7 August 2013 Science Filled Days Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy!

Journal

Join the Polar research team as we use technology to join Dr. Carin Ashjian this summer as she continues her research in the Arctic! I will be posting Dr. Ashjians journal details of this summer's research expeditions. We first catch up with her onboard the icebreaker U.S.C.G.C. Healy and then will follow her onboard the R/V Anika Marie where she and her team members will continue their Barrow-based research studying the oceanographic conditions of the bowhead whale habitat.

Journal Entry

Ice off the bow of the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.

We are in the full swing of working. Each day we do 2 (usually) or 3 (once) big stations where the full suite of sampling is conducted, from CTDA research tool that is submerged in the water to measure conductivity (salinity), temperature, and depth. and water sampling to plankton nets to benthic (sea floor) grabs and cores and finally to the trawl net that sweeps larger animals off of the sea floor. The “day” lasts from early morning until around midnight. After midnight, we do higher spatial resolution (closer together) stations using the CTDA research tool that is submerged in the water to measure conductivity (salinity), temperature, and depth. and sometimes plankton nets to describe the physical oceanography and the associated distribution of plankton. At each station, our team does a Bongo tow and then usually 1-2 ring net tows. From some of the ring net tows we pick copepods from the sample for later analysis of genetics and of metabolic activity.

Copepods genus Calanus — Two copepods, genus Calanus, in a photo taken with our microscope.
Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Dr. Carin Ashjian.

The zooplankton group is divided up into watches, with each of us standing a 12-hour watch. Phil and I switch at noon/midnight. Heather and Stephen switch at 6 AM/PM. Hangzhou works mostly during the day, coming out to do net tows with the gang, sampling from the Niskin bottles at the big stations, and running samples on the Cytobot.

We have been in and out of ice for the past few days. Our weather (until this morning) has been decidedly Arctic, with air temperatures below freezing (in the high 20s) and freezing precipitation. It is better when the precipitation is snow but unfortunately much of it has been rain. We have continued to encounter a huge abundance of walrus. One day there were ~7000 walrus sighted!

Walrus swimming in the Arctic — Walrus! Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Tim Sullivan.

Walrus! Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Tim Sullivan.

A visit to the bridge is always interesting. Not only the potential to see walrus, but also to see the changing ice- and seascapes, shifting appearance with different light and cloud conditions. Sometimes the sky appears pink, sometimes steel gray. Rarely blue. I have a lot of photos to send this time. My poor little camera cannot get good shots of the animals that we see from the ship. However, Tim Sullivan, the navigator on board, takes great photos and he is happy to share them.

Polar Bear on Ice — Polar Bear On Ice! Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Tim Sullivan.

Ringed seal! Onboard the U.S.C.G.C. Healy. August 2013. Photo courtesy of Tim Sullivan.

The track of our cruise. We are presently at the red dot in the lower right of the picture. We also went further to the SE during the night and sampled but I don’t have a dot for that location yet. The northern tip of Alaska is the land that you see in the right side of the map.