US GO-SHIP is part of the international GO-SHIP network of sustained hydrographic sections, supporting physical oceanography, the carbon cycle, and marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems. The US program is sponsored by US CLIVAR and OCB. Funded by the National Science Foundation and NOAA.

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R/V Robert Gordon Sproul Oct 2, 2013

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R/V New Horizon Oct 2, 2013

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R/V Melville Oct 2, 2013

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R/V Roger Revelle Oct 2, 2013

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S4P: 21 APR 2011 (REPORT) Oct 2, 2013

Dear Colleagues,

We are homeward bound!

At 05:25 local time on Tuesday, 19 April 2011, the rosette from station 140, the easternmost station we planned, and the last one on CLIVAR S04P, was brought into the Baltic Room. This completed the over-the-side work for our cruise, though it took a day to analyze the samples that we backlogged as we crossed the eastern boundary of our study area. We arrived at the eastern end a little earlier than expected due to an unprecedented (for this cruise) eight day string of days with light winds, plus our equipment worked nearly flawlessly.

So what did we do next? We went on an oceanographic treasure hunt! Believe it or not, five days earlier a satellite had reported to its base station that a400 meter long biophysical mooring for Dr. Richard Limeburner (Woods Hole), deployed in 450 meters of water more than ten years ago by Jim Ryder (the mooring tech on our cruise), but lost in 2001 when it failed to rise to the surface when triggered to do so, had all of a sudden come to the surface and contacted the satellite. (Good batteries!) The location was only about 8 hours away. So after our final station we motored over to its last reported location and - voila! - there it was! Jim, the RPSC marine techs, and our students and other helpers then set to work, recovering the entire string of instruments, covered with ten years of marine growth. Everything was cleaned and will be returned to Dr. Limeburner. What a wild coincidence!

We are now on our way to Punta Arenas, Chile, which is our end port for this long cruise. We’re getting a bit of a weather blast today - after all, this is Drake Passage, infamous for its heavy weather - yet we are actually ahead of schedule and are arriving a little early. We still will not be able to begin our unloading until Monday, due to Easter.

Tonight we will hold a little variety show on the ship, featuring skits and music from our “polliwogs” (those for whom this was their first Antarctic crossing) plus some of the “red noses”. There will be a traditional induction for the polliwogs tomorrow morning.

And that’s just about that for this cruise. It’s been a long haul - 64 days at sea without a port stop is a new record for most if not all of us. But we achieved our scientific objectives (except for the iced-up southern end of P18 and mooring recoveries there), and enjoyed a safe and productive time at sea. We are very grateful to our shipmates from Edison Chouest Offshore, who operate the Nathaniel B. Palmer and support us and our science so well, thankful for our support from our seven colleagues from Raytheon Polar Services Corporation, and deeply appreciative of our support for this venture from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

We did it!

All is well on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Jim and Alex

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S4P: 21 APR 2011 (LETTER) Oct 2, 2013

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

Homeward bound!

At 05:25 local time on Tuesday, 19 April 2011, the rosette from station 140, the easternmost station we planned, and the last one on CLIVAR S04P, was brought into the Baltic Room. This completed the over-the-side work for our cruise, though it took a day to analyze the samples that we backlogged as we crossed the eastern boundary of our study area. We arrived at the eastern end a little earlier than expected due to an unprecedented (for this cruise) eight day string of days with light winds, plus our equipment worked nearly flawlessly.

So what did we do next? We went on an oceanographic treasure hunt! Believe it or not, five days earlier a satellite had reported to its base station that a 400 meter long biophysical mooring for Dr. Richard Limeburner (Woods Hole), deployed in 450 meters of water more than ten years ago by Jim Ryder (the mooring tech on our cruise), but lost in 2001 when it failed to rise to the surface when triggered to do so, had all of a sudden come to the surface and contacted the satellite. (Good batteries!) The location was only about 8 hours away. So after our final station we motored over to its last reported location and - voila! - there it was! Jim, the RPSC marine techs, and our students and other helpers then set to work, recovering the entire string of instruments, covered with ten years of marine growth. Everything was cleaned and will be returned to Dr. Limeburner. What a wild coincidence!

We are now on our way to Punta Arenas, Chile, which is our end port for this long cruise. We’re getting a bit of a weather blast today - after all, this is Drake Passage, infamous for its heavy weather - yet we are actually ahead of schedule and are arriving a little early. We still will not be able to begin our unloading until Monday, due to Easter.

Tonight we will hold a little variety show on the ship, featuring skits and music from our “polliwogs” (those for whom this was their first Antarctic crossing) plus some of the “red noses”. I’ll even toot the bassoon a bit. There will be a traditional induction for the polliwogs tomorrow morning.

And that’s just about that for this cruise. It’s been a long haul - 64 days at sea without a port stop is a new record for most if not all of us. But we achieved our scientific objectives (except for the iced-up southern end of P18 and mooring recoveries there), and enjoyed a safe and productive time at sea. We are very grateful to our shipmates from Edison Chouest Offshore, who operate the Nathaniel B. Palmer and support us and our science so well, thankful for our support from our seven colleagues from Raytheon Polar Services Corporation, and deeply appreciative of our support for this venture from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

We did it!

All is well on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Jim Swift
Chief Scientist
NBP-1102 / S04P

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S4P: 14 APR 2011 (REPORT) Oct 2, 2013

Not everything on a research cruise goes as planned or hoped. We headed south last Saturday on a dual-purpose mission. The NOAA research ship Ronald Brown had stopped southward progress at an iceberg corridor near 69°S in 2008 when doing the north-to-south “P18” cruise for our long-term program. We hoped to extend their work south to the Antarctic continental shelf break somewhere near 100°W. There was also the issue of mooring recoveries in that same general area for LDEO investigator Stan Jacobs. We knew from satellite images sent to the ship that sea ice covered nearly 100% of the surface in the area, but the Palmer can handle sea ice if not too thick. Still, we decided to first see how long it took us to get to our desired end point near the shelf break, allotting a certain maximum amount of time to icebreaking (in accord with our master plan for the remainder of the cruise), at which point we would know how much time we had for our work plus the icebreaking and steaming as we headed back north. Admittedly success with the mooring recoveries seemed remote because those could not be done in full ice cover, but one never knows until trying.

We reached the ice edge at the expected point along the track and progressed well at first. Then the going got tough, not so much because of ice thickness as because of the large amount of snow on the ice. Snow rubs against the ship’s hull much like sand would, sapping power and momentum as the ship presses forward. Only about 20 miles into the ice (20 miles straight line, but many more miles as we worked around large snow-covered floes) the Captain and Ice Pilot decided enough was enough. In the morning conditions looked no better, so we took advantage of being in a large floe to have a brief ice party for those on board, i.e. a chance to be on the ice a bit. We had a good time - playing soccer, walking around, playing in the snow. After everybody was back aboard we pulled into a nearby opening in the ice and did a CTD cast. That cast showed nothing remarkable compared to nearby data from 2008. There we were, nearly 50 miles from our targets - either the shelf break or Jacobs’ moorings - but we could not go further south. There being no point to lingering, we headed back north to the main 67°S line.

Thus we were not able to extend the P18 line south through the ice to the continental shelf break, and we were not able to recover any of Stan Jacobs’ ice-covered moorings. The only benefit of the way this worked out was that we spent one day’s time and fuel less on the excursion than planned so now have some weather time in the schedule before the end of science activities in five and a half days. This should enable us to not only reach the eastern end of the S04P section, but also to sample its eastern boundary region appropriately.

We always enjoy our trips through the ice. We did not see many penguins this time (though there were a few, including Emperor penguins) but there were many seals hauled out onto the thicker floes. The leads (openings in the ice) are freezing over and there are many 4 to 10-foot holes punched up through the thin ice. The culprits? Orcas (Killer Whales) on the lookout for seals on the thicker ice nearby. Jim saw a pair of them stick their heads out of one of the holes to take a look-see.

The weather has been unusually good. That may well change, but we are back on “the line” and for now we are mowing down the final stations one by one, making very good progress. Everyone has their sights set on keeping steady and focused: Get the job done. Then go to port!

All is well on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Jim and Alex

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S4P: 14 APR 2011 (LETTER) Oct 2, 2013

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

The PolarTREC program is sponsoring a live event THURSDAY (April 14th) with Juan Botella on the satellite phone along with an on-line presentation. Anyone is welcome to participate on line, but registration is required. See the announcement below.

Jim Swift

PolarTREC Announcement:

Join us for the upcoming real-time PolarConnect event with PolarTREC teacher, Juan Botella, and scientists of the Seawater Property Changes in the Southern Ocean who are on board the Icebreaker N.B. Palmer of the coast of Antarctica! Participants will learn more about the oceanography of the Antarctic and how scientists are studying this unique place.

Anyone is welcome to participate: classrooms, teachers, or just interested members of the public. These events are hosted through the PolarTREC PolarConnect (formerly Live from IPY!) program, and participants will have a chance to learn from the scientists, ask questions, and chat with others during the presentation.

EVENT DETAILS:
DATE: Thursday, 14 April 2011
TIME: 1:00 PM AST (2:00 PM PST, 3:00 PM MST, 4:00 PM CST, 5:00 PM EST)

Registration: To register (required) and to receive instructions on how to join, go to: http://www.polartrec.com/polar-connect/register

For more information about the science that Mr. Botella is involved in, please read his journals at: <http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/seawater-property- changes-in-the-southern-ocean>

Questions?
Visit: www.polartrec.com
Contact us at: info@arcus.org or 907-474-1600

PolarTREC is funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and managed by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), 3535 College Road, Suite #101, Fairbanks, AK U.S.A. 99709-3710. www.arcus.org

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S4P: 13 APR 2011 (LETTER) Oct 2, 2013

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

Not everything on a research cruise goes as planned or hoped. We headed south last Saturday on a dual-purpose mission. The NOAA research ship Ronald Brown had reached the ice edge in 2007 doing the “P18” cruise for our long-term program, and we hoped to extend their work south to the Antarctic continental shelf break somewhere near 100°W. There was also the issue of mooring recoveries in that same general area for LDEO investigator Stan Jacobs. We knew from satellite images sent to the ship that sea ice covered nearly 100% of the surface in the area, but the Palmer can handle sea ice if not too thick. Still, we decided to first see how long it took us to get to our desired end point, allotting a certain maximum amount of time to icebreaking (in accord with our master plan for the remainder of the cruise), at which point we would know how much time we had for our work plus the icebreaking and steaming as we headed back north. Admittedly success with the mooring recoveries seemed remote because those could not be done in full ice cover, but one never knows until trying.

We reached the ice edge at the expected point along the track and progressed well at first. Then the going got tough, not so much because of ice thickness as because of the large amount of snow on the ice. Snow rubs against the ship’s hull much like sand would, sapping power and momentum as the ship presses forward. Only about 20 miles into the ice (20 miles straight line, but many more miles as we worked around large snow-covered floes) the Captain and Ice Pilot decided enough was enough. In the morning nothing looked any better, so we took advantage of being in a large floe to have an ice party - free time for those on board to be on the ice a bit. Everybody had a good time - playing soccer, walking around, playing in the snow. After everybody was back aboard we pulled into an opening in the ice and did a CTD cast. That cast showed nothing remarkable compared to nearby data from 2007. There we were, nearly 50 miles from our targets - either the shelf break or Jacobs’ moorings - but we could not go further. There being no point to lingering, we headed back north to the main 67°S line.

Thus we were not able to extend the P18 line south through the ice to the Continent and we were not able to recover any of Stan Jacobs’ ice-covered moorings. The only benefit of the way this worked out was that we spent at least one day less on the excursion than planned so now have about a day’s worth of weather time in the schedule between now and the end of science activities five and a half days from now. This should enable us to reach the eastern end of the west-to-east section which is one of our main focus areas.

We always enjoy our trips through the ice. We did not see many penguins this time (though there were a few, including Emperor penguins) but there were many seals hauled out onto the thicker floes. The leads (openings in the ice) are freezing over and there are many 4 to 10-foot holes punched up through the thin ice. The culprits? Orcas (Killer Whales) on the lookout for seals on the thicker ice nearby. I saw a pair of them stick their heads out of one of the holes to take a look-see.

The weather has been unusually good. That may well change, but we are back on “the line” and for now we are mowing down the final stations one by one, making very good progress. Everyone has their sights set on keeping steady and focused: Get the job done. Then go to port!

All is well on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Jim Swift
Chief Scientist
NBP-1102 / S04P

Read More