Current position


We are coming closer to the Northpole - now at 84 N! The map below (made by John) shows our position on the 3rd of  August. From there we have travelled straight up further north, almost to the 85 latitude band. We were in a big lead (elongated open ocean among the sea ice) for a long time, almost no ice visible, and the thick fog made the visibility rather low (only 300 m). I assume the helicopter flight that was planned for today got cancelled due to the fog - maybe they will go tomorrow instead of us? The plans keep on changing all the time, due to the weather dependence (or technical issues). Anyways, we are still preparing the instruments for the possible helicopter station tomorrow. 
 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NorthPole Celebration (Monday eve 16th) & Ice Station B (Sun-Mon 15-16th) and Ice station C (19-20th of August)

Image
As usual, the past four days has been adventurous - and history has been made (dancing on the Norhpole to live music)! For today’s blog, I want to tell you about our two last super ice stations (station B right before the North Pole and station C, which is ongoing right now), and the big North Pole celebration. In between the ice stations we had some calm days - transit to the next stop on Tuesday, as well as transit and a few CTDs on Wednesday. The ice conditions were variable - at the North Pole we had some thicker ice and some of the planned stops on the way were cancelled due to the ice conditions, which took us also longer to transit than expected. However, at yesterdays ice station, the ice was thinner again, but with a heavy crystallised snow cover on top. The weather was variable - from cloudy to partly sunny and then back to cloudy and foggy. We also had some light snowfall the last days! Let me start with the Ice station B on the day we also reached the North Pole. We were lo...
Read more

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

Image
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 - som...
Read more

Third helicopter station Saturday 21st and begin of fourth ice station D Sunday 22nd

Image
The third ice station (station C) ended on late afternoon on Friday the 20th (with beam net acoustics and helicopter flight, and ice trap retrievals during the day). During the transit to our next stop, we held a lindy hop dance class (Level 2) in the evening and arrived late in the night at the next stop for doing CTDs the whole night and early morning. In the photo below you can see the CTD dragged out of the container to be put in the water (the tubes on the CTD collects water samples from different ocean depths). It is important to take care of the safety when working on deck - yellow helmets and warm bright-coloured dresses to keep warm and visible. The CTD stop was just a short stop, planned to last until Saturday afternoon, whereafter we were supposed to head towards our fourth longer ice station - station D.  In the early morning on Saturday 21st, I woke up again to launch the weather balloon. There were many people awake already at 5am working on their water samples, filte...
Read more