Dispatch 6: First glimpses of sea ice + a bear – oh my!
Ashley Arroyo (Yale University)
September 4, 202423:50 UTC, 76.05°N 137.37°W
Conditions:
- Cloudy
- 0% sea ice cover
- -1.1 °C
- Winds 5.4 knots northeasterly
- Sunrise: 03-Sep-2024 06:46:08 -06
- Sunset: 03-Sep-2024 23:34:11 -06
- Day length: 16hour 48min 3sec
The science team is beginning to put plans in place for the next few days to ensure that science operations continue to go smoothly. Around 10am this morning, several members of the science crew (including representatives from the moorings/buoys and ice observations teams along with the Captain and other members from the ship’s crew) met to discuss the science operations that will be taking place in the next few days. For example, Jeff O’Brien and the rest of the WHOI team are planning to recover a buoy (that is no longer transmitting data) tomorrow morning. We are also planning for an ice station (see previous dispatch here to learn more about ice station days) in the next couple of days. The science team is planning for that by making a list of operations that will take place on the ice (including buoy deployments, ice thickness transects, and ice coring), and determining who will be involved in each.
In addition to planning for the upcoming science days, we are also continuing with our typical routine involving CTD/bongo operations. Today, we completed two CTD/bongo casts, including CB-18 around 3am, and CB-17 around lunch time. Although we are still in open water, today is the first day that we have started to see many small ice pieces in the distance! Later at night, we began to be surrounded by sizeable ice floes – and for some added excitement, some members of the coast guard and science team were lucky enough to spot a polar bear from the bridge (see photo 4)! In addition, third mate Kate said that some folks up on the bridge saw what resembled an old sea ice mass balance buoy (SIMBB, which provide measurements of snow/sea ice thickness) floating nearby in open water. We are now steaming northwest to science station PP6.
