Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Geoff York
Although far from clear, sunny, or warm, the weather is definitely improved when I look outside around 7 AM. After a little breakfast, I head up to our makeshift office and we make a plan to launch around 10 AM. Today we will head around 120 kilometres to the northeast.
The large lead (area of open water in the sea ice) that existed just offshore from our camp has closed overnight. The ice in the Chukchi Sea is very dynamic, even in the middle of winter. This part of the Chukchi is always ice free in the summer, so everything we are flying over and working on is first year or newer ice and typically not much more than 2 metres thick. Leads are constantly forming and closing and as the season winds to a close next week, the ice should really start to fragment and simply begin melting.
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Monthly Archives: April 2010
Hoping for a chance encounter
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
By Geoff York
Weather often dictates fieldwork in Alaska, especially when you have to be in the air or on the water. This morning it is foggy with periodic snow. As conditions can change quickly up here, we always assume things will improve and plan accordingly.
The daily morning routine: wake up between 6-7 AM, check the weather, grab coffee and a quick breakfast, check the weather, grab the clean field laundry, repack all of the clean and dried capture gear, check the weather, review the equipment list and make sure we have everything we might need, check the weather, grab a cup of coffee and briefly check email (yes – even up here, I cannot escape technology), check the weather, meet with the pilot and check the weather in Kotzebue to set a tentative launch time, pack food and water for the day, check the weather, wait.
Starting to fill in the information gaps on polar bears
WWF International Arctic Programme polar bear specialist, Geoff York, is currently in the Chukchi Sea area with the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service, conducting research into the status of polar bear populations in the area. This is the first of several blogs from him during his time there.
By Geoff York
Monday, April 19, 2010, 4.00am, Alaska
Map of the Chukchi Sea area
When you travel within or outside of this huge state, you get used to very early or very late flight arrangements. This morning I’m catching the first flight to Kotzebue, a moderate-sized town just north of the Bering Strait and a regional transportation hub. The sun is already rising as we cross the Alaska Range just south of Denali- even after 20 years of living up here, this is an impressive view. I’ll have about 4 hours of airport appreciation time in Kotz before jumping on a small plane to the closest airstrip near the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) field camp for Chukchi Sea polar bear research. Once on the ground I’ll have an 80 kilometre (50 mile) road trip by truck to finally reach the team and helicopter. This marks my twelfth consecutive capture season in Alaska. The FWS team began this season on March 13 and has already captured 47 bears to date.
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Daniels takes a dip
By the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team
Today Ann had her first unscheduled dip in the Arctic Ocean. With the amount of thin ice that the Explorer Team have been crossing over the past few days it was inevitable that one of them was going to get wet sooner or later. Since Ann is the lightest of the three she normally takes the lead when crossing thin ice but that also means she is constantly in the ‘Guinea Pig’ role. She managed to avoid total immersion but an arm and leg went through the ice into the water below. Ann was able to get herself to some firmer ice and once there simply had a roll around in the snow to help absorb any excess moisture.
Moving ice, fissures and resupply
By the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team
To call the last 14 days eventful for the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team would be the grossest sort of understatement. Two weeks of both the weird and wonderful culminated in a rude awakening on Thursday morning when the ice pan on which they were camped started to break up.
Charlie Paton describes the situation in more detail. “We heard a crack, a few bangs and then suddenly the ice started to break apart. It all happened very quickly and was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.”
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Polar bear patroller: the dog who is ‘star of the North’
Brownie, a 5 year old husky cross, can boast to be the dog who’s on top of the world. Well, furthest north at any rate. She’s on polar bear alert guarding the scientists and support team of the Catlin Arctic Survey way out on the floating sea ice of the Arctic ocean.
By Rod Macrae
Brownie is an early warning detector for polar bears. She spends her days watching the horizon and sniffing the wind for bears. The team recruited Brownie to come with them onto the frozen ocean because it is a popular place for polar bears to hunt for food, mostly seal.
Paul Ramsden, Ice Base manager, said “She’s done a fantastic job so far. No bear has come anywhere near the place. But that’s because Brownie’s done her job as our deterrent and our early warning system.
“As temperatures begin to rise at this time of year, the possibility of open water near the Ice Base increases. Open water encourages seals to surface, and that attracts the attention of polar bears. Brownie will become even more important to us as the weather gets warmer.”
“Sometimes she does head out of the camp to accompany the scientists out doing their work. That’s when she gets to pull a sledge, which she seems to love.”
Brownie has been trained for her job in the northern Canadian outpost of Resolute.
“It takes quite a lot of training to become a good polar bear watch dog. You need a brave dog that does not just run off and hide in the tent when it senses a polar bear! Brownie is a really brave dog.”
The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is focused on what is widely considered to be the ‘other’ carbon problem beyond climate change – that of ocean change, researching how greenhouse gases could affect the marine life of the Arctic ocean. Laura Edwards, a researcher from Bangor University in Wales, and Rod Macrae, Head of Communications at Geo Mission, are blogging for WWF throughout the Survey from the Catlin Arctic Survey Ice Base in Nunavut, northern Canada – please come back regularly for their updates.
Novel use for chill box is boost for science survey
How do you keep water samples from freezing on an arctic expedition? Put them in a chill box!
By Rod Macrae
It’s no picnic surviving on an arctic expedition in the depths of winter and early spring. But if you are doing a scientific survey at the same time, it is a lot more challenging. For the explorers in the Catlin Arctic Survey team trekking across the floating sea ice of the Arctic ocean, a picnic cool box is a vital piece of kit.
Their mission required them to collect water samples and somehow keep the water from freezing, despite these samples having to be continually stored on their sledges in temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius. It’s critical for the samples to be kept liquid to enable the scientists to do their research effectively. This clever little innovation has helped the expedition keep these vital water samples from freezing for 18 days in the polar ‘freezer’.
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At the Ice Base – the research begins
By Laura Edwards
Based on first year sea ice approximately 1.5 m thick and about 10 km from the rugged coastline of Isachsen on Ellef Rignes Island the location of the Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 Ice Base site is stunning. It’s quite surreal here, like being on a different planet and it’s not as flat as you might think. The ice we’re camped on is flat but to the north and south of camp there are regions of multi-year ice which have ridged up over time and created a bizarre but beautiful rubbled ice landscape.
Our sample site is approximately 2km west of camp and initially we used a skidoo to get all the equipment out there to take the samples of water chemistry, biology and underlying physical measurements (currents and temperature profiles). As well as the water studies, we are also taking ice core samples for analysis and atmospheric studies to help with the determination of CO2 flux through the sea ice. The skidoo, like many mechanical and digital systems, did not like the extreme cold and broke down – and it chose to do so on the day a storm developed whilst we were at the sample site. We ended up having to return to camp during the storm on foot. The temperature at the ice base had been around -25 to -40 °C for our first week in camp but the night of the storm, with winds gusting up to 60 mph, temperatures that night reached below -60 °C with wind chill.
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