New Year in Antarctica!

The science team woke up this morning to the news of the first sighting of sea ice. Sea ice was spotted at 7:45hrs local time from the bridge. Today, our group sat at three different meetings one of which was a practice CTD sampling exercise. The sampling protocol involved three distinct groups who need to work in consort to efficiently use their time during sampling .

The planned test deployments of the CTD/Rosette and TMC Rosette for today, Saturday went well. The schedule was for the Hydro-group (i.e. Team Klinck) to muster in the Baltic room for training on oxygen, nutrient, and salt sampling at 10:00hrs.  At 13:00hrs Klinck, Smith, and Bibby teams mustered in the 03 Conference Room for a discussion on CTD sampling work flow.

 In the afternoon at 1430 CTD test cast and TMC test cast
 were carried out and went well.   The day ended with discussion of the sampling protocols and the practice adjourned until tomorrow at 10:00hrs.

On Sunday, January 1^st, we’ll have a special lecture from Al Hickey entitled Doctors without borders in Ethiopia at 1300hrs in the 03 Conference Room.

The holiday party committee is currently working hard to throw a New Year’s  party in just a few hours where yummy snacks and mocktails will be served. Remember there is absolutely no alcohol policy on the boat! While the committee is preparing for the festivities some of us are blogging away!

Happy New Year everyone! 

Prep work

The science team held yet another PRISM seminar today after lunch at 13:00rs local time and this time it was given by Blair Greenan (Bedford Institute of Oceanography) on Mixing and Upwelling in a Sargasso Sea Mode-Water Eddy. Blain and his team will be duplicating the same experiments here in the Ross Sea using a number of sensors mounted on a seahorse. While awaiting to get to our sampling site in the Ross Sea, everyone in the science team is doing pretty much their own stuff in preparation for the big event. The Hydrography group, which I belong to, has been involved with ping editing of multi-beam ADCP data, running tide prediction models (global and for the Ross Sea) and working on some related data collection protocols. Tomorrow our group, together with the plankton and primary production groups, will partake in a demo CTD/sample collection for nutrients, salts, oxygen, chlorophyll , protein, etc. analysis.

Tomorrow night, among other things, around 10:30pm local time we will be celebrating the end of the year and the ushering in of a brand new one!

Happy Holidays everyone!

PRISM Seminars

Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP) left Punta Arenas, Chile on December 24th at 10:00am and meandered around the southern tip of the South American continent (The Strait of Magellan) and after a couple of days of non-stop cruising we hit the Drake Passage which in itself was an exciting experience. 

The science group on board of NBP thus far hosted four separate PRISM seminars after a general overview of the project by Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI). The seminars were given by John Klinck (ODU), Pete Sedwick (ODU), Walker Smith (VIMS) and Tom Bibby (University of Southampton). The speakers all brought different perspectives to the table  spanning from the physical oceanography of the Ross Sea to the biogeochemistry/nutrient dynamics and primary production.  

We are currently approaching the Antarctic Circle and a "crossing ceremony" will be held as part of the tradition. Stay tuned on this and other developments.

Drake Passage

Currently we're crossing the Drake Passage.  Follow our cruise by clicking 'our position' on the right hand side of this blog. The winds appear to have subsided over the last few hours but we are expecting strong winds (and thus bigger waves) tomorrow morning (local time). 

Punta Arenas in pictures

Suriyan, Pierre and John

Santiago de Chile

The science group is slowly but surely trickling into Santiago de Chile to partake in the PRISM-RS cruise on board of the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer. The next leg of the trip is to get to Punta Arenas where we will be met by crew members from Raytheon Polar Services and finally head out to Antarctica on December 24th. Crossing the Drake Passage should be an exciting and challenging experience, but everyone in the group is looking forward to it. The weather down here is warm and humid (austral summer, remember?). More to come from Punta Arenas, stay tuned ....

hasta luego, 

Marco Pedulli

Save the Ross Sea

The Ross Sea is one of the most untouched marine ecosystems remaining in the world. ASOC needs your help to ensure that this place remains intact for future generations. This clip contains excerpts from the upcoming documentary film "The Last Ocean" by New Zealand Filmmaker Peter Young. Visit www.asoc.org to learn more about the Ross Sea.

McMurdo Station Webcam

McMurdo Station (77°51'S, 166°40'E), the main U.S. station in Antarctica, is a coastal station on the volcanic hills at the southern tip of Ross Island, about 3,864 km (2,415 miles) south of Christchurch, New Zealand, and 1,360 km (850 miles) north of the South Pole. The original station was built in 1955 to 1956 for the International Geophysical Year. Today's station is the primary logistics facility for supply of inland stations and remote field camps, and is also the waste management center for much of the U.S. Antarctic Program. Year-round and summer science projects are supported at McMurdo.

Hypothesis Testing

The PRISM-RS cruise to take place soon is centered around the following hypotheses:

H1: Iron is supplied via episodic intrusions of CDW at specific sites along the shelf break. Mesoscale processes provide the vertical and horizontal transport of the CDW and associated iron to surface waters of the polynya.

H2: Iron is supplied by sediment on banks and in nearshore areas. Mesoscale processes provide a conduit for transporting this iron into the euphotic zone.

H3: Iron is supplied to the surface waters of the Ross Sea via melting of sea ice on the perimeter of the polynya. Mesoscale processes drive lateral transport of the iron-enriched surface meltwaters to the central polynya.

H4: Iron is supplied to the Ross Sea through glacial ice-shelf meltwater. Mesoscale processes transport this iron-enriched meltwater laterally and vertically to surface waters of the polynya.

What's a Cryosphere?

The cryosphere is the frozen water part of the Earth system

 Source: NOAA

 

There are places on Earth that are so cold that water is frozen solid. These areas of snow or ice, which are subject to temperatures below 0°C for at least part of the year, compose the cryosphere. The term “cryosphere” comes from the Greek word, “krios,” which means cold.

Ice and snow on land are one part of the cryosphere. This includes the largest parts of the cryosphere, the continental ice sheets found in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as ice caps, glaciers, and areas of snow and permafrost. When continental ice flows out from land and to the sea surface, we get shelf ice.

The other part of the cryosphere is ice that is found in water. This includes frozen parts of the ocean, such as waters surrounding Antarctica and the Arctic. It also includes frozen rivers and lakes, which mainly occur in polar areas.

The components of the cryosphere play an important role in the Earth’s climate. Snow and ice reflect heat from the sun, helping to regulate our planet’s temperature. Because polar regions are some of the most sensitive to climate shifts, the cryosphere may be one of the first places where scientists are able to identify global changes in climate.

Celebrate Antarctica Day - December 1st!

Antarctica Day 2011

Some Antarctic Basics...

Participant Guide 2010-1012 

Join three young scientists on a trip to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Nathaniel B. Palmer

Life onboard RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer

Bunk (NBP)

Mess Hall (NBP)

Living arrangements on the Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP) are comfortable, and consist of two bunks, a head and a shower. All cabins are equipped with a TV/VCR, stereo, telephone and a LAN jack for connection to the network. This network access includes the ability to connect to the ship's primary data acquisition computer system for viewing and logging data. With the exception of the Chief Scientist cabin on the 03, most grantee and all RPSC berthing is on the 01 Deck, which is on the same level as the Sauna and Gym. Laundry facilities are provided on each level (Source: www.usap.gov). 

Lounge (NBP) 

Workout Area (NBP)

The Lounge is open 24 hours a day for everyone's use and is stocked with more than 150 movies and books but who's got the time to watch movies on board of a research vessel?

The Workout Room is equipped for both weight and endurance training as if the  hydrocasts are not enough! A universal weight machine, treadmill, rowing machine and exercise bike occupy the weight room for all those who want to stay 'active' and 'fit'.

Punta Arenas - our port of departure

Punta Arenas is a port city in the extreme south of Chile. The city has a good infrastructure, in particular an abundance of shops, such as supermarkets, pharmacies and hiking gear shops. 

Punta Arenas (literally in Spanish: "Sands Point" although real English speakers might know this as "Sandy Point") is the largest settlement on the Strait of Magellan and the capital of Chile's Magallanes y Antártica Region. It has a population of 120,000 (2002).

It is on Brunswick Peninsula, 1418 km from the coast of Antarctica.(Source: www.wikitravel.org)

Prelude to the trip

A group of researchers from continental US will travel to Puntas Arenas (PA), Chile to participate in a scientific cruise (Processes Regulating Iron Supply at the Mesoscale, Ross Sea - PRISM-RS). We will be boarding Nathaniel B. Palmer on December 23, 2011 and leave PA the next day to start an adventurous albeit rough trip across the Drake Passage to our destination - the Ross Sea. This swath of the ocean is home to the world's fastest and largest deep current (Antarctic Circumpolar Current - ACC) which transports some 130 million cubic meters of water through the passage! This challenging but by all means not impassable body of water should be a lot of fun to cruise over and will test every cruise member's seaworthiness. Stay tuned - more to come!

Ross Sea cruise plan

Available evidence points to four major sources of iron to surface waters of the Ross Sea during summer: CDW from the shelf edge, shallow bank sediments and nearshore sediments along the western periphery of the basin, melting sea ice, and glacial ice-shelf meltwater. 

The PRISM cruise of December 2011-February, 2012 is organized around assessing these sources, with particular emphasis on the role of mesoscale processes in transporting iron from these sources to surface waters of the Ross Sea polynya during austral summer

Getting ready for the cruise!

Getting ready for the Antarctica cruise (Dec 24 , 2011 - February 12, 2012)!