Sweden’s icebreaker I/B Oden will sail for Greenland this summer to pick up about 50 scientists to work the ice, land, water, and glaciers of north-west Greenland with Petermann Gletscher as its focus. I will be working with Celine Heuze of Gothenburg University, Jari Kruetsfeldt of Stockholm Technical University, and Christina, a Swedish High School teacher. Together we are responsible to run the water sampling and ocean sensing.
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- Forward deck of I/B Oden from which the water sampling equipment and electronic sensing will be deployed.
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- I/B Oden in Landskrona on June-1, 2015. This is the front (bow) of the ship.
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- Helicopter deck of I/B Oden in port on June-1, 2015 in the back (aft) of the ship.
We met 3 weeks ago on the ship in Landskrona, Sweden where we loaded all our boxes filled with computers, electronics, bottles, rubber hoses, and some more computers. We also met the ship’s crew and a larger group of scientists and engineers from Oregon State University in the US, Gothenburg and Stockholm Universities in Sweden, and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat that runs the ship. For 3 days we worked, ate, slept (somewhat), and worked some more to get ourselves and our equipment unpacked and organized.
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- .. and another of many crates readied for shipping to Oden.
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- One of three crates ready for shipment to the ship. Notice the organizing hand of Dr. Celine Heuze bottom right.
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- Looking for the right box with the right cables and connectors …
There is nothing romantic about working in an industrial area lugging boxes and stuff up and down stairs from back to front and back again. Despite all the cranes, winches, fork lifts, A-frames, and other tools, it is still back-breaking labor as much is still carried to and fro by hand while watching for heavy loads overhead, sharp corners below, and tight corners to maneuver around. Hard-hats and steel-toed boots are NOT optional. The only positive here is that shared pain brings people together to lower the pain via teamwork.
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- Karen Assmann, Celine Heuze, and Axel Meiton getting ready to load the water sampling system onto the I/B Oden in June 2015.
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- Happy scientists on a small outing in a Swedish fjord after testing oceanographic equipment.
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- Axel Meiton, Alan Mix, and Chris Moser consulting on the set-up of sediment core processing on I/B Oden in June 2015.
While most people seem fresh and happy, this wears off after 3 days of intense work not captured in photos. Sleep deprivation sets in as everyone tries to cram too much work into the 24 hours available. And yet, it is during these short and intense work periods, that new friendships and scientific collaborations emerge quickly even though people do not always look their best.
As an example, here is me as a zombie after about 4 nights with little sleep
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- Exhausted and sleep-deprived scientists on I/B Oden on June-4, 2015.
As always, I try too much as I perform my duties on the water sampling and ocean sensing during the day and fight a nasty Iridium satellite communication problem at night. At the University of Delaware we designed, assembled, and shipped off to Sweden an air and ocean weather station to be deployed above and below the floating tongue of Petermann Gletscher. There was no time for testing as all gear to deployed on Petermann Gletscher in August had to be in Landskrona in May.
Despite the looks, I was ecstatic on the inside, because I had just solved a crucial sub-problem when an e-mail reached me that a small NASA grant was coming my way to actually pay for the science that I hope to do during this summer. This, however, is another story for another day.
Icy Seas 