First ice camp and polarbear visits - Part 2

(continuing the icecamp 16 - 21 May blog-posting "First ice camp and polarbear visits - Part 1")

Remotely operated (underwater) vehicle ROV

As mentioned, different working groups were interested in going on the ice. Close to Oden, an area of 100 m * 100m was marked with red flags with a hole through the ice that should not be walked by other people. This area was saved for operating a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) underneath the ice. Philipp Anhaus from AWI is the work package leader for operating this ROV to study the spatial variability of physical and biophysical properties of the ocean exaclty underneath the ice and for example measure how much solar light can penetrate through the snow layer and sea ice. This ROV (see photo to the left with Philipp standing at the ice hole with the ROV, taken by Jeff Walker) has several sensors built onto it to measure these diverse parameters close to the ice-ocean surface - it also has both upward and forward looking cameras to record the sea-ice bottom and the water column below sea ice.

Warm and moist air from the south towards Oden

The weather was sunny and cold during the first days of the ice camp, but on the third day (Thursday 18 May) the wind direction turned from northely to southerly. A change in the weather was obvious: temperatures were increasing and the sky became cloudier (see the photo of the ice camp at the top). In the evening, the sky cleared up a little but the temperatures were increasing: we could feel the approach of a warmer and moister airmass from the south! The icefloe also started to break up and new cracks were found - for some of the scientists that deployed their instruments at the edges needed to go back to their equipments and save them!

Friday and Saturday were both quite foggy and cloudy with varying visiblity. Temperatures increased from -10 to -2 and even went slighlty above zero degrees during the strongest southerly warm winds on Saturday May 20 - occasionally when we had light snow or fog, the visibilty dropped down to only 100 m! Due to the varying visibility, only limited people were allowed to go on the ice. The photo above is taken on the ice on Saturday morning May 20 - Oden is barely visible from the met-alley due to the fog and snowfall! The solid snowlayer on the ice was markably softer and occasionally also wet due to the warmer and moister weather conditions. However, this was unfortunately not an atmospheric river despite the southerly winds. The next day, on Sunday May 21, the temperatures dropped below zero again and all the wet snow and water froze onto some of our outdoor equipments - both on Oden and out on the ice. The battery change at the met-alley on Sunday morning was a bit tricky as the batteries as well as the cables were covered with snow and frozen onto the surface. Seems like this warm air and snowfall were not the trigger of melt and we are still in the search of the (right) atmospheric river that bring warm and moist air over sea ice and manages to trigger the melt onset over sea ice. 

Polarbear visit(s) - safe from Oden and while being on the ice (!)

Another funny thing happened - our instruments and equipments on the ice camp did not only interest us, but also another visitor: a polarbear! He (or she?) visited our ice camp on Friday eve just 30 minutes after the last scientists got back on Oden. He was really curious about the red flags and snowmobiles lying on the ice - as well as our met-mast! Fortunately no cables were eaten :D As the polarbear was seen on Friday night, there was a high possibility that he was still around on the weekend. Being out in the morning to swap batteries in fog and bad visibility was a bit scary - identifying a polarbear in these weather conditions was hard! To decrease the time spent on ice, scientists at stations further away from Oden were transported back to Oden by snowmobiles. We all got back onboard safe :)

The 6-days long icecamp was coming to its end and the planned departure was Sunday (May 21) evening. Durning the last day, some scientists went out on ice for their final samples and measurements, whereas some of us went to retrieve our equipments that were left on the ice during the ice camp. Our team (Ian, Heather, Michalis and me) went out to met-valley after dinner to build everything apart and bring the equipments and instruments back onboard. The visibility started to get worse again with fog and light snowfall. We went out with two snowmobiles and three polarbear guards. We were almost done with packing everything when one of the polarbear guards spotted something white moving behind one of the snowridges - a POLARBEAR! As the visibility was so bad, the polarbear must have been closer than 500m from us! Immediately, we left everything as it was (also forgot my gloves!) and run to the snowmobiles and drove back to Oden. The polarbear was also spotted from the bridge. When we were all safe back onboard, we tried to look for the polarbear with binoculars and drones, but nobody could see it anymore. Visibility got better and they allowed only two of us to go back and get our equipments - in 10 minutes we were all back onboard and got all our stuff safe back to Oden. Might have been the same polarbear we saw two days ago that had now returned to say us goodbye?

What an exciting ending to our first ice camp! This expedition is full of surprises!

We left the icefloe later in the evening and are now heading north. Satellite photos look promising and it seems like there might be a path for us through the sea ice so that we could get a few degrees northwards. The transit though the sea ice could take a few days before 82N can be reached. Lets hope this time the ice is not too thick and we can actually take us up north - ready for new adventures!