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Return from the Big Ice!
Note from Andrew:
They’re back...with all the instruments even!
The team has returned from Antarctica after a successful three weeks on the ice. Apart from weather beaten faces, and a slightly crazed look in their eyes, it seems everyone returned no worse for wear. But now the real work begins! The project was a great success in that we now have plenty of data to sort through and analyze in the coming months to figure out just what was going on under the ice next to the glacier tongue.
As the field team takes a couple days to recover from their 3-week non-stop work stint I’ll share two valuable lessons that were passed onto me regarding field work in Antarctica...the use of ice holes in particular:
1.Always have a smaller ice hole than your friends. That way the seals take up residence in someone else’s roomy, comfortable ice hole. You will not have to wake up sleeping seals to deploy instruments, nor will you have seals constantly barking at you and sneezing partially digested invertebrate bits on you.
2.Never cut an ice hole larger than a snowmobile. When trying to free a mooring that had gotten stuck the team tied the end to a snowmobile and hit go! When the top instrument did break loose, it actually pulled the snowmobile back several meters because of its weight. Luckily snowmobile and driver stopped before going in the drink.
Even though the team is finished with the field work, I will continue posting newsletters as I acquire more images, video and data from the project. So stay tuned for more...
Cheers,
Andrew
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A wrap-up note from Craig:
Well it’s all done and dusted bar months and months of analysis and discussion. To this end we have a workshop planned for May of 2011 to share initial results and develop a list of publications to work on. I gave a talk at Scott Base where I mentioned that it might take as long as four years to finalize the work into publications. It was clear from the response that people are generally unaware of the timescales at which science works. I think this has to be met from two ends – the publication process needs to speed up and the public have to understand that new knowledge takes time to grow and consolidate.
The final few days in Antarctica we spent at Scott Base cleaning and packing our gear. We also had to prepare and hand over some equipment to following teams working on sea ice and ice shelf-ocean interactions.
Luckily for us our return flight was on an Airbus, not sandwiched amongst the cargo on a C-17. This time of year most of the passengers are heading south so there was just 11 of us aboard for the return flight north. The pilot took us around the crater of Mt Erebus with fantastic views back along our field site. This was simply magical and no one aboard could believe their luck.
For our aspect of the project probably the key success was that of the ADCPs (acoustic Doppler current profilers) which returned fabulous pictures of the flow developing at a range of scales. Layers of complex flow circulating in the lee of the tongue along with some very large vertical flows are likely strong influences on local mixing and ice growth. We then managed to interrogate these flows with sensors moving both vertically and horizontally as well as statically sampling in time – an attempt at 4D capture. Furthermore the ROV brought back great images of the glacier walls at depth as well as the sorts of particles flowing beneath the ice tongue. We also did our best to capitalize on outreach through discussions with a BBC film crew. They were pretty astounded to see the sorts of science we were doing – although truth be told they mainly wanted to see seals.
One of our team members summed it up nicely at the closing hash brown-free dinner at Scott Base – the science is only part of it – the other part is the people. It’s been great learning from my colleagues. The opportunities provided by the various funding agencies has been well and truly grasped.
A smaller team is planning to work with an Italian group next year looking at similar processes next to the far larger Drygalski Ice Tongue – this is presently the only large floating glacier in Antarctica extending out into the coastal ocean.
Cheers,
Craig
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Final team shot in front of the glacier tongue left to right: Craig Stevens, Alexander Forrest, Martin Doble, Brett Grant, Tim Haskell, Timothy Stanton, Jim Stockel & Miles McPhee. Credit: C. Stevens.
Final team shot dressed for gala dinner at Scott Base. Credit: C. Stevens.
The potential site for next year’s work – the Drygalski Ice Tongue – some 160 km to the north of our present work and around a factor of 10 larger. The swirling waters to the lower right are formed by the Terra Nova Bay polynya – the birth place of sea ice and cold salty ocean water.. Credit: C. Stevens.
Mount Erebus volcanic crater smoking during the departure flight. Credit: A. Forrest.
Martin Doble readies UBC-Gavia for deployment in the ice hole (temporarily free of seals). Credit: A. Forrest.
Recovering a stuck mooring - note ice hole is smaller than the snowmobile. Credit: C. Stevens.
Martin Doble negotiates with a seal for space to deploy UBC-Gavia through the hole. Credit: C. Stevens.