Note from Craig and Brett

We recorded a CTD cast in front of the Barne Glacier – pretty impressive.  30 m high glacier wall plunging pretty much to the bed at 150 m deep.   This was opportunistic but an interesting comparison to our main activities near a floating glacier.  It’s very windswept with bare ice scraped clean by the wind.  The occasional chunk of ice falls off.

Our 24 spring cycle with the turbulence profiler went well … lots of deep energetic mixing but we’re trying to keep our sights on the shallow structure closer to the depth of the glacier tongue.  We then repeated this on a neap tide so the flows were less energetic.  More layering and weaker mixing thus ensue. 

There are quite some challenges to sampling for 24 hours – we take a profile approximately every 20 minutes.  We have to maintain vigilance so that we don’t crash the probe through the bed or the pulley at the surface.  We also have to keep an eye on the data as it comes up the line and maintain and replace sensors as they degrade in the harsh conditions.  All this is fuelled by coffee, brownies and increasingly bizarre music and conversation.

Lots of dialogue amongst the team about data… we are working at the very limits of what’s possible with today’s instrumentation.  Some varied and highly experienced knowledge here on ocean mixing under sea ice.

Lots of gear freezing up even though we should be on the borderline where ice forms.

Weather variable – woke up this morning and it was gorgeous and blowing a gale by 4pm.  Last night apparently the Cape Roberts Camp 100 km to the north west blew away – we haven’t seen it.

Regards,

Craig and Brett