Dispatch 15: Ice Station #2
Jennifer Kosty (Yale University)
October 2, 2026
18:00 local, 78.49◦N, 145.44◦W
Conditions:
- 100% sea ice cover
- -16.1◦C
- Sunrise: 09:33 PDT (local)
- Sunset: 19:34 PDT (local)
- Day length: 10 hours, 1 minute
It’s chilly outside! Air temperatures dropped below -17◦C (1.5◦F) today. Despite the frigid conditions, we were still able to complete our second ice station! We had a slightly later start today, with the gangway being lowered around 11 am. We enjoyed a quick lunch of pan-fried cod, mashed potatoes, and sandwiches before bundling up and heading out to the ice.
This ice station was largely the same as yesterday’s. The WHOI team deployed another tethered ocean profiler (TOP), while Takuji Waseda and Koya Sato deployed a second wave sensor array. I joined Kazu Tateyama’s ice transect and core team, which operated like a well-oiled machine after lots of practice yesterday. First, Michiyo Yamamoto-Kawai and Tsukushi Komura cleared a patch in the snow and obtained a snow depth measurement. Then, Celine Gueguen drilled a hole in the ice, and Mackenzie Mueller measured the ice thickness. Meanwhile, Monika Loevenmark recorded all the measurements. The transect and coring took slightly longer today because we were cutting through over a meter worth of sea ice!
We wrapped up the ice work around 5 pm and headed inside to warm up with some mac and cheese and lava cake. Afterwards, the day shift completed a quick CTD-rosette cast, which will help calibrate the TOP’s sensors. Tonight, we will continue west, keeping an eye out for a good ice floe to complete our final ice station!
