Final week of the expedition – capturing melt onset, leaving the sea ice and visiting Svalbard on the way home
I want to start to apologize of not updating my blog the last weeks. I am back home since Friday 16 June, but all the hard work and less sleep on Oden for the last 6 weeks were quite exhausting in the end and I needed some recovery time and sleep (and catching up with all hundreds of work emails and social media stuff) before finding the energy to finalize my blog. But here I am, and I will now tell you and show some nice photos from the last week of the expedition. In the last posting (“Second icecamp - up to 30 polar bears until now!”; Posted 12 June), the focus was not only on the research by mainly on the polar bear visits that made our work on the ice quite challenging. I will now return a few days back, starting from Friday 9th of June, and include a bit more of the weather and other activities that happened that weekend. Additionally, I will tell you about the journey as we left the sea ice early Monday (12 June) morning, arrived in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on Tuesday eve June 13 and said goodbye to Oden on Thursday 15th of June.
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Friday 9 June midnight: the sunny weather was about to change. Note the cloudband in the horizon associated with the warmer and moister airmass approaching from the south. |
Friday eve, 9th of June: the arrival of the Atmospheric River
The many polar bears that visited us on Friday was not the only exciting thing for us that day. For the past 5 weeks, we had been waiting for the right weather conditions: winds from the south bringing in a narrow band of warm and moist air towards the Arctic, i.e., “Atmospheric Rivers” or “ARs”. The arrival of these ARs accompany increasing temperatures. humidity and thereby also cloudiness, possibly fog, precipitation and sometimes stronger winds locally in the Arctic – indicating a complete change to the traditional cold and dry Arctic conditions. These ARs are also hypothesized to be the reason for triggering the melt onset over sea ice – so that the snow covering the sea ice becomes wet as it begins to melt, forming melt ponds on the sea ice (shallow “ponds” of melted snow on the sea ice) and further with melting ice below. But until now, the melting had not begun and we were already approaching the end of the expedition – how could we end the expedition and leave the Arctic before the melting begins, thereby not getting the answer to our question we wanted to answer and the phenomena we wanted to study? We had a few ARs passing by remotely and the effect of these warmer and moister air masses were felt also on Oden, but they were not strong enough to maintain the melting after the ARs passed us. But this time it was going to be different: the forecasts were more certain and I could feel and see it coming! It was forecasted to arrive on Saturday (10 June) after lunch, but eventually it arrived slightly earlier – and I could see it coming at midnight when I went with a colleague out on the deck and looked south. “Finally!” – I said to her – “finally what we have been waiting for is coming!”
I went to bed late that night with a good feeling – a feeling of success!
Saturday 10 June – the begin of the sea ice melt!
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Foggy and snowy weather during the whole Saturday (10 June). |
The weather had remarkably changed during the night. The warm and moist air with the clouds hit Oden at 6:00 early morning on Saturday (10 June). The fog came over the sea ice right after the clouds arrived, lowering the visibility for the whole day with no sun peaking through. These conditions (warmer and moister air and the clouds) managed to bring the surface to exceed the melting point: we were above melting (above 0 degrees) at 6:51 in the morning! The southerly wind did not only bring warmth, humidity and clouds, but also winds so that the ice started to move. During the night, a larger icefloe was pushing towards us, making one of the mooring lines to break! So, we were actually breaking that large ice floe during the night and then re-mooring to the icefloe we had our equipment on in the morning.
Despite managing to moore back onto the floe, we were not allowed to step onto the ice during the whole day. This was because of the bad visibility caused by the fog and wet snow and polar bear(s) wandering around on our icefloe (!) that were occasionally visible through the fog. A photo of the polar bear walking close to the mooring lines and the snow scooters can be seen in my previous posting.
Everything was quite wet – such a large change – and a sudden change from winter yesterday to summer today! Crazy actually how rapid transition this is in the Arctic! Even though we could not manage to go out on the ice to check on our instruments if they were running and getting observations from this important event, we could still do something from Oden to obtain even more observations. From lunch on today for a couple of days, we introduced a more frequent weather balloon launching schedule: instead of every 6 hours, we launched weather balloons from the helideck on Oden every 3 hour! This meant 8 balloons per day and launching 3 am in the night! Sounds quite a lot, but we had the most cooperative met-team onboard Oden and together we managed this tight schedule despite all other work tasks. Big thanks to all of you!
Sunday 11 June: pack-up of the icecamp 2 and head south to escape the storm
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Sunday (11 June) afternoon: the approach of the next storm. |
The fog cleared up shortly on Sunday (11 June) morning, which gave a short window for some of us to go out on the ice and check on our instruments and change batteries. Fortunately, as already told in the previous posting, all our instruments were running and nothing was destroyed by the fury polar bear visitor we had yesterday.
We first thought of prolonging the stay at this icefloe until Tuesday, in order to capture the processes after melt. However, the weather told us otherwise: we had a low-pressure system approaching us (currently the storm was located between Svalbard and Greenland to the south of us). This storm was expected to cause (again) high wind speeds, winds turning easterly and then northerly, and wet snow and rain was also forecasted. A decision was made by the expedition leaders that we were going to pack up everything today and leave this icefloe tonight before the storm. So, this was going to be the end of icecamp 2, which lasted 2 weeks AND captured the conditions both before and during melt.
The fog was still hanging around, coming and going as it wanted. Whenever there was a window in the weather, another working group were sent out on the ice together with the polar bear watches and snow scooters to collect their instruments, or to conduct the last observations and gather last samples before it was time to leave. Ice work was concentrated mainly in the morning (but with a polar bear still sticking around and varying visibility). The whole met-team were sent out on the ice after lunch to take down our instruments and the equipment. The photo above is taken right when we step onto the surface (with now already wetter snow, so the change in the surface ice and snow characteristics following the melt onset was visible!). It was still cloudy and partly foggy, but the darker cloud in the background alarmingly told us about the storm to come and that we should hurry. It was a sad feeling knowing that this was going to be the last time for us to be on the ice – at least for this expedition Sad but also happy that I got the possibility to join and experience the Arctic again!
After 45 minutes we were all back onboard again – and the icefloe that just for some hours ago still had our icecamp on it, was now completely empty. It started to rain heavily and the snow on the ice got even wetter – also some small meltponds were forming on the ice. We left the icefloe at 16:00 that day.
I also gave the last lindy hop dance class today evening – so grateful that so many scientists as well as others wanted to take my classes – I hope you all had as much fun as I did
Monday 12 June – waiting for the storm to pass
Today was the last day for many for their actual measurements onboard Oden. The icecamp was already over, but some instruments were still running onboard. One-by-one, they were shut down after the data was properly saved and backed-up. Boxes and other equipment in the containers needed to be labelled (for later transport) and secured for the coming transit over the Atlantic. So there was still work to do. For us meteorologists, some instruments were craned off the roof of a container and the instruments on the foremast were also taken down in the evening. Standing in the front of the ship makes you quite exposed to the winds – and thus the plan was to remove the instruments off the foremast in the evening after that the worst storm had passed. Well, it came a bit later and the stronger winds hit us exactly when we were out there…
The winds turned northerly in the morning, bringing colder and drier air towards Oden in the early Monday morning. Despite the forecast, the winds were still not that high, but staying around 6 m/s. However, the winds were picking up in the afternoon and it was super wet with the wet snow. Winds up to 12 m/s were measured in the late afternoon, shortly after which we went out on the foremast to remove the instruments. It was soo cold and we were freezing! – worst thing was that your gloves got wet and then it felt so cold because of the cold northerly winds (the air temperature was still slightly above zero degrees but felt like -10!). But we managed, somehow, to pack it all up – and the finally packed the dried instruments in its box at 2:00 in the night. Was such a long day!
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At the marginal ice zone (sea ice edge) at midnight, around 2:00am on Tuesday 13 June. |
We were parked during the storm a bit away from our icefloe, but were drifted by the winds and currents southwards. By midnight, we were already in the marginal ice zone, i.e., at the ice edge, with a larger fraction of open ocean and clearly smaller ice floes floating around (see photo above). A few hours after I went to bed that night, at 4:00 on Tuesday 13 June, the storm weakened and we started moving. While sleeping, we left the ice edge at 6:30am.
Tuesday 13 June – transit to Svalbard and farewell
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No sea ice anymore on Tuesday (13 June) morning . |
This was a bumpy transit and we had quite some large waves due to the storm we had yesterday (the ocean has a memory). We were driving quite fast southeastwards, towards Svalbard, to escape the next approaching storm. Because of the high speed and that we left the sea ice a bit earlier than planned, we were going to be in Norwegian air territory already after lunch today (as Svalbard belongs to Norway). This meant that also the launching of weather balloons had to come to its end. Today at noon (12:00 UTC) was our last weather balloon (number 151!) – and we did the launch as a group launch together with every one of us that did the majority of the weather balloons during this expedition. The video below shows you how the launch was done. Beautify but sad moment.
Tuesday 13 June at 11:31 UTC: this video shows the group launch of the last weather balloon for this expedition.
We could start to see the snow-covered mountains of Svalbard, the glaciers and fjords. The winds weaken as well as the waves as we arrived into the fjord around 15:30 in the afternoon. The rest of the day went to packing and making sure everything is secured, shutting down the last instruments that were still running (as our weather station), paying the costs (in cash) to the captain that each of us had spent on buying souvenirs, drinks or snacks or for phone calls via the satellite phone during the last 6 weeks on Oden – and then we had our farewell dinner. Before the dinner, the artist Ida Rödén gave a presentation about her work and thinking during the expedition. Really fascinating! We were all dressed up and then guided to the mess for a lovely and delicious three-course dinner. As this was the farewell dinner, speeches were given (by the Captain, the Chief Scientist, the Expedition Coordinator). I also volunteered for a “speech” – well, it was more like a presentation with a prize ceremony for the winners of the “highest weather balloon” – competition. The top 3 highest balloon launchers got their balloon trophies, whereas the “lowest balloon” also got one price (see photo below; thanks for the Oden crew engineers who produced these amazing trophies based on Michalis’ sketches). Unfortunately, the “crew-launchers” (including me) were not allowed to participate in the main competition, but we organized prizes for all of us as well
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Prices for the top 3 highest (# 1-3) and the lowest (#-1) weather balloon- competition. The heights of the highest three balloons in the competition were all above 28 km, whereas the lowest balloon was slightly above 22 km. The average height of all 151 balloons launched during the expedition was 25.8 km. |
Once we arrived in Isfjorden at Svalbard, the weather was stunning (see photo below)! Many of us had now gotten their internet connection back – but several decided not to turn it on before we step out of the ship. Many, including me, were standing out in the deck and making a phone call home to their beloved ones.
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Svalbard on Tuesday (13 June) eve. What a beautiful scenery! |
Wednesday 14 June – parking outside Longyearbyen & the end of the ARTofMELT23 expedition
Wednesday was a rainy and cloudy day while cruising around in the fjords in Svalbard. We changed the time from UTC to local time (+2h) during the night. This was also a sign that the expedition was coming to its end. Despite the 2-hour time shift, there were still people up for breakfast 7:45 local time. As for the last days, today was much about finalizing all packing and making sure that we have everything backed-up – or twice back-up, so that we have the access to our data even when we leave Oden. For some scientists, they had to organize transport of snow / water samples or ice cores from the freezers (as they would be picked up somehow in Helsingborg once Oden returns there after the transit).
Me and Michalis tried to pack away as much of our equipment as possible – but left some instruments attached, that will survive the heavier transit, until the demobilization (where all stuff will be craned off Oden in Helsingborg in the beginning of July). Was a crazy busy day for many of us – we could not forget anything. Additionally, we had to clean our cabins thoroughly and pack our personal stuff.
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View over Longyearbyen once Oden was anchored in the fjord on Wednesday (14 June) evening. |
Thursday 15 June – leaving Oden, short visit in Longyearbyen and flights to Oslo
It was an early morning – wakeup 5:30 to be ready for cabin check starting at 6:00. Our cabin was one of the cabins that got checked first – and fortunately we passed the cleaning test! In our cabin, we agreed on not using the bathroom anymore after the throughout cleaning we did the evening before, and only use the sauna areas for brushing teeth etc. And it seems to work fine! We were then guided to bring our larger luggage and bags to the aft of the ship, from where they would be transported onshore around 11:00.
We were divided into boat – groups with our own breakfast time slots. I, together with Michalis, were on the first boat (and of course my cabin mates). Our boat left at 7:40 – and we put on the floating suites to avoid becoming wet during the boat transit (see photo below). We also saw many cruise ships anchored around us, as well as one large German cruise ship AIDA parked closer at the harbor in Longyearbyen. This meant that today (on a Thursday!) it was going to be busy with tourists in Longyearbyen!
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Transported by speedboats from Oden onshore Longyearbyen. We were wearing floating suites (for the last time) for the boat trip to avoid becoming wet during the ride. Me and Michalis are posing with the floating suites on the top photo (Thursday 15 June). |
Depending on which boat you were put onto, we had from 2–4-hour time to spend in Longyearbyen. The early departures from Oden were mainly because of honorable guests visiting Oden during the day – among them the Crown Princess Victoria. Some of the expedition leaders and other personal together with the crew stayed onboard for the visit (and the crew for the transit back). Oden left Longyearbyen late in the evening for the transit towards Helsingborg.
The most of us had to leave Oden today. These 2-4 hours on Longyearbyen were spent differently: some went to visit colleagues at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), some went for a proper coffee in a cafeteria, some went to do some souvenir shopping, some wandering around in town and some even had an (or a few) early beer(s) (as Oden was 100% dry). It was super nice to be back (for me) in Longyearbyen (I studied there in autumn 2016) and I am so happy we got to spend some time in town before we had to go to the airport. I was so excited to be in Longyearbyen that I did not feel how tired I was after (an) early morning(s) and the fact that we had actually left Oden now. The two photos below are taken during the stay in town on Thursday morning.
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The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) at the fjord in Longyearbyen, with Oden peaking to the upper-left above UNIS. |
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Longyearbyen, surrounded by mountains: to the right Platåfjellet and infront Sakrofagen. Sakrofagen is surrounded by two glaciers: Longyearbreen to the right and Larsbreen to the left. The ground in summer in Longyearbyen is quite brown, with no trees, except for the snow-covered mountain tops and meltwater rivers. |
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Oden anchored outside Longyearbyen. Photo taken close to UNIS in Longyearbyen (Thursday 15 June). |
We had to return to the harbor by 12:15, where we also received our luggage, to be picked up by a shuttle bus and then transported to the airport. Even at the airport, while waiting for the plane (it was again a group booking so we were all going to be in the same plane!), many of us enjoyed one or a few cold beers. The plane departed 14:30. With a stop in Tromsö, we arrived slightly delayed in Oslo around 19:30 the same day. WHAT A temperature shock, when stepping out: + 30 degrees and sunny! Felt like being in the tropics! Just some hours ago the temperature was around 3 degrees, and a week ago below zero, and now 30 degrees warmer! Puh! One by one, a group by group, we had to say goodbye to “our family” we had for the last 6 weeks on Oden. Around 20 of us stayed in Oslo for the night (or some nights) before traveling home. This was nice, as it gave us a more step-wise goodbye than saying goodbye to everyone at once. As most of us had a hotel close to the airport, we met in the evening for drinks and dinner. Most of us had our home flight booked on the next day, on Friday 16 June. Still at the airport, we met could meet some of us and escort them to their gates and wishing for a safe flight home and a farewell.
This was the end of the practical expedition – and it is now that all the data analysis will start. But first, I think we all need some rest and we have deserved to enjoy the summer!
I will do two more postings for this expedition: One where I include other working groups that have not yet been included in my blog (such as ocean research, sea-bed mapping, helicopter ice stations, more aerosols), and one more concluding and wrap-up posting. In the latter I will give you a brief overview of the expedition through an interview I did with the Chief Scientist (and my current chef) Michael Tjernström (professor at Stockholm University) onboard Oden during the last days of the expedition. A cruise map as well as some more interesting photos will also be included in the posts to come. Thank you for reading my blog – I hope you had (and will have) a wonderful time following our journey in the Arctic with the Swedish Icebreaker Oden and enjoyed reading (and seeing photos) about the important research we conducted and all the cute polar bear visits. Stay tuned for the last two posts!
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