Arctic Sea Ice

The last ice expedition

Yesterday I received an e-mail from climate journalist, film maker and polar explorer Bernice Notenboom, the first Dutch woman to have reached the South Pole:

I am a polar explorer and in the spring of 2013 we plan to ski from the North Pole to Ward Hunt Island on Ellesmere.
We would love to be part of a scientific project, but for funding purposes it needs to be groundbreaking and innovative.

Given that we already have such good satellite data (IceSat, Cryosat, etc.) it will be hard to press the scientists to collaborate. My opinion is that we don't have enough observations in the field during the winter/spring when the Arctic ice is there. One area of interest to me is the multi-year ice that is banked against the coast of Greenland and Canada. We will enter this area around 84° of latitude and I was wondering if you had any ideas what we could do there as we cross it to Ward Hunt Island. What do you think would be relevant to scientists and hasn't been done in the field? Mind you, we are doing this trip pretty much unsupported, so we can't lug heavy instruments or equipment with us.

A scientist at NASA suggested we should look at the aerosols concentration above the Arctic skies -- with a small instrument that records it. We could potentially establish a relationship between the Arctic melt and aerosols concentrations.

Followed by this e-mail:

Also we are desperately looking for logistical support if scientists are heading to the Arctic in spring 2013. 

We would be interested to share costs with parties to the North Pole, resupply at 86'30° and Ellesmere Island (Ward Hunt). Departure around April 1 and pick up in Ellesmere middle of May. That also would be of great help!

If anyone has any ideas, don't be shy.

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The title was taken from an image that Bernice attached to her mail:

I think it's a pretty cool name. :-)

Through the eyes of Healy

This is a translation of a blog post on the excellent Spanish blog on Arctic sea ice called Diablobanquisa:

Towards the North Pole aboard the Healy

We go aboard the icebreaker USCGC Healy again...

...to travel from the Alaskan coast almost all the way to the North Pole.

Its position and route can be seen on this map, which is updated here [I have overlaid the image with a sea ice concentration map to give an idea, N.]:

On this web page we find all the images that are shot on an hourly basis by a webcam aboard the icebreaker Healy. It's a great opportunity to travel, almost live, across the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole, and have a look at the actual state of the Arctic sea ice pack, that is only a few days away from this summer's minimum extent.

On August 21st the USCGC Healy leaves the Alaskan coast behind and sails off into a Beaufort Sea (at 71ºN) that is entirely free of ice:

Polarstern reaches North Pole

According to this press release by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the polar icebreaker Polarstern has reached the North Pole this morning, 22nd August at 9:42 AM CET.

The 55 scientists and technicians from 6 different countries are there to investigate the changes in the Arctic. Hence the name of their expedition: TransArc - Trans-Arctic survey of the Arctic Ocean in Transition.

I have translated one part of the press release that I found of particular interest:

Schauer was in the central Arctic for the last time in 2007 and this time around has found an ice cover that is similar to the one in the year that went into the history books as the year with the lowest sea ice cover since satellite measurements in 1979 began. The first ice thickness measurements confirm this: in 2011 as well as in 2007 most of the ice has an ice thickness of 0.9 m. In comparison, most of the ice in 2001 was measured at 2 m. That year total sea ice extent at the end of the melting season corresponded to the long term average.

This is the third time the Polarstern reached the North Pole. On September 7th 1991 it did so with the Swedisch research icebreaker Oden. Almost exactly 10 years later, September 6th 2001, there was a joint expedition with the American USCGC Healy.

Alfred Wegener Institute press release

ICESCAPE blog

This year we have had the opportunity to follow what scientists are doing in the Arctic through excellent blogs for different operations, such as Operation IceBridge and ICEX 2011. The ESA CryoSat ice blog was extremely informative as well. All these blogs of course ended when the operations ended. Luckily we now have the opportunity to follow the ICESCAPE blog. In fact, they have been blogging for almost 3 weeks now (but I only noticed last week, ahem).

ICESCAPE stands for Impacts of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment, and is a multi-year project sponsored by NASA to determine the impact of climate change upon the health of the Arctic Ocean. 47 scientists aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy are on a five-week mission to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems.

In the past couple of days I have been reading up on their blog and read some fantastic interviews (with chief scientist Kevin Arrigo and albedo expert Don Perovich), learned about some of the equipment they are using, and heard some great sounds (like the sound of breaking ice). All in all a fantastic resource for Arctic aficionados.

This more or less is their weekly blog schedule:

Across the North Pole

Last year we had two Norwegians (successfully) trying to sail both the Northern Sea Route and the Northwestern Passage in one single season. This year we have two Frenchmen who are taking things a step further. According to the Fairbanks Daily:

Two French adventurers are about to embark on a journey over the top of the world, if everything goes to plan. Sébastien Roubinet and Rodolphe André and a small support team are traveling north to Deadhorse after making a brief stop to enjoy the amenities of Fairbanks. Once there, they hope to gain permission from the administrators of the Prudhoe Bay oil field to launch their two-man catamaran into the Arctic Ocean with the goal of crossing the North Pole and ultimately reaching the Norwegian island of Spitsberg in the Svalbard Archipelago, roughly halfway between the North Pole and mainland Norway.

Yes, you read that right: Across the North Pole. And they propose to do it with this very light 200 kg catamaran, the ti-Babouche, which they tested out a few weeks back in Quebec: