NORDLYS (NORTHERN LIGHTS)



Straight overhead.

Over the house.

I am writing this installment on Sunday night, after basketball and shopping, with the weather howling outside.  It is an unseasonable +5C, strong winds and rain!  The rain on top of the icy permafrost makes the entire town a skating rink.  It is beginning to rain so much there are streams forming.  This obviously makes it hard to walk, drive and even want to go outside.  The flight in was canceled due to a slippery runway and is likely to be the case tomorrow if it doesn’t change.  This has ripple effects as to what is in the store etc.  The winter has been about 10 degrees above normal this year, so the locals are not too happy… limited snowmobiling, limited skiing, and no ice on the fjords for easy access to the mountains or their cabins. This has been quite a change from the beginning of the week when it was -10 and still.  On the day of the solar flares, Tuesday, it happened to be clear here in Longyearbyen and Nicole and I stood outside for a few hours and watched the light show to the southeast.  Although the brightest locations were northern Norway and Canada, it was still fascinating to see the streams of light right outside our door. 

Over the town.

Looking up Adventdalen

Across Orion.

Green and red.

Picture of the week: Green and red in two directions over Sukkertoppen.

The boys both had colds this week, Jason first and then Anders, so the house was busy all week.  I used the week to finish my part of the cruise report and to pack and send off some of my equipment that I will no longer be using.  It is one thing to get boxes, it is another to get them ready for shipping…labels, shipping invoices, packing, delivering them etc.  I got a number off though and it feels good to have at least part of the process done.  Last night, neither Anders nor I could sleep, so we went for a walk at about 1am. This was before the switch to rain and there was a light snow.  Anders has not been to want to go for spontaneous walks, but the stay up factor was a great motivation.  We had a good time walking around the quite town. 

Longyearbyen early Sunday morning.

Anders looking at the east side of Longyearbyen

The governor's building.

The old coal receiving station.

I am off to a movie at the kulturhus, “Mission Impossible”… no great expectations… just a short diversion.
P.S.  It was pretty good.

RETURNING HOME

Arriving back in Longyear after the cruise.

Helicopter lowers line over the ship in a medical emergency drill.

The cruise continued this week with another 36 hours of steaming from Moffen Island through Isfjorden to Longyearbyen with windy and rocky weather.  We let a few people off at Longyearbyen that were flying back to Tromsø and picked up a few people that were to take part in the 36 hour campaign in Adventfjorden.  While in the fjord, we did more collections of water and organisms at different depths.  We also went to Coals Bay for bird collection, but it was not to be.  On the way back we had the governor’s office conduct a helicopter rescue drill repelling and lifting people on and off the ship.  Arriving back in the Longyearbyen port, it took about 2 hours to offload the gear, say goodbyes, move the equipment back to UNIS and then open our front door of the house.  It was great to be home and see the family!

Picture of the week: Noon glow.

Nicole and I welcome the light!

This week also was the first week the surrounding mountains began to glow with the sun moving higher up towards the horizon.  It is hard to describe the blue glow that blankets the valley… stunning!  Nicole and I were taking pictures outside and I mentioned that the only thing missing were Northern Lights and just that moment on queue streaks of green flared up from behind the mountains. A ptarmigan also kept us company as we walked out behind the house.  This weekend, Nicole went to the World International Female Arctic Lutefisklag (Lukefisk team or society). Everyone wore hats, ate lutefisk, drank aquavit, and she came home late. We have less than 4 weeks left here in Longyearbyen and are trying to soak it all up.

The annual World International Female Arctic Lutefisklag participants sporting their hats.

Yes... Lutefisk.

"Let the celebrations begin!"

POLAR NIGHT WINTER CRUISE

Picture of the week: Helmer Hanssen in ice in Rjipfjorden.

Full moon provided some light at the beginning of the cruise

Because of the delay in the ship yard and in order to save time, there were 5 of us who flew from Longyearbyen to Tromsø to (ironically) catch the Hilmar Hansen northbound.  After a relaxing morning at home and goodbyes to Nicole and the boys, the flight went well and we arrived about an hour before departure.  We had a nice snowy sendoff and then steamed out of the fjord.  The near full moon came out and with the causeways along the waterway and the steep surrounding mountains it was an exceptional view.  About 8 hours later we entered the Barents Sea and the ship began to bounce around.   I did not feel my best, so slept in past breakfast.  That afternoon we started the “lecture series” on board where everyone gives talks about what they are doing and some on general science.  It is in a “lecture room” along the forward hull of the ship, so we were all moving with the waves and trying to concentrate on the slides (not out inner ears!).  I had to make some cables and put the system together, so I had some work to do, but it was relaxed.  Late that next night we reached Bear Island, the halfway point between Mainland Norway and Svalbard.  It is also the sight where Amundsen’s airplane went down when he was trying to search for the Italian explorers.  There were low clouds over the island and again, the full moon provided the faint illumination of the island’s contour.  The following day, still in transit, was much the same, but in addition to working on set up, gave a lecture on bioluminescence and what I hoped to measure on the cruise.  There was another day of transit on Wednesday along the west side of Svalbard (yes, part of me wanted to take a left and get off in Longyearbyen).   The highlight came later that night when we passed the island of Moffen. I had been there once before and it is known as a large walrus colony.  Very few people have been here in the winter though, so almost nothing is known about their winter locations, behaviors, etc.  Working with Jørgen from UNIS, we were able to get a high powered infrared camera on the ship from a company in Trondheim (Aptomar).  It is used for search and rescue and oil spills, but I thought it might be useful in locating birds during the polar night.  We passed within 8km of the island and using this high powered IR camera, were able to “see” heat signatures from about 20 walruses along the beach.

Arriving at the ship in Tromsø.

Leaving the fjord system from Tromsø under the moonlight.

One of four daily lectures on board.

Lumpsucker caught in the bottom trawl.

We arrived in Rijpfjorden at about 2am on Thursday and started working.  First were some sediment cores (mud from the bottom) to look at the respiration rates of the bottom.  While this is a known quantity in most locations, there are no measurements of many of these efforts for this time of year in the high arctic.  So essentially everything we are finding is new in some way to science.  We then started with hauling nets at the bottom, mid-water and surface, pulling up large numbers of fish, shrimp, squid, and copepods.  The warm water from the Atlantic is intruding far north this year, bringing with it a number of species (Atlantic cod and haddock).   We then started work on collection of water for looking at the microbial communities and their activities.  This took us well into the night and everyone on the ship was looking ragged.
This trip has also made me realize how connected we are to the internet, email, and the basic information that is usually at our fingertips.  Here we cannot talk to the outside, answer questions in an instant, do many of the work requirements, or load a blog!  My first 20 years of oceanographic cruises were similarly isolated, but I had forgotten.
 
We moved the ship into the fast ice (ice connected to land) at the back of the fjord the following day for ice coring (seeing what organisms were in the ice).  The cruise leader and I got off the ship first as the polar bear watch for the others working on the ice.  There were 4 sets of tracks right along the ice edge so we took a walk around the area (about 500m around the ship).  As we walked away from the ship the lights of the ship faded and the sky lit up.  The moon was just setting and jets of northern lights streamed above the horizon.  It was still and all we could hear was the crunching of our boots on the snow.  It is crystal clear in these situations how isolated we are.  After the work on the ice, we got back on the ship and moved back into the fjord to continue the net sampling.  Three of us were also able to take the zodiac off the ship to collect a few birds.  It is not well documented what kind of birds stay in these areas during the winter and how they continue to obtain food (or what they are eating).  We saw two birds, but they were too fast and too far away.  We stayed in the boat until the ship did a couple of mid water trawls with the big nets, so we were out for about 2 hours.  Even more than on the ice, there was that feeling of isolation as we watched our lifeline move into the distance.  While in the boat we all peered over the side looking down into the water and were treated to an amazing display of bioluminescence.  At all depths there were flashes and glows of blue light give off by jellyfish and ctenophores, copepods and dinoflagellates.  Jorgen described it best when he said it looked like we were looking into space and watching  galaxies and solar systems moving in fast forward.  The ice was just forming in the fjord, catching some of these organisms in the ice matrix and causing them to have a consistent glow which lit up the small plates of ice blue… quite an amazing sight!

On Polar Bear watch in Rjipfjorden while other collected ice cores.

Evidence of visitors on the sea ice.

Boat leaving us for bird collection.

Ship hauling in a trawl.

Driving the boat in Rjipfjorden.

We finished the work in the fjord Friday evening and started heading to the ice station.  I stayed up most of the night stopping along the way taking profiles of the water’s temperature and salinity to document the strong influence of Atlantic water in this area.  We started hitting pancake ice (small discs of ice with built up edges from nudging other ice) at about 81.5 N and the pack ice about 20 km later.  This place is called Sofia Deep and is in the Arctic Basin, the true Arctic Ocean.  We conducted many of the same operations, however with it being so deep (2,500 meters), everything took longer.  We drifted even further north and with the ice starting to get thick, the net operations stopped and a small group were lowered onto the ice flow to sample the ice.  We figured we were probably the northern most humans at that point sans any submarines lurking in the deep further north.  We started south towards Moffen Island on Saturday against a pretty good swell.  We also passed over the jet of Atlantic water flowing north and with the cold air and warm water, we hit a pretty thick fog bank.  This warm water is likely the reason for the ice edge being so far north this year.

Arriving into the ice station, we first encountered this "pancake" ice.

Early morning on the way back south taking profiles of salinity and temperature from the command station.

More Next Post…

GODT NYTTÅR (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Picture of the week: Northern lights over Adventfjorden.

Godt nyttår to everyone from 78º north!  New Year’s Eve was a special night… a calm clear night with the moon starting to peak out and anticipation in the air.  About 6 in the evening, things started erupting around town to a crescendo at midnight.  Fireworks are legal here and sold in stores for that specific time, so people had stockpiled over the past few weeks.  We went out and set ours off between 8 and 9 and the kids (I guess that includes me) had a blast… sorry… had to say it!  Jason and Anders both had a health respect for the dangers and did a great job managing the operation.  The highlight of the night though was the neighbor across the street.  He put on a 20 minute show right outside out place at midnight and must have spent 30-40,000 kroner ($5,000+).  The attached pictures and movies below do the experience more justice. 

Jason launches a rocket.

Happy New Year!

Infront of a fountain with the boys.

Launching one of our larger rockets.

12 - Midnight!

Longyearbyen on New Years.

I love fireworks!!

New Year’s Day (Monday) and Tuesday were hard on most people coming out of their Romjul (see last week) winter slumber and getting back into the work mode again.  Wednesday night we went out for dinner at Svalbar to celebrate the end of a real holiday.  The boys had a hard time getting back into the school routine.  I heard the same thing from the students I have in basketball on Thursday night, so it is a common occurrence this time of year.  Nicole has been enjoying her days sans boys and working on her website (nourishthejourney.com).  Generally time is flying by!

Still felt like Christmas this week as we had a great snowfall.

Moon over Adventfjorden.

Added to this “hardship” of getting out of the slumber, I had a full week getting a set of new instrumentation together and packing for the cruise next week.  The ship we are going on, the Hilmar Hansen (named for Amundsen’s ice pilot), was in dry dock in Stavanger over the holidays and ran into some delays.  Because ship time is costly, the participants from Longyearbyen (5) are going to fly to Tromsø to catch the ship up to Svalbard for the cruise.  I don’t agree with the strategy, but it will save about 12 hours on the cruise. So we had to scramble and get the cargo on the Friday flight to pass customs for release on Sunday.  I also worked on the new REMUS to get that up and going.  We tried to deploy it yesterday, but the vehicle did not like being so far north and rejected the compass calibration.  We got the vehicle out today, on an amazing clear day with northern lights, and the initial tests went well.  I decided to let it go and conduct one of the routine missions we had done with the other vehicle and watched the flashing light on top of the vehicle disappear under the surface as it sped offshore.  Returning to UNIS I found that it had called in and everything was working fine.  I then went to the store to buy some light bulbs (only half have worked since we arrived!) and returned to UNIS to find out it had called once again, but this time had a leak fault.  Jørgen and I were out in the boat again in about 15 minutes and rushed offshore to find it.  We knew the general location, put the acoustic ranger in the water and were within a kilometer of it.  We homed in on the position and were able to get it out without incident.  We were fortunate for only a light breeze and a crystal clear day with the near full moon lighting area.  The northern lights were a welcomed distraction from the impending problems with the vehicle.  One of the sensors leaked into the vehicle, similar to a problem we had a year ago with this vehicle, so my sampling with the REMUS are over for the season.  While unfortunate, we have plenty of great information to go through over the next year and doesn’t affect our ability to address the questions we are interested in (see the October blog entry on “Winter Mooring is in”).

Working on the new equipment for the cruise...office a mess.

Tracking the REMUS today.  The smile is before the leak!

Moonlight over Hiorthfjellet from our porch.

So, I leave for Tromsø tomorrow to catch the ship and will be on board until the 17^th or 18^th of January.  I will do everything post a blog during the winter cruise to the northern part of Svalbard and the Arctic shelf break at about 82º, but might be short on pictures as the satellite connection is poor north of 80º.  It will be exciting (maybe not the Barents Sea crossing) as we are likely to see some polar bears, more northern lights and the pack ice, and hope to share that with all of you.  Stay connected!