Halfway of the expedition & freetime and an artist onboard Oden

 

 Sunny days after the storm & crossing 80N :)

On Thursday (25 May) eve, the sun peaked through the clouds at the end of the storm (see photo below). The following three days have been sunny and relatively warm (around -4 degrees C) and quite calm conditions with almost no wind (see photo below). We started moving on Friday (26 May) morning and took a course towards northeast because we wanted to go around a large ice floe and then head north. We were back at the marginal ice zone (at the ice edge) on Saturday (27 May) and we could see Svalbard on the horison in the evening (see photo below). On Saturday eve, we also had our fancy mid-time dinner - already half-way in the expedition?! This means we have three weeks behind us and three weeks to go. Some of us celebrated the sunny weather after the dinner with dancing outside on the helideck, others standing with a drink on the helideck and enjoying the view of seeing the mountaineous Svalbard in the horison. Saturday eve had also another thing to celebrate: we had finally crossed 80N (again)! During these sunny days, we had a few helicopter ice stations, some helipod flights, drone flights and CTDs.

 

The scenery after the storm on Thursday eve (May 25).

 

Sunny day on Friday 26 May.

Svalbard on the horison on Saturday evening (27 May). We are back at the sea ice edge before heading north - west of Svalbard.

Stopped for the second ice camp - is NOW the time to capture the onset of sea ice melt?

Our journey northwards was quite successful and we stopped on Sunday (28 May) eve around 19:00 at 80.5N. The weather was still beautiful and some of us were watching the glittering of the ice and reflection of the sun on the ice and water while we Oden was parking onto the next bigger icefloe (see photo). Sometimes the water and blue-colored icebergs looked like a lagoon and it was really tempting to just jump into the water - but of course we did not do that. In such cold waters we wouldnt survive for that long... But it was beautiful and we stood there for an hour just enjoying the view. In the horison, we could see that a change in the weather was on its way - a layer of low-level clouds could be spotted in the backgroud (see photo). This was a sign that warmer and moister air was on its way over the sea ice.

Parking at the next icefloe on Sunday eve (28 May) for the next longer ice camp.

It is already a week ago we left the first icefloe where we had our first 6-day long ice camp, so it was slowly time to build the next ice camp. Me together with many other scientists started to feel the need/call to get to go on the ice again. The current plan is to stay at this icefloe a bit longer than the last one - this assures that we can get a longer timeseries of continuous data collected at one spot AND hopefully we can capture the sea ice melt onset. We are still at below melting temperatures, but for the previous years around our current location, the melting begun in the end of May, which is exacly around the time we have now! So the melt onset can start any day now! This is exciting! We are expecting something to happen soon - what will trigger the melt onset? Will it be an atmospheric river? How fast will the surface respond to the coming warmer and moister air? How does the snow characteristics change? Do we see something in our aerosol measurements at the timing of the melt onset? When will the sea ice melt happen this year in the Arctic?!!

 

According to model forecasts, the melt onset is predicted to begin this weekend (begin of June); but again it is only a forecast. Still, this gives us hope that the time span of our expedition and the location we are at now were suitable for capturing the melt onset - we still have hope and we do have a few weeks left. I am optimistic! Having a longer icecamp right now (maybe 9 days?) is thus ideal for us: we can set-up our instruments on the ice and build our "met-alley" (the meteorological mast and the radiometer stand) before melt onset (so when the ice surface is still freezing), measure for a few days before the melt, then capture the rapid transition from freezing (winter) to melting (summer) and measure a few days after melt onset (when the ice and snow surface are experiencing melting). This would definitely be the best scene - and a possible one! Anything can still happen! The setup of instruments starts on Monday (29 May).

 

On Sunday (28 May) eve, the low-level clouds and warmer, moister air we saw earlier in the evening came closer and the visiblity dropped remarkably around midnight - super foggy conditions! I was just going to bed to be fully rested and full of energy for the next day's many hours work on the ice when I got a call: A POLARBEAR!!! Without hesitation, I quickly put on my jacket and ran out on the Helideck - and there it was (see photo)! The polarbear was jumping between the ice floes and slush-ice and tried to approach Oden from different angles. It was so qute! Some of us came out on the helideck straight from the sauna with sauna only towels to see the polarbear :D It was a bit scary to think that the next day we are supposed to go on the ice for several hours - in less than 12h after a polarbear was seen on the same icefloe (fresh polar bear tracks were spotted on the ice by scientists the next day!). 

 

Polarbear visit around midnight on Sunday eve (28 May).

 

More about our second but also final icecamp (starting from Monday 29 May) - how it is going and if we capture the melt - will be in the next blogpost.

 

Now, I would like to give you a quick tour on Oden and present what freetime activities there are available on Oden. Also, I want to present Ida Rödén who was chosen for the Artist Program to join our ARTofMELT expedition.

 

Freetime on Oden & Artist program

 

How does life on an icebreaker differ from the daily life and routines you are used to? First of all, you need to get used to your new "home", which in this case is Oden. This means, no supermarkets, no going to cafeterias at a lake for fika, no going climbing in the mountains, no making skype-calls home... but - living on Oden feels like living in an own world where all the necessary facilities and services are available. Sometimes we might miss something (or someone) back home, but quite fast we adapt to the new lifestyle, environment, people and activities we have here.

Three times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) we are served with delicious meals, with two coffee breaks (or fika as we call them in Sveden) inbetween. We have two chefs and two other personal helping out in the kitchen and preparing delicious food for all 70 people living onboard Oden. Special diets are also taken into consideration - and there is always cake for afternoon fika if someone has birthday during the expedition! The kitchen personell also take care of cleaning - and we get reminded whenever there is a bed sheet or towel change coming up. There are one main mess where we gather for the meals or for the "plan of the day & weather briefing" - meetings in the early morning as well as for the science talks during selected evenings. There is also a starboard side mess with confortable couches and tables and a bar! Here, we can meet for after-lunch coffee or playing board- or card-games in the evening with an alcoholfree-drink from the bar. There is also a snack-bar at "Odenplan" where sweets, snacks as well as some cosmetics can be bought. A few times during the expedition, the "Oden-shop" is opened where we can buy for examples T-shirts or cards with Oden painted on them. Odenplan is our center meeting point with a whiteboard where important things and announcements are written onto. The (evening) activities of the day or the person leading the Highest balloon - competition are also announced on the whiteboard. Evening activities (or during the day depending on the plan of the day) announced on the whiteboard involve playing pingpong (table tennis) in the storage room under the helideck, movie of tonight (yes, there is a small cinema on Oden!), movie in the couchroom or when it is time for a Lindy hop dance-class.

 

Dancing Lindy hop on Oden

 

For you who know me, I am an active Lindy hop (swind dance from 1920's) dancer since 2016 and started teaching with my dancepartner in Stockholm in 2020. I love to share my passion to others - and I love to see happy dancers which also gives me joy :) During the SAS2021- expedition, I wanted to make a lindy hop performance that we would perform on the ice at the North Pole. My dream came true - I made a short choreography and tought Lindy hop and the choreo together with Frank for 10-30 people onboard Oden. We performed it on the NorthPole to livemusic in mid-August 2021. All my expectations were exceeded: we were 14 couples that took part in the dance performance - what a dream! I was not sure whether or not I would teach during this expedition as well - but I got kindly asked by others who also joined in 2021 to give dance lessions also this time. After a while I decided to go for it - and it was the right decision :) During last week (inbetween the two ice camps), I gave two classes and hoping to give a few more before the end of the expedition. Dancing makes me happy and I am so glad there is such a big interest in dancing also during this expedition :)

 

 

Apart from pingpong, dancing or movies, other freetime-activities are also going to the gym (during this expedition, the gym that is open 24/7 is well visited by almost everyone, see photo above. I usually go to the gym in the ealry morning around 6 am after a balloon launch and I am never alone there!), going to one of the two saunas (see photo above from the dress-room in one of the saunas) that are heated every evening, chilling in the couchroom talking or playing guitarr or just staying outside and watch the ice breaking and the magical surrounding. Polar bear photography is also quite popular - everytime there is a polarbear outside Oden, everyone runs out with their cameras and takes photos :)

 

The gym on Oden.

The dressing-room in one of the two saunas on Oden.

Artist program

 

Art can also be combined with science. The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) have since 1988 invited artists to take part in research expeditions into polar regions - until now already 20 expeditions had at least one artist onboard. Through the "Artist program" by SPRS, a suitable artist is chosen to capture and document the expedition moments in their own way - through art! For ARTofMELT2023, Ida Rödén was the lucky one who got selected to the artist program.

Ida has her own workspace on Oden in a container on the 4th deck - and the door is always open. I visited her last week and was amazed how talented she is! She showed me her "diary" - four paint-books where one moment of each day is captured in a detailed painting with selected words. I also found myself as the main character in one diary-entry: I asked Ida to paint a polarbear on a weather balloon which I wanted to make for a friend's wedding I unfortunately missed because of the expedition. On the photo below Ida is sitting in her container and painting on that masterpiece of me launching the wedding balloon with her polarbear painting on it. In the background in the photo are more of Ida's art: the paintings at the top right and bottom left shows possible Arctic islands in the far future that could rise above the sea level from underwater ridges - and the possible aquatic animals that could live in such habitats. These drawings mirror the way Ida works. Firstly, she is fascinated by life in deep waters and how different creatures can "time travel" to different stages in their development. Secondly, she is never traveling alone but "brings with her" a travel companion. Since 2014, her fellow traveler has been an explorer Jonas Falck who lived in the 18th century. Jonas was also fascinated by the life in deep waters - but his work was never really recognized and nobody actually knows if he had been to the polar regions or not.

 

Ida Rödén painting in her container on Oden.

 

Ida wants to bring alive art of old explorers through her own eyes, even though they might be imaginary. Physically, Jonas can't travel with Ida, but mentally he is with her and through him Ida can see the world in new ways. This also reflects the "time travel" or "moving between different times" perspective of Ida's work - the "now" or "then" has no real meaning. Art can be reborn through the eyes of another and thereby a "forgotten" explorer can be born again - even 300 years later. Ida was hoping to bring with her Jonas to the Arctic for this expedition, but she was not sure if this kind of travel suited the personality of Jonas. Therefore, Ida explains that she hopes someone else will join her as her travel companion - someone from the same era as Jonas (18th century). She is leaning towards another explorer - a female explorer, inspired by the fate of Jeanne Baret who dressed up as a boy in order to take part in expeditions. During this polar adventure, Ida hopes to be inspired by these forgotten explorers and capture the moments of this expedition, in their presence but through her own eyes. She is interested to get to know more about the science on Oden and excited for all the interesting communication with new poeple. She said she has been waiting for a moment when she will feel board - but until now this feeling has not been there.

 

A different way to combine science and art on an icebreaker - limited to the people onboard but with unlimited possibilities to express what she sees though art. Can´t wait to see more of her art and her interpretations of this expedition.