20 July 2014, by Matt Shupe [77N, 130E]: It might be nice for you to see where we are and where we’ve been, so I’ve put together a little map. On yearday 186 (5 July) at about 5pm, our path leaves from Tromso, Norway. We took a number of hours to head out through the… Read More
19 July 2014, by Matt Shupe, [77N, 126E]: Our resident wind expert is Paul Johnston. He has been ‘instrumental’ in the first two deployments of a 449-MHz wind profiler from a ship in the Arctic Ocean: The first of these on a trip we took together in 2008 on this same icebreaker, and the second… Read More
18 July 2014, by Matt Shupe, [76N, 124E]: Over the last two days we’ve been in open water, moving towards the Siberian Shelf. Sometime in the night we really started moving up along the shelf break, apparently near a sub-sea canyon feature. The ship went back and forth to map out the area with a… Read More
20 July 2014, Matt Shupe [77N, 130E]: I’m here for the clouds, and the general adventure. The clouds are a big problem for global climate research. They are poorly represented in numerical models, especially over the Arctic Ocean because we have so few measurements out here. Thus, much of my career has been dedicated to… Read More
15 July 2014, by Paul Johnston: Life on the Oden has settled down to near normal. Many scientists are still preparing and checking things out. Hopefully today we will reach our first sampling station. When that happens, everyone will be busy, with science going on almost all the time. I’m writing this about 7:30 UT on 15… Read More
9 July 2014, by Paul Johnston: Yesterday I was short of sleep. Last night I stayed up to help Dom with radiosonde launch. We started at 11:00 PM. We launched the balloon and then killed time until 1:00. Dom went and read, and I went down and got my camera. The radiosonde receiver is on the 7th… Read More
14 July 2014, Matt Shupe, [80N, 118E]: Perhaps a few words about daily life. Sleeping on Oden has been an adventure. I share a room with 3 others, each on his own schedule and each with his own unique nighttime routines and noises. But wait, there is more! This is a ship after all, and… Read More
12 July 2014, by Matt Shupe, [82N, 102E]: Why are we here? I guess after a few entries and a week underway it would make sense to spell out why we have actually come to the Arctic (beyond the simple fascination of the whole experience!). In short, we are here to study the clouds and… Read More
9 July 2014 (4 pm), by Matt Shupe, [80N, 70E]: Perched up on the bridge, I was just sitting down to write about our first bear. It visited as we were stopped in the ice to test some equipment. Relatively far away, so just a small blob in the binoculars. Not much to photograph and… Read More
9 July 2014 (2 am), by Matt Shupe, [80N, 70E]: We’ve just entered the ice, accompanied by a few birds. The marginal zone is a collection of small floes, usually less than 10-15 meters across, sprinkled about in the water. The Oden, our icebreaker, has hardly slowed. Down to about 9 knots from 11 knots. The… Read More
