9 July 2014, by Paul Johnston:
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 deck, above the bridge of the ship. The radiosonde is launched from the helipad, which is deck 3. It takes 2 or 3 trips up and down the stairs (which are on the outside of the ship) to do a launch, then another trip at the end of the flight.
During the flight, I tried to take movies of the birds soaring with the Oden as she moved. They are some type of gull, and seem to fly without flapping their wings. These were the first movies I have taken with my new camera, so don’t know if they turned out. At 1 PM, when Dom was going to show me the finishing of the sonde (another 20 minute process), Matt called me and said the W-band radar was down. I left Dom and proceeded to our radar container (down 7 levels of stairs, then up two more levels, I am going to be in much better shape when I get home). Matt and I were able to get the radar running again.
The Oden was approaching the ice edge. One of the areas of science that Matt is interested in is the atmosphere at the ice edge, so it was important that we get the radar operating. At 1, when we went to the container, you could see the ice edge in the distance. After we fixed the radar, we went to the bridge and watched as the Oden approached the ice. I went to bed about 2:30, intending to sleep through breakfast (which I did). During my sleep, the Oden continued through the ice, and sometime reached a spot to stay stationary for some equipment tests. We are in broken ice with some open water around us.
I got up in time to help with the 12Z radiosonde launch. After the balloon was launched, we went to lunch. After lunch I helped Ian Brooks (University of Leeds) work on a lidar system. The lidar is mounted on top of a sea container next to our radar container. Since we are not moving, it is safe to work carefully up there. Ian has been having noise problems, and we were concerned that our radars were the source of the problem. We turned both radars off briefly, and found they are not the problem (YEAH).
During our work on the lidar, we had to stop to look at the polar bear on an ice floe in front of the ship. My good camera is on the 7th deck, where I left it earlier, but I tried to get pictures with my small camera. The bear was probably 300-400 m away, but very visible without binoculars. I got to watch it move into the water and swim away.
