Ship arrival

The Palmer steaming into port

The vessel that will be our home for the next two months, the RVIB (Research Vessel Ice Breaker) Nathaniel B. Palmer, came in to McMurdo Sound at about 8:00 am to a beautiful view of the snowy mountains in the background and flattened pancake like sea ice amidst a half melted harbor. The ship broke through some leftover fragments of ice and came to dock at the ice pier.  It is a magnificent ship, chartered by NSF, driven and maintained by Edison-Chouest Offshore, and science support given by Raytheon Polar Services Corporation, the same group that provides support for the United States Antarctic Program.  We had to wait approximately 24 hours once the Palmer was secured on the pier for the previous team to have all of their gear unloaded and for the ship to be fully fueled (about 10,000 gallons, enough to last us the 68 days planned at sea), before we were allowed to board, load, and setup our own gear.  The previous cruise had been out for about a month doing the some the same research only in different locations; and several members will re-board and join us along for our cruise as well making their cruise about 3 months with a couple of days stop in McMurdo.

Forward starboard view of the Palmer on the ice pier with McMurdo in the background

The ship is a large one, at 308 ft overall length and 60 ft breadth with 4 decks above the main deck and a large overhanging bridge from which to view the ice.  My stateroom is on the 02 deck in just about the center of the ship.  Myself, two other Physical Oceanography students, and a teacher joining us from Madison, Wisconsin to blog about the voyage to his students, are sharing the only 4 person stateroom on the ship, all the rest are 2 person.  We do have more floor room, but of course less storage and we have to deal with 4 of us (not bad at all, they are all very nice people; I'm the only unpleasant one!).  Everyone else's stateroom (of the science crew anyway) is on the 01 deck, except for the Chief Scientist Jim Swift from Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego, and the Co-Chief Scientist Alejandro Orsi from Texas A&M University, who are both on the 03 deck.  The remaining ship's crew are all on the 02 deck and above.  We mostly will work from the main deck except for some of the trace metal group who will be working from the Helo deck (deck for a helicopter) in a garage like enclosed room.  On the main deck there are several labs.  Two wetlabs are aft (towards the rear), and are next to the Marine Technician's workshop.  There are three dry labs, one aft on the starboard side (the main lab for chemistry), one aft on the port side (more chemistry), and one forward (the main one for data processing and CTD control; lots of computers) on the starboard side.  On the port side across from the command control lab, is a computer lab.  Forward of all the labs are the mess hall and the galley (kitchen).  In between the wet labs and the dry labs on the starboard side is a room they call the "Baltic Room".  This is considered a deck even though it is a room, since it has a giant hydraulic door that opens up with a hydraulic extending boom that sticks out to deploy our CTD package (see intro post).  This room and the CTD command room, is where I will spend most of my time.

My stateroom.  I'm in the bunk on the lower right.  All of the other staterooms are two person, but we students are the greenhorns and must pay our dues.  The TV shows camera angles from all parts of the boat including heading information

The Baltic Room with huge hydraulic door to deploy the CTD, retrieve it, and sample within this room.  This room will be my second home.

Ice on the deck 2 levels above the main deck

The Galley

Once we began loading, we remained busy for two days.  First, all of the cargo vans (large cargo containers) had to be placed by crane on the deck, then opened and all of the contents moved inside the ship.  This took the majority of the first day.  Next while the cargo vans were being placed below decks in the cargo hold, we had to shuffle containers to near their respective setup locations, then unpack everything, and reshuffle empty boxes away and bring in new ones to be unpacked.  Then each respective station setup their equipment which of course has to be secured by screws, rope, bungee, ratchet straps, or whatever means necessary since each piece of equipment is usually at least several thousand dollars worth of equipment, and often tens of thousands or more.  Most equipment then needs to be calibrated, adjusted, initialized, checked, etc. as often multi-thousand dollar equipment requires.  Things like chemicals need to be placed properly and secured as well.  While inherently, climate and ocean water masses and their changes through time are physical phenomena, the majority of measurements on board are of a chemical nature and maintained by chemical oceanographers.  This meant that a large portion of the containers were chemical reagents of some kind which usually require special treatment.  I will explain more in detail later, but the chemical properties we are studying are CFC's (as in the banned in the 90's aerosol product), Helium, Oxygen, pH, Alkalinity, Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC), Carbon 14 isotope (C14), Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), Nutrients, Salinity, Trace Metals, Tritium, Oxygen 18 isotope (O18), Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM), Pigments, and probably some others that I am forgetting.  So you see there is a lot of chemistry that goes on here, so it took a long time to get all of it setup.  As I know very little about the measurement and analysis of most of the chemical processes, and much less about their setup, I was resigned to do the container shuffling and stowing down in the cargo hold.

The main lab.  Lots of chemical analysis is done here.

The computer lab.  Texas A&M's Dr. Alejandro Orsi at the computer

The Science Command Console.  CTD information will be broadcast on these screens for me to watch.  This will be home number one for me.

The night of the first day of loading, we got to sleep on the boat.  Oh it was so much better than staying in the room we called "man camp" in the McMurdo dorms.  It was nice to be making some headway towards our goal by that point.  There were some setbacks though.  First, some containers labeled "Do Not Freeze" ended up being frozen, and many chemicals fell below freezing, and may cause some unwanted affects.  There were also some sensitive instruments also in the frozen Do Not Freeze package, some drifting sensors that did not respond when tested, and their deployment was canceled altogether, essentially wasting a good bit of money.  And then we had expected to be able to be loaded and setting up as the boat was fueled in McMurdo, but instead we were made to wait while being fueled (half a day) and load after.  This has pushed our leaving date back a day.  On a better note though, as we were loading up over the two days, we were visited by Adelie penguins that had come to see us off from the bank just opposite the ice pier. 

Adelie Penguin to show us off

View into the sound from the ice pier, ice has melted much more than my first day there

The Palmer's starboard while moored to the ice pier

McMurdo 2

   I took a hike around the large pile of volcanic dirt and scree that is the aforementioned obs. point.  It was so bitter cold, but nonetheless enjoyable.  I don't recall the exact temperature, but it has typically been in the positive numbers.  The problem is the wind.  The slightest breeze seems to amplify the cold so much more than anywhere I've ever been.  During the hike, we rounded the hill on pretty unstable scree to face directly into the winds blowing from across the frozen sound between Ross Island (where McMurdo sits) and the mainland of the continent.  I had just purchased from the McMurdo store a wind blocking face mask and the biting wind on my face hastened my decision to put it on right then, which required removing the hood on my issued giant down parka and my warm hat.  So I ended up feeling the bitter wind on my bare head for just a moment and it was probably the coldest experience of my life.  I now have a very hard time imagining the people who stay here through the winter.  The stories are that if you have any exposed skin while walking outside in the winter during certain times, you have about 5 minutes before you get frostbite.  They use an interesting weather code system here that has three stages.  Condition 3 is when you can do outside activities and it is generally pleasant, condition 2, the trails close and if you walk outside you must be accompanied by someone else, condition 1 means no matter where you are, you stay put and cannot go outside.  One guy I talked to said, "If you don't dress appropriately and you go outside, you die."  Thats quite humbling.  So far my entire visit here has been condition 3 including my trail hike which was still freezing.  The hike was fun though despite the cold wind.  It took us closer to the sea ice at certain points and had a few views of Weddel Seals laying lazily about near a pressure ridge that had cracks exposing the water beneath.  Pressure ridges occur when wind and currents push the ice from different directions and the ice buckles and cracks and presses up in places making a ridged appearance.  Its very interesting to see since they don't typically occur on frozen lakes as they need lots of surface area from which the wind and currents can push it.  At one of the last points near the sea ice, a few us stopped to observe a break in the ice right at the shore where waves were surfacing from underneath (which I can only assume is from the wind pressing down on the ice and surging water against the shore), and when we stopped talking for a moment you could hear the ice creak.  It actually made both low and high pitched moaning and groaning just like the passage from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, "The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around: it cracked and growled, and roared and howled, like noises in a swound!"  Swound is an old way to say swoon.  It is an amazing sound to hear.  I tried to get a video, but the audio only really picked up the high pitched creak and only minorly.


Hiking group around obs. loop getting closer to the sea ice



  





Hole in the ice at the shore

 


Departing C17 plane as seen from the hike

 


Antarctic jacuzzi

 


Interesting wind blown snow scape

 


Lounging seal



   Robert F. Scott, the person in command of the second group to reach the South Pole, only days after the first group, built a hut on Ross Island in 1902 that is still there and is just on the outskirts of McMurdo down by the ice pier where ships dock.  Tragically Scott and the 4 that made it to the pole with him, perished on the return trip in a severe storm.  The cold and the Antarctic program have both contributed to keeping the hut intact.  We were given the chance to have a look inside the hut and its well preserved state.  There were still pants hanging up on clothes line and seal blubber and furs still on the shelves.  There were all sorts of tins and boxes with odds and ends and a fire place that had the back bones of seals on the burners.  Outside, there is even the still intact carcss (though cracked and dried out) of a seal.  The cold and conservation efforts have allowed the artifacts to not decay nearly at all



Scott's hut



Seal Carcass outside Scott's Hut

 


Preserved furs on the table in the hut



   Along the area near the hut, there are a couple of memorial spots that have been erected to different people that have died in the harsh conditions here.  The area of the memorials is another neat little hiking spot with great views of McMurdo and the sea ice.  Here is where the Ice pier is that our ship, the Palmer, will dock.  Now when I say ice pier, I mean there has been a solid piece of ice that has been lashed to the shore with a bridge across to it, with mooring points for the ship and enough space to load all necessary equipment and the heavy machinery required to move it all around.  I was filming a spot where a break in the ice near the pier was surging water, when a little weddel seal popped up out of the water and swam around for a few minutes.  They are such interesting creatures, and it looked so at home in such visibly cold water (the shallow water is very light blue when ice can be seen below the water and just is one more visual cue of the water temperature aside from the ice on the surface).  At the same point, a lone Adelie penquin could be seen farther out on the ice, making his way a rather long distance across the ice to a nearby break.  Seeing this penquin walk a relatively large distance in a rather short time makes me wonder a bit about penquins in zoos.  At the exact same time and place, a bird that is about as large as a small penguin and looks like a cross between a seagull and an albatross call the Skua flew around and landed not far from where I stood.  Three of the famous Antarctic animals all in one place at once seemed a little surreal to me, but sure enough it happened.  This place really is incredible.




Adelie Penguin

 


Skua



McMurdo Station Arrival

   I've now made it down to McMurdo Station, one of the United States Antarctic bases.  The flight was so interesting.  We took an older C17 Airforce cargo plane that has been adapted to hold a lot of passengers.  Boarding procedures were still suprisingly similar to other airplanes except that we were required to be dressed in our issued ECW gear (Extreme Cold Weather).  The interior is still very much a cargo plane and many of the mechanisms are visible.  When boarding we were all given ear plugs due to how loud the plane would be.  There were several rows of normal forwarding facing seats near the front followed by a middle section of seats against the wall facing the interior and two rows along the middle of the plane facing the exterior.  In the rear of the plane were more normal forward facing seats.  During most of the flight, everyone was more free to get up and move throughout the cargo hold.  There were only small port windows on the exits, but you could freely get up and glance through them.  At one point, I touched some metal near the window and found it was freezing as there was little insulation between it and the exterior of the plane.

Inside the C17

Antarctic Mountains through the rear starboard view port of the C17

   We touched down on a sea ice runway at about 3:00 pm New Zealand time on Monday the 14th (8:00 pm Sunday the 13th Central time) to what we were told was -11 degrees.  It certainly didn't feel that cold.  Perhaps they were telling us degrees Celsius.  It was still freezing of course; about 12 degrees Farenheit.  I was glad to be wearing the ECW gear already.  Upon leaving the plane the scene was absolutely breath taking.  We were surrounded in every direction by miles mostly flat white sea ice fields framed in all directions by distant mountains shrouded in white but streaked slightly with gray far out on the horizon.  We were hurried along into large orange all terrain vehicles that could have driven over any terrain in its path.  Along the bumpy 30 min. ride to McMurdo station, nestled on the edge of Ross Island in the Ross sea, we saw almost immediately our first penquins just sitting right off the flagged ice road.  Perfect views of the nearby active smoking volcano, Mt. Erebus, could be seen the entirety of the ride.

Myself, the ECW gear, and the C17 plane on the sea ice runway

Transport vehicles with a smoking Mt. Erebus in the background

   McMurdo is situated on the edge of the island in a very interesting self contained village that houses upwards of 1,000 people at times.  Large supporting structures can be seen every where such as giant white cylindrical fuel tanks on the outskirts of the so called "Mactown"; a stark contrast to the dark volcanic dust and scree upon which the town sits.

   After the usual tours, briefings, and orientations we got our first taste of the cafeteria, which is just awesome.  Lots of choices and many of them healthy.  After that, many of us proceeded up the very near mini-mountain, obs point, a very steep small mountain made up of all volcanic ash and scree (though not volcanic itself).  It was a a tough but short climb, and the sites from there were absolutely amazing even at a very sunny 10:00 at night.  The sun does not set at all right now.  I've seen similar in Alaska during my mountaineering class, but at least there it dipped below the horizon for an hour or so in a soft twilight light.  Here it merely dips from its circular path around the horizon but never falls below it.

Obs. Point

McMurco looking down from Obs. Point

   Unfortunately our brief week in Antarctica puts us into a temporary housing dorm that is referred to as "the man camp".  It is a single long room with 12 bunks in it housing up to 24 in one room with very little room for baggage (all of us have 2 or more medium to large bags). It will be an interesting arrangement until the Palmer (research vessel) arrives and we can move into our staterooms on the 17th, followed by two or more days of loading and setup of instruments, computers, and work and analysis stations.  Nonetheless, it is incredible to be here on a continent that few visit and many don't ever care to.  Such an extreme environment.

The station sign with an ice pier for the ship and the ill fated explorer Robert F. Scott's original 1902 hut in the background (both right side of photo)

Christchurch, New Zealand

  Our flight down to McMurdo station was scheduled out of Christchurch, New Zealand, one of the major support points for Antarctic operations.  I flew down to New Zealand a week ahead of time to spend a little vacation time there.  During my vacation time, I went for a couple of hikes through both the mountains and down the beach, visited an Early Antarctic Expedition photo exhibition at the local art museum, toured the local Botanical Gardens, and took a harbor cruise to see endemic endangered dolphins as well as sampled a delightful array of foods and spent time hanging out with a small group of multi-national European travelers.

The city's namesake, in the central downtown Cathedral Square

  During my set of flights to New Zealand, I met a fellow physical oceanography student, Eric, from Florida State who ended up being a welcome travel companion in a foreign (but English speaking) place.  I surprised him in a humorous manner when I noticed his Florida State sweatshirt and that he was holding a book about Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, a famous but disastrous one, and I approached him and asked if his name was Eric?   I had remembered his name from the endless list of info emails we've been receiving since November.  

Eric on the mountain hike over looking Christchurch

  The first full day there, we hiked through a small set of mountains just south of Christchurch.  The island is volcanic in origin and has mountainous features almost everywhere outside of the city.  We first hiked up a very steep grassy mountain, then followed a ridge line along the top through an enclosed vegetation corridor butted up against rocky bluffs and then through a ridge top World War 2 anti-aircraft battery strewn with sheep, then down off the mountain to a small harbor town called Lyttleton.  The hike had incredible views, but the thing that caught my awe the most was just how different everything was.  Aside from the dirt, rocks, and generic grass, everything was very different.  The plants looked entirely different aside from a few oak like trees, and the bird calls and insect noises were entirely foreign with different patterns and pitches.  The following day, was a rainy one, so we walked through the cities Botanical Gardens and again the difference was entirely noticeable.  Although in the confines of the Gardens, trees were allowed to grow to massive height and size, almost giant sequoia or giant redwood size.  The giant gnarled Eucalyptus trees were quite a sight.

Interesting bird I don't know the name of

Eric along the volcanic bluffs before venturing down into the vegetation corridor.  Lyttleton harbor in the background.

Vegetation Corridor on the hike

Sheep strewn about the anti-aircraft battery

sheep on the hillside over looking the entrance to Lyttleton harbor and the Pacific

Interesting and very different looking tree in the Botanical Gardens

Me standing next to a giant Eucalyptus tree

View from the beach hike

   The harbor tour was also from the town of Lyttleton and while it showcased the harbor's beauty set in between the mountains against volcanic bluffs and out to the open Pacific Ocean, the main attraction of the cruise was to catch a glimpse of the Hector Dolphin, an specialized dolphin local only to the harbors of the southern island of New Zealand.  We did see them, but only for a few minutes of intermittent surfacings.  Still the harbor cruise was worth it, although I lost a red hat that I like lot to the wind and the harbor waters.

Bluffs in Lyttleton Harbor from the tour boat

Hector Dolphins, very hard to photograph so this is the best I have

New Zealand flag with bluffs

   I very much like the New Zealand way of life.  It is a very laid back and friendly one that is entirely welcoming.  Perhaps this is due to the majority of their industry is tourism, but I just like to think it is the Kiwi way of life.  Christchurch itself may not be entirely the New Zealand way either since it is very multi-cultural throughout, but I enjoyed it immensely.   

   I am keeping the New Zealand post here to a minimum since A. the main part of the travelogue is about the Antarctic trip and the ocean voyage, and B. it was my vacation time.  But I've posted several pictures here to demonstrate my time there.

Statue of the ill fated Antarctic Explorer Robert F. Scott who was the second person to reach the South Pole

Intro

   First I would like to begin with a bit about the research cruise, then a bit about the science, and then a little bit about myself and why I'm going.

   The CLIVAR (climate variability) program has been an important ongoing research since the 1980's to study and attempt to understand the processes involved in creating, maintaining, and/or changing the earth's climate.  It's goal is to have repeating lines of measurement through decades of time.  The Earth's poles play a huge role in driving the climate system and distributing heat across Earth's surface.  This may seem a bit counter-intuitive, so let me explain.  Both atmosphere and oceans play a role, but I will focus on the ocean part.

   First of all, the polar regions for obvious reasons contain the coldest waters on the planet.  This means the water is condensed, as cold objects typically are, making the water heavier than water at other temperatures since there are more particles per volume as they are closer together.  Additionally, only fresh water goes into the formation of sea ice, so the salts originally dissolved in the sea water is left behind to dissolve into the surrounding waters.  Adding salt and making the water saltier adds the mass of the salt to the water, therefore making the water surrounding polar ice, which is very cold and very salty, the heaviest water on the planet.  This heaviest water then will sink and slip beneath other lighter less dense (mass per volume) waters (less salty warmer temperature).  As this occurs, the lighter water near the equator flows towards the poles to replace the heavy/densest sinking water while the denser waters ultimately will rise or "upwell" to the surface again due to other processes far away from the poles.  This creates a cyclical process that ultimately takes a very long time to complete (hundreds to thousands of years).  The cycle is important to climate in many ways with two notable ones described here.  The first is that dissolved carbon dioxide is pulled down with the sinking water thereby removing some of it from the atmosphere, however it is likely returned to the atmosphere a thousand years later when the water is returned to the surface.  The second is that warmer waters are cycled towards the poles thereby providing a means of delivering heat to the poles and temperate regions of the world allowing them to be warmer than they otherwise might be.  This is all of course a simplified view of what really happens.  The full process is quite complex and not fully understood, which is the purpose of this research cruise.

   The voyage will ultimately begin from the United States Antarctic base, McMurdo Station, aboard the National Science Foundation's icebreaking vessel, the Nathaniel B. Palmer.  From there we will traverse the Ross sea, named after Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross and home to the terminus of the world's largest continental ice sheet, the Ross ice shelf.  Then we will traverse the edge of the continent, heading east to the Antarctic peninsula and then heading across the Southern Ocean to Chile where we complete our voyage.  Throughout the cruise, we will be stopping at planned stations to take measurements of the ocean throughout the water column using oceanographic instrumentation.  Particularly we typically will drop a Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) instrument.  CTD's determine salinity by measuring conductivity, temperature directly, and depth from pressure whichs allows us to determine the density of the water and thus identify different masses of water.  After gathering many CTD casts throughout our cruise, it allows us to develop a picture of the types of water and their relation and movement through the region.  In addition to the CTD, we measure many different variables by a ring of bottles that are secured around the CTD on a metal cage.  The whole assembly is referred to as a Rosette.  A special cable allows us to close the bottles at different depths and capture water from that depth.  When the rosette is returned to the deck of the ship, we can then draw water samples from the bottles that can then be analyzed in different ways, such as checking for dissolved Carbon Dioxide or Oxygen levels or determining chemical composition.  Ultimately our collection of so many different variables gives us an idea of the state of the ocean there and the processes at work and we are able to compare them to previous research cruises to see how things have changed over time.

The CTD Rosette.  Bottles around the centered CTD.

   I am a physical oceanography student and I was chosen to go on this cruise almost solely on the basis of I was available and am a good candidate for gaining more field research experience.  My research actually has no relation to climate change, or to Antarctica.  Lucky me!  I may not have any research currently dealing with this, but I am very glad to be helping out and to be a part of something big in the oceanographic field.  Thanks for reading the first post, I promise that the rest will not be nearly as lengthy.  I expand on the science and travels in further posts.