Notes from the Field

By Christine Dow We made it to Antarctica in one piece! After a delightful 3 am start, we boarded the Safair plane that was to take us to the Antarctic along with Korean, Italian and French scientists. What followed was a somewhat chilly, noisy, cramped 7-hour flight. However, the views out our tiny window as […]

By Ryan Walker We arrived safely in Christchurch, New Zealand. On Wednesday morning we went over to the International Antarctic Centre to check up on our instruments and equipment. We have five GPS receivers for measuring horizontal ice motion, and two tilt meters for measuring the angle of the ice shelf as it flexes with ocean tides. […]

Here we are, already on Day 6 of AT32, our november cruise on the North Atlantic, and we will reach our first station tomorrow. Today the weather is rough, as can be seen in this picture but during the first few days, we were blessed with unusually warm weather and forgiving seas. This was a […]

It’s been a very busy week as OLYMPEX gears up for full operations. The last ground site was installed yesterday and the full network is collecting data. We have learned a lot from these sites alone and have already sampled some intense storm systems laden with rain. The four radars are installed, or being installed, […]

By Christine Dow and Ryan Walker Editor’s note: Ryan Walker and Christine Dow are two researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who will be spending more a month in Antarctica to study the response of the Nansen Ice Shelf to ocean tides, while blogging from the field. Christine: Hi! My name is Christine Dow. I’m […]

Plankton are microscopic yet they play a big role in the cycle of elements fundamental to life on earth. The NAAMES project is a testimony to their importance in our ability to predict how the oceans may mediate the Earth’s future climate. I’ll be joining the cruise to measure rates of phytoplankton growth and mortality, the latter […]

I live in Seattle, part of the Pacific Northwest in the NW corner of the continental United States. We have the reputation of being a very rainy place, but it’s nothing compared to the Olympic Peninsula, just to my immediate west. Starting next week, we begin the Olympic Mountain Experiment, or OLYMPEX. It is a […]

I can now count the number of days before I leave for the first NAAMES cruise on one hand – boy, did the last few months fly by! I am relatively new to oceanography/microbiology and this will be my first time on a research cruise or really, a large, ocean-going vessel of any kind. At […]

I have the pleasure to kick off the first blog as part of the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) Cruise #1. This project will span 5 years with a goal to resolve key processes controlling ocean system function, their influences on atmospheric aerosols, and clouds and their implications for climate. There will […]