ITP 87 Deployment
The decision to install ITP87 had to be made quickly on the short term station 8. Distance from already installed ITP81 was shorter than proposed – only 90 km or so but given tight ship schedule and unpredicted ice conditions ahead, best judgment of WHOI team was to proceed with deployment. Scouting party of 3 was send on foot in the morning to the visually chosen site and determined that large ice floe was quite acceptable, ice thickness 120 cm with no ice underneath.
In the morning most gear was lowered by crane from the ship to the ice for afternoon deployment. Winch with cable, float and weight were delivered later by helicopter directly from the ship, the rest in the cargo net was picked up by helicopter from the ice and also delivered to the site.
We have been lucky with weather conditions once again with mild temperature, no wind and intermittent sunshine. Team members were the same as at ITP82 installation – Dr. Qi Sheng Bo, Zheng Wen Li, Wang Xiao Yu and Dr. Alexander Bosin, as well as 2 WHOI personnel. Emphasis was made on more active role for our Chinese colleagues and they all performed admirably.
Smooth and glitch-free process was admired by numerous visitors to the work site, including chief scientist Pan Zengdi and journalist corps. Whole operation was completed in 3 hours. All remaining gear was brought back on board by sleds and ship crane.
As at previous two ITP installations, Automatic Meteorology Station and Sea Ice Mass Balance buoy were left on the ice.
