By Ola Persson The Main level of the ship is where the science workplaces are on the ship. These rooms are the Main Lab, the Computer Lab, the Wet Lab, the Baltic Room, and the Main deck. People who need to have access to visual displays of products from the internet connection sit in the… Read More
by Byron Blomquist Observing the heat gained and lost from the ocean or ice surface requires precise measurements of the usual weather parameters: air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and pressure… We must also know the balance between incoming solar energy (which declines rapidly at this time of year) and outgoing infrared energy. To… Read More
By Ola Persson, CIRES/NOAA We made some good measurements in cold winds blowing off the nearby ice as we moved from the open water to over the more established first-year ice in the Chukchi Sea. This more established first-year ice formed a few weeks ago. We saw the many faces of the Arctic Ocean surface,… Read More
A guest post from Dr. Steve Ackley, University of Texas San Antonio: Part of the sea ice program will be “underway” sea ice measurements conducted by the group from the University of Texas at San Antonio (Steve Ackley, Blake Weissling and Bob Ziegenhals) . While prior sea ice measurements of ice thickness have had to… Read More
By Ola Persson, CIRES/NOAA Yesterday, we entered the sea ice at about 74.4N, 161.4 W. Today we are traveling through the thin, freezing pack ice towards some thicker floes where some on-ice measurements will be made. The ocean surface is covered mostly by nilas ice, which is thin ice that has recently frozen and that… Read More
by Ola Persson Satellite communications and sea conditions were greatly improved today. A stationary station was done to test deployment and recovery of a variety of wave buoys. Many scientists were pouring over various kinds of satellite images, some of which are called SAR (synthetic aperture radar) images, and weather forecast charts to identify the best locations… Read More
by Ola Persson Today involved a northward cruise through the Bering Strait and riding out a storm. Everybody was testing equipment, and later in the day when the weather got rough, tended to stay seated or in their racks. The outside decks were closed off because of the rolling ship and risk for slipping. With… Read More
by Ola Persson Nome is a small town on the Norton Sound in western Alaska. This week, it was host to the staging of the Sea State research cruise of the new National Science Foundation icebreaker, the R/V Sikuliaq. The primary objectives of Sea State is to measure the impact of waves and surface fluxes… Read More
