I departed the U.S. on July 8 at the start of an adventure
that has taken me through Sweden, on a ship north to Svalbard, and then
continuing north, north, further north…
The majority of this time will be spent aboard the Swedish
icebreaker Oden, as part of a joint
scientific venture between the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and
the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) to support the Arctic Ocean 2018
campaign. Most of the scientific work onboard is being conducted under
the umbrella of the MOCCHA campaign (Microbiology – Ocean – Cloud Coupling in
the High Arctic). Research groups from the U.S., Sweden, and across Europe are
all studying different aspects of the complex Arctic climate, including air-sea
exchange, aerosol physics and chemistry, bubble physics, sea ice biology,
seawater chemistry, meteorology, and much more. It is an exciting, unique
opportunity to collaborate with many great scientists in order to better
understand the Arctic.
Most of the science team gathered in Helsingborg, Sweden in
early July to meet Oden in port for
“mobilization”. This was a wild, busy four days of unpacking, organizing, and
setting up equipment on the ship to prepare for the expedition. I was lucky enough to then have a week to travel in Sweden
and Denmark before returning to the ship in Helsingborg on July 20 for the
“transit” to Svalbard. Only a few scientists for this early “preview” of the
expedition, allowing us 10 extra days to continue setting up our
instrumentation. This included many long days of troubleshooting, machining,
cleaning, and rebuilding parts of the sampling set up. But with everyone’s
help, it all came together in the end.
The official start of the expedition (or research “cruise”
as we like to call it) began in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on Aug 1. There, the
rest of the scientists joined the ship, and we were ready to sail north. All
together, on the ship we total 23 crew members, 9 SPRS staff, and 41 scientists.
The goal is to travel north into the Arctic Ocean pack ice
(aiming for somewhere ~87 – 89 deg N), in order to find a large ice floe to
anchor Oden and set up an ice station
for scientific measurements. Stay tuned as we continue north and into the ice!
- Rachel Kirpes, Pratt Lab PhD student on the Oden!
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| Enjoyed some wonderful sunsets during mobilization while working on the 7th deck (highest part of the ship) |
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| Hit some big waves during the transit! |
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| Enjoyed beautiful weather for most of the transit from Svalbard to Longyearbyen |
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