By Walt Meier Jun. 1, 2016 — We started our last day of the camp with a morning visit to the Inupiat Heritage Center to learn more about the indigenous local culture. Many of the Inupiat in Barrow still live their traditional subsistence lifestyle – hunting, trapping, and fishing for food. They do however take advantage […]
After escaping from heavy seas, we are heading back to port. This will be not a short travel, it will take about 5 days to arrive at Woods Hole. But all the time and effort of science team and crew members are worthy in order to explore one of the most amazing ecosystems: oceans. One […]
PMEL Aerosol Group Aerosols are another name for particulate matter in the atmosphere. Aerosols are important because in clear skies they can scatter sunlight back to space can act to help cool the planet. Aerosols are also important because they can act as a site for water to condense on and form cloud particles. Particles […]
By Walt Meier May 31, 2016 — The morning sessions this week have been inside in a classroom setting. It’s been like being back in school, which has been quite fun (believe it or not). For the first four days I’ve been a student, but today I got to be the teacher. I gave the class […]
By Walt Meier May 30, 2016 — This morning we did another modeling exercise, led by Jen Kay of the University of Colorado. A question a sea ice scientist inevitably gets asked is “so, when is the Arctic Ocean going to become ice free?” I can understand the interest, but answering it is quite difficult. One […]
THE BLOW So far we have been blessed with calm seas and fair winds. We arrived yesterday at our last station, somewhat rested after a 24 hours transit and ready for the grand finale. Neptune had another plan. Half way through the station the winds picked up very quickly, reaching 50 knots with gusts of […]
By Walt Meier May 29, 2016 — This morning, we had our second modeling exercise, led by Ian Eisenman of the University of California, San Diego, where we investigated whether sea ice loss is irreversible – i.e., is there a tipping point for sea ice, a point of no return? In the simple models, like the one […]
By Walt Meier May 28, 2016 – This morning we did our first modeling exercise. We started simply, modeling the ice’s thickness as the balance between ice growth and ice melt. Ice grows during the winter and melts during the summer. But from this simple start, a lot can be gleaned. The growth and melt rates are […]
By Walt Meier May 27, afternoon – After our morning orientation and introduction sessions, I headed out onto the ice for the first time. We were split into four teams; each team will rotate through a different activity every day with each activity being led by one or two experts that will serve as our guide. I was assigned to the Red Team. […]
Today is the last first day of a station, since we reached station five around midnight last night. I think the entire ship was glad to finally have a day to sleep as we traveled yesterday! It was business as usual for the aerosol people though, since we do not have to deploy most of […]
