Cancelled Helicopter flight for Friday 6/8 BUT 36h Ice Station Saturday - Sunday

Friday started as usual - getting up at 5 to launch the morning weather balloon. I was disappointed by the weather conditions I was facing that morning - fog! Not only did the fog prevent us from the helicopter flight, but also the fact that we were a bit behind our schedule and had to reach our first ice station at 86 N by Saturday. Therefore, unfortunately our planned helicopter flight was cancelled and we were mostly steaming the whole day. For many of us, as all CTDs were cancelled too, it ment a more relaxed day: playing cards, doings sports, resting, watch movies, sleeping... For others, it ment intensive planning and preparation for the first ice station. In our project work, we were doing water sampling from the water 8m below the ship, measuring the CO2 concentration in the water. We aim to do several water samples per day during the expedition.

It was nice to have one more relaxed day - time to breath and charge yourself - The work on a research ship can be really heavy - some days are really intense with 14h work, and almost no time to rest. So days like this need to be well used in order to maintain a balance in life and not be over-working and ending up totally destroyed. 

In the evening meeting on Friday eve during the weather briefing, we got a warning of a large risk of fog for Saturday - and the crew decided that we would change the Ice station to Sunday - working on ice in foggy conditions is not approved due to the bad visibility and safety reasons, as well as no helicopter flight. So for many of us, this meant another relaxed day to come AND time to practice for the north pole lindy hop dance choreography. 

However - as we heading to our first ice station yesterday morning - reaching it in the early afternoon - the weather conditions were perfect! No fog, sun was shining! So they decided spontaneously to make a 36h ice station — everyone suddenly got super busy preparing the GO ON ICE and for the helicopter flight. For our meteorology group, it ment that we were going out on the ice already in the afternoon! Fortunately we had already prepared for the ice work, so we had to just carry all our equipments and car batteries to the back of the ship. We dressed properly - snow boots, warm rescuing suit (the yellow-blue overall), ice spikes, radio phone for communication on ice, extra glows, hats and layers. We were planing to stay on the ice for a couple of hours - It got really warm while carrying our equipment via the stairs onto the ice, but as soon as we started working on the ice and not moving, it got pretty cold!

This was my first time working on ice - soo exciting! We were not the only group out on the ice: there was a helicopter flight with scientists testing fishing stuff, a SAS sea ice coring group taking sea ice core samples on the ice and us. We have instruments for measuring the gas (CO2, methane) exchange between the melt ponds and the atmosphere (with flux chambers floating on the melt ponds, see phots. Note how shallow the melt pond is - looks like John is walking on the water surface!), ice chambers for measuring the exchange of gases between the ice surface and the atmosphere, temperature sensors for measuring the temperature of the surface, glas bottles for water samples of the melt pond water and ice core drills to drill a whole in the ice for measuring the ice thickness. At the ice surface the thickness of the ice was 1.8 m, whereas at the melt pond a bit less (1.5m). During our work and between each measurement, it is also important to document what you are doing, starting and end times as well as relevant values or notes. I enjoyed being responsible of doing that - controlling our 10 or 20 min measurements and make sure when to start our next one. On the photos below you can see how we are working on the ice with our instrumentations.

Also, in one of the photos below you can see our two stations on the ice: one further away from the ship - that is the ice coring group - and us two closer to the crane and stairs at the red pulka close to the big but shallow melt pond. The crane was attached to the stairs due to safety reasons: if a polar bear surprises us, we can quickly get on board and once the last person is on board, the crane can lift the stairs up from the ice, thus preventing the polar bear to come on board. We had several polar bear watches on ice to look out for polar bears. We were lucky not to confront any danger and could nicely conduct our measurements on the ice. Once getting on the ice, a change in the weather was noticeable - the sky became more cloud covered and we also got some light snow during our ice work. Fortunately the fog did not reach us until later in the evening, so that we could successfully finish our work on the ice for the afternoon. 

What an experience! Today we are supposed to go out again - as we have our “official” ice station today. We are stationary until 8 in the morning tomorrow, after which we will be heading to our second ice station - one station before the North Pole! Today it is really cold - below freezing temperatures and strong winds, making it feel closer to minus 10 degrees on the skin! This will be a challenging day for most of us, planning to work outside on the ice for the most of the day. It all comes down to dress properly, keep yourself warm and dry and bring some chocolate! And make sure the Sauna is on once you get off the ice. Excited about how this day will evolve.

Thank you Flor for for the photos below!