Category Archives: Petermann Glacier

Nares Strait 2012: Charting New Waters in Petermann Fjord

Posted on August 11, 2012 by | 3 comments

By Andreas Muenchow, off Joe Island, Greenland, Aug.-11, 2012

We just left Petermann Fjord, squeezing by a Manhattan-sized ice island blocking much of its entrance. An armada of 100s of ship-sized tabular icebergs were all jockeying for positions behind the big one. Captain Wayne Duffett of the Canadian Coast Guard commanded the CCGS Henry Larsen into the new waters of Petermann Fjord, Greenland, with skill, experience, and a calculated dose of daring, trusting both his instincts and his crew. These new waters were formed when Petermann Glacier lost as much as 1/3 of its floating ice shelf during massive break-off events in 2010 and again in 2012. The Henry Larsen was the first and only ship for years to sail and survey this mare incognita for the last 22 hours. It was a long day.

I slept only one of the last 24 hours, skipped dinner, and will head for breakfast in 10 minutes. Being excited and working hard with 24 hours of daylight is exhausting, draining, but also immensely satisfying. We completed a spatial bathymetric survey, collected water and water properties along the new seaward face of the glacier from the surface to 1200 meter depth, and did the same for a section along the axis of the fjord that used to be covered by an ice-shelf.

I tried to document and capture the changing icy seas and their interactions with both land and ocean by taking plenty of photos and video, to later share with those who cannot be here. Several pods of narwhales — they really do have 3-ft long tusks (a tooth really) — were feeding on ocean fronts within a mile of Petermann Glacier’s new face…

Breakfast is ready; I am sending this off as is, without much editing (too tired) {Editor’s note:  Good thing there are those less distracted by the excitement of new icy worlds to do some proofreading…}, then some sleep while those who sleep will install a new weather station on Joe Island.  Science aboard a ship like the CCGS Henry Larsen never really stops…

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Posted in Ice Island, Nares Strait 2012, Oceanography, Petermann Glacier, Polar Exploration

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Nares Strait 2012: Entering Uncharted Waters

Posted on August 11, 2012 by | 2 comments

Allison Einolf, Aug.-11, 2012

As scientists, we are constantly exploring new things, but usually our exploration is within the realm of knowledge. Rarely do we get an opportunity to sail unexplored waters or tread where no one has tread before. Yesterday, our location was plotted inside of what was the Petermann Glacier on the now outdated navigational chart. We were in uncharted waters.

As a child, I read hundreds and hundreds of books about exploration. Some were fictional, some were historical, some were futuristic, and some were mythical. I read about traveling to the furthest reaches of the universe or the depths of the ocean. I read about fantasy worlds, I read about sailing off into the distance with the only goal being adventure, and I longed for the life of an adventurer. So I made igloos out of blankets, and my younger brother and I fought off dragons and found new worlds in our basement and the nearby parks.

Growing up, I became slightly disappointed that most of the world we live in is charted and mapped and although I love being able to get directions online, it took the adventure out of things. I came to accept that I would have to find different ways to explore the world around me, and I turned my love of adventure to science.  I would never have guessed that science would bring me to a place of complete unknowns.

I was excited when we saw the Petermann Ice Island at the mouth of the fjord. I was thrilled and amazed, and I kept on taking pictures instead of going inside to get a hat and gloves. That was when it first sunk in that no one had seen this before. The ice island has been talked about and examined from satellite imagery, but no one previously had gotten so close that they almost felt like they could touch it.

I was filled with awe as I took pictures because I realized I could only see the edges of it near the ship, where it was narrower, and that it was so huge that I could barely comprehend it’s size. Pat and Jo got to go up in the helicopter with the ice specialist to check out the extent of the ice, and it was impossible to get the whole island in a photo, even from 3000ft in the air. Although there have been many jokes about the comparison of the ice island to the size of Manhattan, I think it was appropriate. Manhattan may not be a very large island, but it is immense in character, and the ice island is twice it’s physical size and definitely has character of it’s own. The rolling hills and rivers and lakes that cover the surface of the ice may not be as large as the lakes I am used to, but the expanse of white goes on forever. It’s awe-inspiring.

My excitement at the edge of the ice island was nothing compared to my exhilaration as we broke through the ice at the mouth of the fjord and sailed into uncharted waters. Of course the edges of the fjord have been charted, and they can be seen from satellite imagery, but nothing was known about what lay under the ice.

As we lowered the first rosette and brought back the first water samples, I once again realized that we were pioneers. We were the first to be here, since the water here has been covered in ice for at least 180 years, and probably much, much longer. We were the first to take water samples, and the first to take depth soundings. We are explorers. The adventure of it has had me smiling constantly since we first saw the ice island, and I don’t think that anything I write will come anywhere close to describing the wonder of how it feels to be here.

 

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Nares Strait 2012: Tide Gauge Recovered after 9 Years

Posted on August 9, 2012 by | 1 comment

Andreas Muenchow, Aug.-8, 2012, off Cape Baird

In 2003 we deployed a tide gauge that was recovered today after attempts in 3 different years to do so failed. Discovery Harbor near Fort Conger was the most northern location at 81 42’ North and 64 1’ West of a large moored array placed in 2003. It was at Fort Conger, that Lt. Greeley of the U.S. Army waited in vain for a supply ship that never arrived, but this sad story is for another day and I like to write about happier news: Our 2003 tide gauge lay in wait for 9 years and 1 day precisely. A 2006 attempt to reach this northern location by ship failed on account of heavy ice cover, a 2007 attempt by helicopter succeeded to establish acoustic communications, but failed to recover the sensor package, and a 2009 attempt by ship failed again because of difficult ice conditions.

The odds of a recovery were slim, but 4 hours ago a crew of five found the tide gauge the same way that skilled fishermen of Newfoundland recover lost traps and fish for halibut: with a line of hooks operating small ships smartly. Chief Officer Brian Legge, Seamen Derick Stone and Carl Rose, as well as scientists Ron Lindsay and Jonathon Poole found the proverbial needle (read tide gauge) in the hey stack (read Arctic Ocean). The entrance to Discovery Harbor was guarded by yet another ship-sized piece of Petermann Glacier ice, this one grounded, as well as several large and small sea ice floes, all moving rapidly with the tides and currents. Even navigating the zodiac through this maze to a fixed location was a major accomplishment.

The long-lost tide gauge is a 2 feet cylinder filled with electronics, but 9 years moored to the floor at 20 meter depth turned it into a complex biology habitat attracting wild life much like the artificial reefs created along Delaware by sunken New York City’s discarded subway trains. Mollusks, seaweed, clams, barnacle, algae, and bacterial slime all attached themselves to every surface. Arctic shrimp perhaps feeding on algae or slime were captured along with the gauge. Seaman Derick Stone, who has never seen an Arctic shrimp (neither have I), quickly brushed it away and back into the ocean muttering something about  “Scorpions in the Arctic.” A second specimen was captured alive and returned to the ocean after a brief inspection. It was agreed, that there was no enough meat on this 2-inch long and skinny shrimp

As a sign of respect to the gods of the icy seas a majority of PhDs aboard solemnly swore to give the long lost sensor 3 days of rest before stripping it bare to reveal its guts, check health and status and retrieve recordings. Pranksters aboard this ship, at least one with a PhD, already alerted me to schemes of hostile capture and ransom requests; I suspect ransom to be paid in treasures, valuable certificates, and screech. Little do these pranksters know of web streaming, local area networks, advanced image processing, and other counter-intelligence operations … to be continued.

P.S.: Oh, we also completed section work (temperature, salinity, water samples) in Robeson Channel to the north of Petermann Fjord where a few segments of Petermann Glaciers former ice shelf are both grounded and moving off the coast of Greenland. Presently off Cape Baird to perhaps recover an automated weather station to be placed instead at Joe Island at the southern entrance to Petermann Fjord, weather permitting. We got 40 kts winds from the south, braking waves, as well as balmy air temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius or so.

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Nares Strait 2012: Heading North Passing Petermann Fjord and Ice Islands

Posted on August 8, 2012 by | 2 comments

Andreas Muenchow, Aug.-7, 2012 in Hall Basin

Petermann Fjord is within sight and at least 5 ship-sized segments from Petermann Glacier are around us drifting to and fro with the tides. RadarSat imagery received this morning aboard the CCGS Henry Larsen indicates that the Manhattan-sized ice island PII-2012 has moved over 3 nautical miles seaward in the last 36 hours (5 kilometers per day) during winds from the south-west. The north-eastern tip of PII-2012 has left the fjord past Offley Island.

We are about 20 miles to the south at 81 degrees 14 minutes north and 65 degrees west firing bottles to collect water samples across a section that Petermann’s ice island PII-2012 will cross perhaps as early as the next week. Dr. Renske Gelderloos just tells the bridge from a van on the fore deck, that all 12 bottles have been fired as the instrument package traveled from the surface to 451 meter depth and back. Additionally, we collect temperature and salinity more continuously as an electromagnetic sensor is lowered via the same cable as the bottles. I am one of two winch operators while Dr. Gelderloos is the command and control center next to me operating 3 laptops concurrently.

Dr. Renske Gelderloos of Oxford University in command and control of data collection operations aboard the CCGS Henry Larsen.

Pat Ryan (left), Humfrey Melling (center), and Allison Einolf (right) collecting water samples aboard the CCGS Henry Larsen in Hall Basin in August 2012.

PhD student Patricia Ryan, dressed in a warm Mustang suit, is one of the water samplers to transfer water into tiny sample bottles for later chemical analyses. She just hands me a USB JumpDrive with 3-years of data of temperature, salinity, and pressure from a moored sensor we recovered yesterday. The latest profile is completed and I am off to process the new data further.

I missed dinner at 5pm, because it took us 5 hours until 8pm local time to finish the 7 stations of a section from Greenland to Ellesmere Island, Canada. I am back to writing now at 11:35 pm local time after lots of cheerful banter, quick clean-up for the day, 2 beers at the bar, and an hour staring into Petermann Fjord from the west-by-northwest. I can’t see the ice island even though I see Offley Island and I know the ice island is right next to it. The ice sheet spilling over the vertical walls of Petermann Fjord are visible in the distance, too. It is raining now. Air temperatures are 0.7 degrees Celsius (about 34 Fahrenheit) which is a little cooler than is normal for this time of the year. We are now another 50 km to the north at 81 degrees and 44 minutes North latitude that is farther north of Petermann Fjord and its ice island.

I can see five ship-sized segments of Petermann Glacier’s ice shelf, but I cannot discern the Manhattan-sized PII-2012 across Hall’s Basin. We have open water to our south and some loosely scattered ice to our north along Ellesmere Island. We are still heading north towards Robeson Channel to perhaps reach Alert on the Arctic Ocean or to perhaps repeat a section that was done for the first and last time in 2003 when the USCC Healy was here at the beginning of our Nares Strait project. It is past midnight now, Wednesday has started, time for bed. [81 49’ N, 63 09’ W at 04:20 UTC, 00:20 local]

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Posted in Ice Cover, Ice Island, Nares Strait 2012, Petermann Glacier, Polar Exploration

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Nares Strait 2012: Long Hours Recovering Moorings

Posted on August 7, 2012 by | 2 comments

Andreas Muenchow, Aug.-7, 2012, 12:22 am

Everyone can throw instruments into the ocean, but only few can recover the same instruments 3 years later. And fewer people yet can recover instruments that were hit hard by Petermann’s Ice Island of 2010 (PII-2010). Today, we did exactly that:

Starting at 8am sharp yesterday, we recovered six of seven moorings from the 300-400 m deep ocean floor. Only one is still left. The attention to detail three years ago, when we deployed the moorings, paid off.

We are now parked next to a massive multi-year ice floe for a night without darkness at 80:43.0 North latitude and 67:17.9 West longitude. For the last 3 hours our group celebrated today’s success at the only bar within 300 miles while downloading an incredible amount of data from instruments to laptops. Among the three of us from Delaware we got 5 computers. The groups from British Columbia, Canada and Oxford, England are no different. Science is both a social and an individual activity, as oceanographer Henry Stommel said with true wisdom. There is lots and lots of scientific computing taking place right now, well past mid-night, when most aboard are sleeping.

The recovery of a sensor package begins with sending acoustic signals to an acoustic receiver attached to a tiny motor at the bottom of the ocean. After waking up said receiver near the bottom of the ocean, we send a command through the water with sound waves to turn a motor that separates a hook from a heavy anchor. Buoys attached above the acoustic release raise the entire sensor package to the surface. A zodiac with Chief Officer Brian Legge and a Leading Seaman aboard heads out to grapple the surfaced instrument package that is then hauled aboard the ship by a crew led most competently by bosun Don Barnable. Once aboard the ship a flock of scientists, engineers, technicians, and students crowd over all the elements of the sensor package to document, detach, secure, and move all the many pieces of the mooring.

The ice-profiling sonars originally designed and developed by our Chief Scientist Dr. Humfrey Melling was abused by PII-2010 the most. Two instruments moored 8 km apart were hit in almost identical fashion with ¾ inch thick protective stainless steel attached to the vibrating ceramic plates was bent into strange shapes by more than 80 meters thick ice. Data are downloaded right now to pin point the timing of the impact, but I am pretty sure it was PII-2010 in September of that year.

In addition to the two ice profiling sonars that measured ice thickness overhead from 2009 through 2012 at better than half hourly periods, we also recovered two acoustic Doppler current profilers that measure ocean currents in 40 different layers from the bottom to the surface. Furthermore, two moorings each measure ocean temperature, salinity, and pressure (CT/D) every fifteen minutes for the same 3 years complement the available data. The survival of the CT/D is remarkable for the mooring string contains instruments at 30 meters below the surface. Since our ice-profiling sonar at 80 meters depth was hit by PII-2010, these much shallower CT/D moorings were also hit by PII-2010. Their slick and smart design to slip through cracks and hooks on the underside of the ice made them survive the certain strikes by ice and ice islands.

This was a long and eventful day when we perhaps accomplished 80% of the tasks we set out to accomplish in the 8 days we have in Nares Strait. Our design decisions made 3 years ago paid off as we recovered almost all equipment hopefully holding 3 years of data. These 3 years of data include both the 2010 and 2012 calving events from Petermann Glacier, but they also contain data on the physical context within which these dramatic events took place. Our work has only just begun … as we are preparing to encounter Petermann’s 2012 ice island … I stop here at 1:11 am local time, cloudy skies and lots of ice around.

[Images will be placed when we return, as internet access aboard the ship is limited to text only.]

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