Stormy and windy conditions in between Greenland and Svalbard

Friday May 12 - heading north

We are still heading north and finally crossed the 80N! Lets hope the ice conditions allow us for reaching the target latitude of 82N. The weather is still nice and sunny with temperatures below -10 degrees, however, with lower windspeed (4.5m/s) it actually feels quite warm. Yesterday, in same temperatures but winds above 10 m/s felt like -20degrees! Launching the weather balloon today morning was quite pleasant in the sun, surrounded by ice, snow and ocean. This is just amazing-a scenery you could watch hours of hours and never get bored!

Today afternoon we stopped for another ocean vertical profile & water samples with CTD (see photo) and another long (4h) helicopter ice station happened during the day. The target of the scientists was mainly to get to the sea ice edge or leads to get some nice water samples and vertical profiles in the upper ocean below sea ice.

 

Ian Brooks was one of the lucky ones that got to see the cute polar bear that showed up during midnight just a few days ago. The polar bear photo is taken by Ian Brooks late evening on May 10. I wish to see more polar bears during the expedition.


The route of the expedition is largely dependent on the ice conditions. Around 18:00 we stopped due to thicker ice infront of us. We will probably stay here for some time and wait to see how the ice infront will change and if and when it allows us to go further north.

The sunny Arctic weather suddenly changed in the evening: a low-pressure system from the south is crossing Oden on its way northeast, bringing stronger winds (above 15 m/s!!!) and snowfall to us. So maybe we’ll just have to wait for the storm to pass and hope that the storm will be the game breaker and allow us to move northwards in a few days due to wind-induced dynamical motions on the sea ice. 


Saturday May 13 - hit by a snowstorm


The winds increased and the strongest winds (mean wind of 18 m/s during the 6 UTC balloon launch) occurred in the early Saturday morning. The wind causes snow to be blown over the snow-covered sea ice, i.e. blowing snow, and piles of snow can be found all around the ship. Some instruments are covered by snow, but the strong winds also help keeping the instruments clear from snow by blowing it away. Today, we are recommend to avoid going outside, and if we do, bring a friend for safety (so we don’t blow off the ship!). One of the daily routines of the scientists onboard is to do daily check-ups on our instruments. For me, it included to go to the upper 7th deck of the ship where the winds and horizontally flying snow hit you straight in the face. Trying to smile facing against the wind was quite tricky due to the wind and snow (photo, by Heather Guy). Note the snow blowing off the ice behind me and the larger icebergs that most likely have been cut off from the main ice pack due to the strong north-easterly winds! This is the Arctic!


Due to the current weather situation, we have no ice stations or other operations planned for today, but instead we are all invited by the captain to join for a more fancy welcoming dinner tonight. Looking forward to it! And not to forget about Eurovision Song Contest! Despite being away from all social media here up in the north, we are also planning to have our version of Eurovision here on Oden. Looking forward to the evening social activities! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Expedition overview - did we succeed? An interview with the Chief Scientist Michael Tjernström

Image
 To make an expedition happen, a lot of planning and collaboration work are required. Even though everything would be ready, it might still not go as planned once the expedition is on-going. The environment in the Arctic challenges the completion of the plan: will the ice conditions be favorable for us this year? How is the weather going to be? Will we be able to observe what we came for? There are many things we can plan for, but in the end the conditions while being out in the Arctic determine what can be accomplished for of the original plans and decisions need to be made based on the available material.  On many of the questions above I could give you an answer to as I together with 37 other scientists took part in this spring’s 6-week long expedition called “ARTofMELT” (8 May to 16 June 2023) and got to experience how this expedition eventually turned out to be. But to get the best insights and thoughts about the progress of the expedition, I interviewed the expedition Ch...
Read more

Second icecamp - up to 30 polar bears until now!

Image
Overview of the icecamp and the main “roads” to the ROV site (to the left) and our met-alley (to the right) taken on Monday 5 June.   This ice camp (see photo above) was built on Monday 29 May and we were still at the same icefloe, 2 weeks later. We have developed a routine schedule for almost every day, but the plan of the day changes due to the ice conditions, weather or polar bears. Sometimes, there are helicopter ice stations planned, drone flights, Helikite or Helipod operations or other ice work conducted on the ice apart from the “regular” ones. You can read about the first snowstorm and the frosty weekend during the first week of the second ice camp in my previous posting (“ First week of the Second icecamp - Icework and its challenges”; posted 8 June).   For this posting, I will continue taking you on a journey through the second week of the second icecamp – with the emphasis on the several polar bear visitors we had during the last week. In fact, the polar bear ...
Read more

Stationary in Svalbard before the departure today (Monday May 8) at midnight 23:59 towards the sea ice edge

Image
 Arrival in Svalbard on Sunday 7 May  After an early morning wake-up in the sunny but chilly Oslo, scientists and crew members headed towards the Oslo airport - with the destination Longyearbyen, Svalbard. There was many happy faces greeting each other at the gate - happy and excited for the coming 6 weeks in the Arctic. The journey to the north starts now! Flying over the snow-covered mountains on Svalbard - almost there! The plane landed in Tromsö on the way to Longyearbyen. It was a beautiful weather flying above the Norwegian Sea over the clouds - until snow-covered mountains and glaciers were spotted from the heights - SVALBARD! Svalbard is an archipelago of mountains and fjords, just around 10 degrees south of the North Pole with over half of the archipelago covered by glaciers. The population of Svalbard is about 2.5 thousand - of which 25 % are students and living mainly in Longyearbyen. On Longyearbyen, which is the capital of Svalbard, there is actually a university ...
Read more