arctic – Page 6 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

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

October 11, 2001March 18, 2021

Jane Temoshok, October 11, 2001

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jane Temoshok
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
October 2 – 24, 2001

Mission: Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes
Geographical Area: Eastern Pacific
Date: October 11, 2001

Latitude: 4 ºS
Longitude: 95 ºW
Air Temp: 21.0 ºC
Sea Temp: 19.0 ºC
Sea Wave: 1 – 2 ft.
Swell Wave: 3 – 4 ft.
Visibility: 10 miles
Cloud cover: 8/8

Science Log

Clouds

Today I met with meteorologist Dr, Taneil Uttal from ETL (Environmental Technology Lab) in Boulder, Colorado. She is head of a group that has done cloud studies in the Arctic. On this trip one of the things Dr. Uttal wants to determine is how similar marine clouds are to Arctic clouds. To do this she and her associate Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer. The whole trailer is on the deck of the RON BROWN. Think of the trailer as a big package of instruments. Duane’s job is to keep the machinery running. In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.

Dr. Uttal's associate, Duane Hazen. — Dr. Uttal’s associate, Duane Hazen.

Dr. Uttal and Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer.

In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.

Here is how Dr. Uttal explains what’s going on:

What is a cloud?
________________

A cloud is gazillions of tiny water droplets or ice crystals floating together up in the sky. Some clouds make rain and snow. Some clouds do not. In EPIC we are looking at both kinds of clouds.

What is a Radiometer?
_____________________

Think of a pokemon which has a special power that no other pokemon has. There are many things in the world around us that are just like that. For instance tiny droplets of water floating in the air are beaming certain energies that only water droplets have. If we know what the water droplet energy is like (and we do!), we can measure it and find out how much water there is in a cloud. A radiometer is a special instrument that we have here on the RON BROWN for measuring the special energy of a water droplet so we always know how much water is in the clouds over the ship. The energy of a water droplet can be named by how fast it is. A water droplet has three energies, 20 GHz, 32 GHz and 90 GHz. A GHz is 1,000,000,000 cycles per second.

What is a radar?
_________________

A radar is different from a radiometer because instead of looking for natural energy from something like a water droplet, it beams out its own energy, bounces it off of things in the sky (like water droplets in a cloud), and measures the reflected energy. By looking at the reflected energy, the radar can tell you things about a cloud that are different then what the radiometer tells you. It can tell you about how high a cloud is, how big the droplets are, and how fast the droplets are falling. The radar energy is 35 GHz.

What do you get when you look up with a radar and a radiometer?
_______________________________________________________________

When you put the data from a radar and radiometer together, you can figure out even more things, like how many cloud droplets there are, where the water is located in the cloud, and get an even better guess of how big the droplets are.

What does all this information tell you?
________________________________________

Right now people do not know very much about how clouds reflect sunlight from the sun, reflect warmth that is coming up from the earth, and change things like the temperature on the surface where we live. These things will change depending all the cloud height, how much water it has, how big the droplets are, and how fast they are falling. In EPIC, we want to know which kinds of clouds might make the ocean warmer, and which might make the ocean colder. This can have a big effect on where fish and other ocean animals might want to live and what kind of weather happens over the ocean.

Dr. Uttal is a scientist on board but she is also a mother and wife back in Colorado. Taniel and her husband Rusty, have 2 children – Kalvin, 6th grader at Baseline Middle School and Miranda, a 4th grader at Flatirons Elementary School.

Travel Log

Today I spent time on “the bridge” of the ship. This is the area that controls all the functions of the ship. The captain and his officers are responsible for all that goes on, much like the principal of the school is in charge. The best view can be had from the bridge and there are video cameras that look out over all the decks. The highlight was seeing a pod of porpoises swimming nearby. So graceful! I’m going to keep my eye out for whales.

Question of the Day: What is the fastest creature living in the sea?

Keep in touch,
Jane