Christine Hedge

August 13, 2009April 6, 2021

Christine Hedge, August 13, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Christine Hedge
Onboard USCGC Healy
August 7 – September 16, 2009

Mission: U.S.-Canada 2009 Arctic Seafloor Continental Shelf Survey
Location: Chukchi Sea, north of the arctic circle
Date: August 13, 2009

Weather Data from the Bridge
Long: 148⁰9.54199W
Lat: 78⁰17.31641N
Air Temp: 31.08 ⁰F

Science and Technology Log

A CTD, above, is much bigger than an XBT, which I’m holding in the picture below.

Sound waves travel at different speeds through different substances. If you look up the speed of sound in air you will find it to be about 300 meters/second, in water 1500 meters/second. But these numbers are not constants. In water, the temperature, the amount of salt, and the pressure can all impact how fast sound waves travel. In other words, all water is not created equal. Our mapping mission depends on data collected from bouncing sound waves off the sea floor. In order to get an accurate image of what the sea floor looks like and how deep it is – we need to measure precisely how fast the sound waves are traveling. This means we need to have a handle on any variable that might change the speed of the sound waves. Measuring the speed of sound in the water column is an important part of data collection for accurate mapping.

So, how does the Healy measure the speed of sound? Sometimes we use a Conductivity-Temperature-Depth instrument (CTDs). The ship needs to be stationary to deploy these instruments so they don’t happen very often while we are cruising. CTD measurements record conductivity of the water, which gives us the salinity (how much salt is in the water), temperature, and the depth at which these measurements were taken. Four times a day instruments called Expendable Bathythermographs (XBTs) are deployed off the moving ship. These XBTs measure the temperature as the device travels through the water. As pressure increases, (the deeper you go) the speed of sound increases. As temperature decreases, the speed of sound decreases. Four times a day the Healy science crew gets new data so that they can determine more precisely the speed of sound and therefore interpret what the sound waves are telling us.

Here I am deploying the XBT into the Arctic.

Today, MST-2 (Marine Science Technician) Daniel Jarrett let me participate in the deployment of an XBT. As the device travels through the water it sends back temperature data from different depths to a computer on board.

The data travels through a very thin copper wire attached to the instrument. A graph of this data is observed and that information is used to create a profile of the speed of sound in that part of the Arctic Ocean at that moment in time.

Personal Log

All the things I do at home also have to be done on board ship. I eat, sleep, shower, exercise, and do laundry. The food is excellent so far. I love not having to cook or plan meals. There is fresh fruit, a salad bar, and a huge hot breakfast every day. It will be a rude awakening when I return home and have to plan and cook meals again! My daily routine does not involve much physical activity and I worry about gaining weight while on board. In order to stay in shape, it seems everyone uses the gyms or runs on deck. I have been working out on the treadmill or elliptical every day faithfully to avoid a severe weight gain.

Was the data good? Did the deployment work?

The laundry and all other facilities are really nice. I have a 25-year-old washer/dryer at home and was pleasantly surprised to find state of the art, low-water-usage, front-loading washers on board the Healy. From what I can see the United States Coast Guard is working hard to become a “green” organization. Trash is separated and recycled when possible. People are encouraged to reduce their water usage. Extreme care is given to filtering and recycling wastewater and any kind of oil or lubricants. It is great to see the amount of thought and energy that is being put into helping the community on board the Healy to “walk lightly” on the Earth.

The Healy is very careful to treat the arctic with care

August 12, 2009April 6, 2021

Christine Hedge, August 12, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Christine Hedge
Onboard USCGC Healy
August 7 – September 16, 2009

Mission: U.S.-Canada 2009 Arctic Seafloor Continental Shelf Survey
Location: Chukchi Sea, north of the arctic circle
Date: August 12, 2009

Science Profile

Scientist Georgette Holmes at her work station

Most of us have never even heard of the many careers that exist today in science and technology. I find it fascinating to learn about the career paths people take. Georgette Holmes is a physical scientist with the National Ice Center (NIC). Just how does a young lady from Belzoni, Mississippi end up in the Arctic analyzing ice on a Coast Guard vessel? Georgette dreamed of becoming an architect as a child. When the other kids were watching cartoons, she was watching “Hometime”. In high school, Georgette says she was good at science and art and okay in math. She attended Jackson State University, which unfortunately did not offer a major in architecture. This meant that Georgette had to come up with a new major. Growing up in a region prone to tornadoes, Georgette had what she called an “obsession with severe weather”. She was glued to the television when hurricanes were approaching or tornado warnings were posted. So why not put this fascination to good use and major in meteorology. Note to Students: Discover your passions, your interests, even your fears.

We had lunch at the school’s restaurant. You can see both English and Inupiaq written above

Once she found her major, Georgette immediately began taking advantage of internships. Most students wait until their last 3 semesters to “try on” their careers but Georgette began interning during her sophomore year. One of her internships was with NOAA. Through this internship she was able to visit many different facilities and decide which type of work she would like best. Note to students: internships and “real world experience” are important. She gained lots of experience before even finishing college. In addition to interning, Georgette went to conferences and networked with people who worked in her field – another great way to learn about careers.

Georgette started her first job as a Sea Ice Analyst one week after graduating from college. She is currently finishing up a two-year internship with the National Naval Ice Center (NIC), an agency that supports the operations of the Navy, Coast Guard, and NOAA. On the Healy, Georgette works with satellite imagery to help the crew and scientists know where the ice is and what type of ice is out there. Georgette credits her quick ascent through the internship program at the NIC to her questioning nature. Asking questions is the best way to learn new skills and gain information. Note to students: ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS. Anyone involved in science and technology needs to be a life-long learner. Georgette is no exception. She is currently working on her Masters in Earth Systems Science at George Mason University with a concentration in Remote Sensing and Geospatial Information Systems. In fact, she is missing her first few classes while working in the Arctic. But, knowing her, she will ask lots of questions and catch up fast! Georgette was my roommate on the Healy until a few days ago when she boarded a helicopter and flew to the Canadian Coast Guard vessel, the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent. Once again, Georgette will be gaining new skills as she works along side a trained Canadian Ice Observer helping our two countries map the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean.

Personal Log

One of the school district's school buses — One of the school district’s school buses

I haven’t written much about my days in Barrow and in honor of the first day of school at Carmel Middle School (August 11), I’d like to share a little about this town and education. Barrow, Alaska is located 300 miles above the Arctic Circle (latitude 66⁰, 34’). The native people of Barrow and the NORTH SLOPE are known as the Inupiat. Their language is Inupiaq. Inupiaq language and culture classes have

been part of the school curriculum since 1972. This complicated language is written all over town and commonly heard spoken in everyday life. We ate at the local community college, Ilisagvik College, and each sign on every building was in both English and Inupiaq. There is also a beautiful Inupiat Heritage Center which helps perpetuate the Inupiat culture, history and language.

The history of how kids went to school in Barrow is a great tale of a community reclaiming its’ culture. In the 1890’s missionaries established the first schools. In their efforts to teach English, some teachers punished their students for speaking Inupiaq. As is often the case when native cultures meet western influences, students were encouraged to adopt western ways and to abandon their culture.

Barrow High School was built in 1983. One of the strangest sights in town is the bright blue football field. The story of how Barrow obtained this field will have to wait for another day.

During the 1950’s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs funded schools on the NORTH SLOPE and the Alaska state government operated them. Until 1969, if a student wanted to continue their education past the 8^th grade, they had to leave home and travel to boarding schools thousands of miles away. In 1975, the NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH assumed the operation of the schools and built new schools in every village. Today, classes are offered from pre-school through 12^th grade in every village. Technology has helped the high school to offer a variety of classes in every village. With interactive video distance learning technology – the teachers at Barrow High School can see and be seen by students all over the NORTH SLOPE. With the help of electronic tablets, computers, and fax machines – school can happen anywhere!

Quyanaqpak! (Thank you very much)

August 10, 2009April 6, 2021

Christine Hedge, August 10, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Christine Hedge
Onboard USCGC Healy
August 7 – September 16, 2009

Mission: U.S.-Canada 2009 Arctic Seafloor Continental Shelf Survey
Location: Chukchi Sea, north of the Arctic circle
Date: August 10, 2009

Science and Technology Log

This trip is all about data collection. In addition to our main seafloor mapping mission, each day there are buoys, sensors, or weather balloons deployed each collecting important data to help us understand the Arctic environment. This ocean is a harsh place. The objects that are placed underwater to collect data (like the HARP instruments that were retrieved earlier this week) need to be able to withstand cold, salt, pressure, and for those on the surface, wind and waves. Designing such a device to work for long periods of time in the Arctic must take great engineering skills.

The pressure of the deep ocean is an amazing force. If you have ever lost your goggles in the deep end of a pool – you know that water pressure increases with depth. Water is much heavier than air (about 1000 times heavier). Any instrument sent to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean is under a column of water that literally squeezes it with massive weight. In fact, the weight of just a 10 meter thick slice of ocean is equivalent to the weight of the entire atmosphere. Of course there is a scientific name for this increase of pressure due to the weight of the water above you. It is called hydrostatic pressure.

A simple experiment to illustrate the type of forces these scientific instruments endure involves Styrofoam cups! In fact, yesterday folks were encouraged to decorate a Styrofoam cup. The cups were gathered into a mesh bag and sent down 3800 meters attached to a device, which measures the conductivity, temperature, and depth of the water as it descends (a CTD).

Styrofoam cups after their trip on the CTD

Styrofoam can be thought of as plastic netting filled with air. This is why it is such a good insulator and so light. If we squeeze it with our hands, we can make the netting tighter and the Styrofoam becomes tight balls of plastic. If we lower the Styrofoam cups to great depths within the ocean – just think of the huge amount of hydrostatic pressure they are under!!!

The cups went to a depth of 3800 meters and shrank from about 4 inches to less than 2 inches! The weight of the water above them squeezed the air from the Styrofoam and gave us teeny cups – the shape didn’t change much – just the size. When engineers build instruments to study the ocean – such forces must be considered carefully.

Something to Think About

Besides diving into a swimming pool, can you think of another place in your world where pressure changes impact the environment?

Personal Log

I’m getting used to the life on board a ship. The crew is very helpful. They point me in the right direction when I get lost (which happens a lot) and help me to find basic comforts such as ice, the gym, and the laundry. I am amazed at how many doors I have to open and close to get from one place to another. The doors, designed to withstand water and fire, are heavy and take some upper body strength when we are in windy conditions.

They can also be very noisy and since someone is always sleeping on a ship that operates 24/7 we need to be considerate and move through them quietly. The further north we go the calmer the water gets. It is a real treat to walk out on deck and see the water smooth as glass, the blue and white ice chunks, and nothing but sky in front of us.

August 7, 2009April 6, 2021

Christine Hedge, August 7, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Christine Hedge
Onboard USCGC Healy
August 7 – September 16, 2009

Mission: U.S.-Canada 2009 Arctic Seafloor Continental Shelf Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Barrow, AK, 71°18N 156°47W
Date: August 7, 2009

Weather Data
Cloud cover: Overcast
Temperature: 45⁰F
Winds: E, 17 mph

Science and Technology Log

Although the primary mission of this trip is to map the ocean floor, there are also other scientists on board doing other research. Ethan Roth is doing just such research. He is from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. Ethan’s specialty is ocean acoustics. He planted two acoustic sensors on the seafloor in September of 2008 and today he retrieved both instruments. This device is known as a HARP (High-frequency Acoustic Recording Package). Basically, this instrument has been “listening” to the sounds of the ocean north of Barrow for almost a year. The HARP sat at a depth of about 300 meters for all this time and today it saw daylight for the first time! The seafloor frame sits on a steel plate, which act as ballast to keep it under the water and moored to the seafloor. When Ethan wants it to surface, he sends it an acoustic signal to release the ballast and the HARP floats up to the surface. A small rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) is used to retrieve the instrument and tow it back to the ship where it is lifted aboard.

You might be wondering why anyone would care what kinds of sounds are happening underwater in the Arctic Ocean. When the surface is frozen with sea ice, it is a very quiet place. The ice/water interface acts differently than the ice/air interface. The acoustic environment of the Arctic Ocean may be changing due to the disappearance of much of the multiyear sea ice. In addition to losing the insulating quality the ice has for sound the amount of human activity is likely to change, as there is less ice. As the ice begins to disappear, shipping and exploration will likely increase, adding more sounds to the ocean. Less ice means more noise in the ocean environment AND less ice will mean more human activity and even MORE NOISE. It is unknown what effect this might have on marine mammals, such as whales that depend on sound for survival. Organisms in the Arctic have evolved in a certain acoustic environment. They use sound as a tool to obtain food, migrate and communicate. If the Arctic becomes a much noisier place, how will this impact their lives?

The landing craft that took us to the Healy

In any science endeavor it is important to collect “baseline data”. In other words, what were things like before one of the variables changed? It is important data that these HARPs collect. Knowing the acoustical environment today can help us to interpret changes in the future.

Personal Log

The trip from Barrow, Alaska out to the USCGC Healy is usually accomplished by helicopter. But Mother Nature was not cooperating with us. Our fresh food (delivered by plane) and the helicopter were both delayed because of weather conditions. There was heavy smoke around Fairbanks due to forest fires and fog elsewhere making flying just too risky. Being a group of problem solvers, the leaders of the science team started asking around and found a landing craft that would fit our luggage, the food cargo, and us. The Healy evaluated the plan and agreed. In a wonderful act of generosity, the Bowhead Transportation Company (a subsidiary of Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation) offered to take our science party and cargo to the Healy and bring the “old” science party back to shore. If we had traveled by helicopter, we would have transported a few at a time and had to make many repeat trips. But, using the landing craft we didn’t have to worry about weight and the entire science party and cargo were able to travel at once. Thanks to the crew of the Greta and the Bowhead Transportation Company for getting us to our destination.

August 5, 2009April 6, 2021

Christine Hedge, August 6, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Christine Hedge
Onboard USCGC Healy
August 7 – September 16, 2009

Mission: U.S.-Canada 2009 Arctic Seafloor Continental Shelf Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Barrow, AK, 71°18N 156°47W
Date: August 5, 2009

Weather Data

Cloud cover: Overcast
Temperature: 45⁰F
Winds: E, 17 mph

Science and Technology Log

The ladder was too icy to climb down the ice shaft so Jesse had to repel

Wouldn’t it be amazing to find life on other worlds? Scientific evidence that Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has an ocean under the ice cover and that Mars may have had an ocean in the past is leading astrobiologists to wonder if these worlds have or had microbial life. One way to determine what type of microbes could survive in such hostile environments is to look for extreme microbial life right here on Earth. These earthly extremophiles might be similar to microbes that have the “right stuff” to exist on those other worlds. Today, I went on a short trip collecting such microbial life with Jesse Colangelo-Lillis, a graduate student from the University of Washington. Jesse is working on his PhD in Microbiology/Astrobiology. He is interested in bacteria that are psychrophilic (cold adapted) and live in hypersaline brines (really salty water) that are trapped between ice crystals in the sea ice of the Arctic. These uper-salty fluids remain liquid down to at least 35⁰C and some viruses and bacteria persist – and may even thrive – there.

Jesse goes down to collect samples from the brine lens

We were not looking at sea ice today but at a wedge of ice under the tundra that has a brine lens (a pocket of liquid salty water). Jesse repelled down into an ice shaft and collected samples of this liquid, which he will analyze for microbes.

Understanding how Earth life survives under such cold and harsh conditions is a first step to understanding how life might thrive on other bodies in our solar system.

Personal Log

I am in Barrow, Alaska and the place is teaming with scientists doing interesting work. The weather is lousy so travel to the Healy is still on hold. Meanwhile, I am staying at the ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) Climate Research Facility, which is quite cozy. This research facility studies the effects of clouds on global climate change.

Today was the day to learn about the community of Barrow. There is a wonderful National Park Service cultural center here to help visitors learn about this region, which is home to Alaska’s Inupiat Eskimo people. The Inupiat Heritage Center offers beautiful displays explaining the traditional and modern life and values of these people. Hunting the bowhead whale is at the center of this life. Today I saw men carving the baleen of the bowhead whale into beautiful works of art. To learn more about the Cultural Center visit: http://www.nps.gov/inup