to return to the warmth of the ship and the sauna, but I will not forget the beauty, joy, quiet, and space that the excursion that the ice provided provided me.
- Madeleine Youngs
The seal tagging team climbed up onto the ice floe, a floating piece of sea ice covered in snow. They `danced' with the Weddell Seals until they wiggled their way into the catching bag. Then they tagged the seal, only on 1 meter of sea ice, with no land underneath, in one of the most exotic and beautiful ecosystems! After tagging 3 seals, we headed back to the Palmer, zooming along at full throttle past sea ice and icebergs and through fresh new sea ice. I was glad to return to the warmth of the ship and the sauna, but I will not forget the beauty, joy, quiet, and space that the excursion that the ice provided provided me.
- Madeleine Youngs
***********************************
February 20th - On the Ground: Sif Island
With extreme explorers and satellites, you would think that there were no more uncharted places left on Earth. However, on February 10, the Chief Mate of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer spotted some unexpected rocks. After general excitement and checking of maps, the pile of icy rocks was confirmed to be a previously uncharted island! What a discovery. After some discussion, the island was named Sif Island, after the Norse goddess of Earth (and Thor’s wife).
 |
| Scientists climb aboard Sif Island to collect rock samples. Just a few years ago, this island was covered by Pine Island Glacier! |
Sif Island was part of the grounding line for Pine Island Glacier (PIG) as recently as three years ago. The grounding line of a glacier is determined topographically, and basically determines how far out the glacier’s ice shelf goes. The fast retreat of the glacier over the last few years left Sif Island uncovered. Due to the scientific interest about what secrets this island holds, several scientists on board the ship wanted to go visit. This island may help hold some clues as to the retreat patterns of PIG due to its strategic placement in the glacier basin. After obtaining the proper permissions to collect samples from the island, the Chief Scientist decided to send a team of scientists over to the new land.
 |
| The Nathaniel B. Palmer, our home away from home, fading into the distance. We needed to use small boats called Zodiacs to access the island because the water depth was too shallow for the Palmer. |
I was extremely lucky to be invited to go along to join the science party in a second small boat. Upon our arrival at the island, several geologists got out and began collecting samples. After waiting a few minutes to make sure we wouldn’t disrupt the ongoing science, the members of our boat disembarked and set foot on an Antarctic island! Looking back and seeing the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer in the distance really threw things into a new perspective. We were already in one of the most remote regions of the world, and now we were even removed from our lifeline at sea.
There were several amazing things that we
witnessed on the island, including some very curious Weddell seals and some amazing geologic& features resulting from years of wear and freezing and thawing. However, my favorite part was circumnavigating the island, getting GPS fixes of the extent of the land. Although it is a pretty small island, when we got to the side of the island that we couldn’t see from the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer, it was like we entered another world. We were surrounded by icebergs and 100 shades of blue that were captured in the ice and ocean. There were several icebergs that had recently flipped over and others that had magnificent signatures of glacial melting and refreezing. Although I had seen amazing ice from the bow of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer and I had appreciated the majesty of the massive icebergs from a distance, being so close to these massive pieces of glacial ice was absolutely awe-inspiring.
 |
| A Weddell seal and some layers of glacial meltwater preserved in an iceberg, just a few of the amazing things we saw during our all too short shore expedition. |
Hidden in the shadow of a glacier, this island has its own history to tell and now it has become part of my history, too. No matter where I travel the rest of my life, Sif Island will always have a special place in my heart.
 |
| The blog author Lily Dove in the zodiac with some glacial ice in the background. Photo by Laura Taylor. |
- Lily Dove, Caltech
Location:
69º 30.179 S, 87º 59.873 W. Time: 6AM local. The
icebergs stand guard over a peaceful ocean,
the sun peeking out around some clouds low on the
horizon. I watch an antenna disappear below the waves and breathe a sigh of relief. We just launched a Seaglider, a
type of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
(AUV) that oceanographers use to measure
different properties of the ocean.
 |
| A Seaglider floating at the surface of the ocean just after deployment. After “calling home” and getting new instructions about where to go, it will disappear below the waves. |
Although oceans are huge, there are
physical and biological processes that
occur on relatively small scales that scientists have a hard time observing. Observing these small scales is hard,
because doing research out in the ocean
is challenging and is also really expensive! Floats, like those designed and deployed by SOCCOM, are
helping to fill in the huge gaps we
have in our datasets. However, because these floats only sample every few days, they can miss important
processes occurring on even smaller
scales. This is where gliders fit in!
We just deployed two gliders that are on
a mission to help us understand how
water moves across and along the continental shelf in front of the Bellingshausen Sea. Currently, very little is known
about the Bellingshausen Sea; until
last year, only a few research groups had ever gone there to collect samples. This is the cutting edge of science; we
get to test if our theories and models are
correct by collecting real observational
data! The data we collect with the gliders will help inform our next generation of climate models and
help us begin to put together the
puzzle pieces about how the ocean, ice, and atmosphere interact in this extremely remote region of the
world.
 |
| A Venn Diagram comparison of the SOCCOM floats and gliders. Both of these instruments are vital for helping us gain a better understanding of how the ocean works! |
Our gliders are developed by a company called Kongsberg, and the
instruments yoyo between the surface ocean and
1000 meters depth collecting data on
temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, and other properties. When the glider returns to the
surface every few hours, it “calls
home,” using an Iridium connection to send back its data and to pick up the new instructions about where
to go. Right now, my colleagues at
Caltech and the University of East Anglia are tracking the gliders’ positions and giving the gliders new
instructions. That’s right - from
thousands of miles away, they can control where the gliders go! That’s just some of the awesomeness of
satellites.
 |
| Isa and I putting some of the final touches on the glider before saying goodbye. The gliders are usually stored without their wings or rudder because those parts are the most fragile parts of the instrument. The wings and rudder are extremely important, though, because they allow the glider to sample horizontally and not just vertically like a float! |
In a few weeks, we will be picking the gliders up on
our way back to port after our work in
the Amundsen Sea is complete. Our gliders are already sending back data and happily sampling across the continental
shelf. It will be good to see them again and
to get them patched up before we send
them off on their next adventure, wherever that may be!
- Lily Dove, Caltech
***********************************
From wiggles to glacial
melt.
I look at the monitor that
shows the data coming from the Knudsen, an instrument that measures the distance from the
seafloor and a few meters below it.
Lots of wiggles, and lines, mountains and more. Black on white, it keeps recording how far is the seafloor
below the ship. To understand how deep
we can go with the CTD rosette, we look at the data from the Knudsen and the multi beam, another instrument
that reveals the depth of the ocean
floor. With respect to the multicolor panel of the multi beam, the Knudsen is clean, clear, simple. It
looks like a pencil drawing.
I’m still standing in the
lab, looking at the screen, when I hear a “Wow!”, as more and more lines kept appearing on the
monitor; it looks like my fellow
geologists see much more than my eyes can perceive.
 |
| Rachel (left) and Asmara looking at the Knudsen screen (see all those lines?). Photo by Isa Rosso. |
“The lines that appear on
top of each other is what we want! They show
us where there is sediment, rather than hard
rock. The layers, as shown by lines on
top of each other, are what we are searching for and not rock, which produces no lines on the screen. And
that’s where the fun starts!” (cit.
Rachel). They want to collect samples from the ocean floor, and they need a soft, sediment-type terrain
that they can core from: they have
already collected a few cores, but when the weather will improve, they will deploy coring device that will
collect a 24 meter (80 feet) core! Imagine that!
Working with cores is like
traveling back in time, as the deeper you go,
the more back in time you get.
 |
| One of the cores that has been collected. Photo by Isa Rosso |
I talked to a couple of
geology PhD students, as I was seeing the lines
being formed on the screen. Rachel, a 3rd year
student from the University of Houston,
works on the characterization of the sediments, by looking at the sizes and shapes of the grains that form the
sediment. This allows her to understand
how that type of sediment got there, and specifically
for this area of study, if the glacier had any influence in the past in getting this type of grains accumulated
as they appear to be. The grains, says
Rachel, allow us also to date the youngest sediments.”
Another method is using radioactive lead to date, but this is not what Rachael would do. “Grains are more
attractive!” she says. A geologist, in
this way, can recreate the regional history over the past century… Isn’t that really cool!? Not only can she
characterize the grains by size and
shape, but she also looks for the presence of diatoms (i.e. particular types of phytoplankton made of a silica
shell) to help describe the sample she
analyses.
From the University of
Alabama, Asmara is a 1st year PhD student, working with Foraminifera (“forams” for short),
beautiful and very complex single-cell
organisms that are made of calcium carbonate. Some live in the water column, some within the seafloor
sediment. They are kind of neurotic
(cit. Asmara): they grab food and sediment around with their little tiny feet (aka pseudopods), but
apparently, they are “picky”. Some like
only a certain type of sediment, some steal from their neighbor. They can even use dead coccolithophores (another type
of phytoplankton, but made with calcium
carbonate plates) to make a shell around
them. They can be microscopic, or the size of a palm of a hand (!!!??!? Asmara, whaaaat???).
Asmara studies both the
living forams and the ones in the core to trace
back the environment at which the dead ones
lived in and to date the core, as well.
There’s a large variety of forams, and I found it extremely fascinating to hear that some like to live in particular
water types, such as those ones living
in the old and warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW):
finding those types of forams in the sediments allow to infer if that type of water mass was present at a particular
time in the location of the sample, and
hence shed light into circulation patterns and glacial melting, for example.
Why is the CDW is so
important? CDW is a deep old water mass characterized by waters that are not only
depleted in oxygen because they have not been
in touch with the atmosphere for a long time, but they are also warmer than the waters above. As CDW approaches
Antarctica from the North, it gets
closer and closer to the surface of the ocean, warming up the colder waters that encounters. The possible
presence of this water mass in this region
is one of the possible sources for melting of the ice shelf, and one of the key factors investigated by
the scientists who are collaborating to
this project in the Amudsen Sea.
 |
| Mini seastar (dyed in purple) surrounded by worm poop. Photo by Isa Rosso. |
I watch Asmara, Rachel,
Santi, and Ali taking samples from the mud (Rachel with a large syringe and Asmara with a
spoon). The excitement in the eyes of
Asmara, the precision in Rachel’s hands, the passion that I could see in them. I’ll never look at mud with the
same eyes! Especially after they show me the ‘bones’ or spicules of glass
sponges in the mud (apparently they’re
quite sharp and itchy) and the cutest tiny seastars
one can possibly imagine!
 |
| Glass sponges in the mud. Photo by Isa Rosso |
To know more about the
achievements, news, and studies of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC),
have a look at the website https://thwaitesglacieroffshoreresearch.org/
-
Isa
Rosso
***********************************
February 6, 2020
The crew loves
to drive this ship because they get to run into things, primarily ice, but only
sea ice, not icebergs. The 'rule' is that you can't hit anything large
enough to wake up the captain. The Nathaniel B. Palmer is
an icebreaker, meaning that it can travel through sea ice of up to a meter
thick. It does not mean that it can travel through icebergs though! The Nathaniel B. Palmer breaks ice by ramming into it and splitting it to
either side using special slippery paint on its belly. Other icebreakers
break ice by transferring their weight to the back of the ship, sliding the
front of the ship up onto the ice, then shifting the weight really quickly to
the front, pushing down the front of the ship and breaking the ice. On
this journey so far we haven't been traveling through the thickest ice, just
occasional ice floes and thinner contiguous sea ice. When the ship hits
ice, there is a large rumbling and scraping sound along the side of the ship.
It is especially loud in the dining room near the front of the ship and
in the sauna. I have to agree with the crew. Ice breaking is pretty
fun. (photos by Isa Rosso).
- Madeleine Youngs
***********************************
February 5th, 2020
 |
| A closer look at one of the beauties. photo by Isa Rosso |
What a view to start your journey, Narwhal!! As the 5th grade students
of the Judson and Brown Elementary School of
Redlands, CA, point out, narwhals are
unique, unusual and “magical” animals the live in the polar waters of the Northern Hemisphere. But with the help
of their teacher Eric Dildine, they
sent one here, right in the Southern Hemisphere! What a journey! :-)
 |
|
MT Ryan with Narwhal before the deployment (you can see one of the icebergs at the horizon on the left). photo by Isa Rosso |
Narwhal
left the ship at 68.9ºS and 86.6ºW, and its unique identification number on the SOCCOM website is 19169
(https://www.mbari.org/science/upper-ocean-systems/chemical-sensor-group/soccomviz).
All the sensors have already reported, and
they are doing great! (Check the plot
that shows a beautiful Circumpolar Deep Water around 250m, with the typical low oxygen and high nitrate signature of
old waters and the nice productive peak
close to the surface).
 |
| The profiles of Narwhal |
I love how the artwork of Natalie and Lily! What do you guys think?
 |
| Lily (left) and Natalie (right) showing their artwork. photo by Isa Rosso |
- by Isa R.
***********************************
Super Bowl 54
 |
|
Mike (the videographer on this expedition) is recording the very smooth deployment. photo by Isa Rosso |
- by Madeleine
Youngs
***********************************
February 3rd
On February 1st, we entered the kingdom of the ice! It started with just a few icebergs in the distance until we were cruising through water that was completely covered in ice. On some of the pieces of ice, we have seen seals! These seals are called Crabeater Seals. When the seals saw the Palmer, some tried to run away, which made the look like slugs. Others just opened their mouths wide and yelled at us. Some couldn't decide what to do and moved back and forth and yelled at the ship!
 |
| Seals, sea ice and icebergs (photo by Isa R.) |
The best place to watch for seals and other animals is the bridge, the top floor where the captain sits and the mates drive this ship. It has really big windows, way bigger than anywhere else on the ship, on all sides and we get almost a whole 360 view. My other favorite place to watch for seals is in the ice tower. Extending up from the bridge, to get there you have to climb three ladders! The tower room has just a chair and a heater and is maybe 4 feet by 5 feet wide. Up here you get a full circle view of the seas. This tower was created so that the mates could scout the best way for the ship to cut through the ice. We often sit up there to watch bird, mammals, and the ice in our free time.
 |
| Natalie and Lily showing their drawing of Sea Dog (photo by Isa R.) |
Before the excitement for the ice, we had another exciting day, with the deployment of the second SOCCOM float for this cruise!! Sea Dog (named by the 5th grade class of Watsonville Charter School of the Arts in Watsonville, CA) was deployed on January 30, 2020 at 8PM, at the latitude of 65 degrees S and 80.5 degrees W. From a pirate connotation, “Sea Dog” refers to an “experienced sailor that will gather information from the ocean as it sails the seas”. And to see with the eyes of Sea Dog, look for the float with ID #18829 on the SOCCOM website: https://www.mbari.org/science/upper-ocean-systems/chemical-sensor-group/soccomviz
 |
| Sea Dog "sailing the seas" (photo by Isa R.) |
Ahoy to Jennifer Gill and her students!!
- Madeleine Youngs
February 2, 2020
So many things happened in
these days, that it feels like 3 months have
already passed... while it is, what? a bit
more than a week? wow! Time for writing
has been so very little. I’m still recovering from an intense 3 days of work, where Natalie and I have
barely slept 4 hours in total. This can
happen sometimes. Our projects have a total of few days to work over the entire time of the cruise. But more
than a half was concentrated in this
initial part of the cruise, so we just had to roll up our sleeves, prepare a few shots of good
espresso, keep a smile on our face, and
eat a lot of chocolate!!
 |
| Madeleine, Lily and Natalie - photo by Isa Rosso |
Let’s start from the
beginning:
We left Punta Arenas on the
25th of January, after which we headed towards the famous Drake
Passage.
 |
| Drake Passage - often a rough crossing! |
I heard this name so many
times. I read about it, analyzed and published
results on its oceanographic data (check my
friend and colleague’s super nice
paper: Freeman et al. “The Observed Seasonal Cycle of Macronutrients in Drake Passage: Relationship to
Fronts and Utility as a Model Metric”).
And l’ve always been mesmerized by how frequent the storms can shoot through it… which are usually
massive.
But what is Drake Passage?
Drake Passage is the gap between the southernmost tip of South America and the northern tip
of the Antarctic Peninsula. The volume of water
that flows in the entire Southern Ocean has to squeeze and pass though this narrow (~500 mi/800 km long) space. If
you want to go to Antarctica (I mean:
“if”?! who doesn’t???), then this is the shortest route that can take you there. It also connects the
Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean,
allowing these 2 different oceans to mix their properties together, which, for an oceanographer, is extremely fascinating. But for a sailor, this is one of the
most dangerous and difficult parts of
the oceans to navigate: the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that flows through it is extremely strong,
waves can be huge and storms are
usually very nasty here.
To be honest, this pretty
much describes what you can expect anywhere in
the Southern Ocean. It’s not by chance that
the prevailing winds blowing over the
Southern Ocean have names such as the “Roaring 40s” (winds between ~40-50 deg South), “Furious 50s” (~50-60 deg
South) and “Screaming 60s”. I’ve been
at these latitudes multiple times, usually in the Indian or Pacific Ocean, but I never crossed the Drake. So,
needless to say, I was pretty excited
about it!!
Sometimes, the Drake could
be as gentle and calm as a lake. As we started our crossing, the weather was indeed nice
and the waves were not big. But as we
moved south, it showed us its true face, as a storm gave us a big shake. The ship started to roll
substantially, the decks were secured
(meaning that we could not go outside, for safety), sleeping on the bunk got extremely difficult and as the time
passed, the labs got more and more
empty: many stayed in their cabins, waiting for the seasickness to calm down. At some point, I felt like
I was on an abandoned ship...
 |
| MSS Husky in the box getting ready for launch |
After these first days of
rolls (which are always very exciting for me),
we started our science activities. SOCCOM
opened the science “dance floor”, with
the very first station of the cruise and its first deployment!!
 |
| MSS Husky getting ready to go over - photo by Madeleine Youngs |
MSS Husky (from Howell Middle School South of Howell, NJ) was smoothly deployed on January 29, 2020 at 15:57 UTC at the longitude 74ºW and latitude 62ºS. The float was
named after the school’s name and mascot. Greetings
from the Southern Ocean to Danielle Gianelos and her 8th grade students!!
 |
| First profile from MSS Husky! |
The float has already reported some very
nice data of its first profile: very
interesting mixing happening between 200m and 700m (was the float crossing a front, i.e. a boundary
between two water masses with different
properties?), nitrate-rich and oxygen poor old Circumpolar Deep Water around 1000m. Can you bet where will the float
be in 1 month? In three? What is the
temperature that the float “feels” at 1000m?
You can find the answers to these questions and many many more on the SOCCOMviz website (https://www.mbari.org/science/upper-ocean-systems/chemical-sensor-group/soccomviz): just search for the float with ID number 18643 and
start plotting the different
parameters. And if you have questions, we, the SOCCOM team, will be very happy to help!!
- Isa Rosso
***********************************
January 26, 2020
Ahoy everybody!
Here I am, on the icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer (a 308 foot research vessel of the US Antarctic Program), heading from Punta Arenas (Chile) to the Thwaites Glacier in the Amudsen Sea. The research cruise is led by an American-UK team, collaborating to investigate one of the most unstable glaciers in Antarctica. The project is called the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, or ITGC. Two of the groups that are part of it (i.e. THOR and TARSAN) are leading this cruise. THOR will lead the seismic, coring, mooring operations, aiming to understand this marine grounded glacier that sits on a very deep ocean and is affected by changes in ocean temperature. Part of TARSAN work on this cruise will be to tag seals (elephant and weddell): the seals will get a CTD (i.e. conductivity-temperature-depth) sensor, attached to their forehead, and the data that will be collected will help the scientific community to monitor this oceans, especially the old and important Circumpolar Deep Water. How exciting and fascinating to witness their operations and hear about their findings! (If you’re curious, and you should be, you can read about their mission here: thwaitesglacier.com).
 |
Map showing the geographical region for the expedition, highlighting
the SOCCOM float deployment sites and few key features
About us: together with Madeleine Youngs (soon-to-be-doctor from the MIT), I represent the SOCCOM team, and we will be responsible for the deployment of 5 biogeochemical floats on the way to the glacier. This is my 5th time as SOCCOM representative, and it’s always an honor to be part of it. Needless to say, I’m very very excited! Together with us, there are Lily Dove (graduate student from Caltech) and Natalie Swaim (master student from Jacksonville University). We will be leading the CTD operations, collecting waters that will be analyzed for different properties. Lily, Madeleine and I (I’ll help with some logistics, but Lily and Madeleine will be the real stars of the operations) will also be involved with the deployment and recovery of two seagliders. Natalie has the big task of collecting water for oxygen and hydrogen isotopes, which will be used for her and a fellow graduate student’s thesis. No pressure ;-)
 |
Natalie, me, Madeleine, and Lily in front of the NB Palmer the night before leaving port.
Interesting to see that only Lily is looking at the camera.
Stay tuned to learn more about all of these in the next 8 weeks!
- Isa Rosso
