Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Co PIs: Patrick Heimbach, An Nguyen), with links also to Oregon State University (OSU) (lead PI: Laurie Juranek and Burke Hales) |
| Who are we? What are we doing? Cruise Plan More about the Bering Strait |
Daily
Report
|
Ship
information More about the Norseman 2 |
Questions? Ask us |
Who are we?
 Rebecca Woodgate, UW, Physical Oceanographer |
 Jim Johnson, UW, Field Engineer |
 |
 Physical Oceanographer |
 |
 Maggie Buktenica, OSU,
Chemical Oceanographer |
 Max Showalter, UW, Biological Oceanographer |
 Robert Daniels, UW, Physical Oceanographer |
We arrive too late to start work that night, but
stretching our legs along the beach, we find it covered
with hundreds of ~ 6inch long sardine-like fish (see
picture). A local explained these are called
"Hooligan" or "Cigar" fish. (The name is actually
a corruption of Eulachon - try saying that!) and are
caught by the children, dipped in flour and fried and
eaten whole. They are also called Candle fish, as
they are rich in oil and burn well, indeed the oil was
traded far along the coast to California. However,
we are not quite that hungry. 
Getting
the instrumentation up and running as the ship gets
underway
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Friday 3rd July 2015
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 The crew hooks the mooring out of the sea  Using the winch, the mooring is
lifted from the water onto the deck
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Last night, the fog cleared to reveal a beautifully
sunny evening. Working late into the Arctic
midnight sun, we successfully completed our first
mooring retrieval of the cruise. Today, our spirits are
high in the new morning, but we experience a feeling of
deja vu - as the day starts, we're once again
surrounded by fog and forced to wait for better weather. As we mentioned before, our moorings rest below the sea surface to prevent collision with the thick (~ 2m) ice that covers the Bering Strait in the winter. Now, in the summer, the water is still cold (about 3 deg C), but with no ice - an ideal time to recover moorings. Because we cannot see the moorings under the water's surface, we use GPS coordinates to locate them. Once we are in position, we release the mooring from its anchor with an instrument called an acoustic release. Acoustic releases utilize sound waves to communicate with us on board the ship: an operator sends a signal to the mooring to break its connection to the anchor (the standard anchor in oceanography is an old train wheel), and the acoustic release receives and executes this command. This allows the instruments to rise to the surface (they are connected to some big floats) so we can spot them. Even though the instruments are large and brightly painted, it may still be difficult to see them in the waves of the sea, so we have all eyes on deck to look for the floats as they break the surface. Later into the afternoon, the fog begins to clear and we forge onward with recovering our second mooring, but not without an exciting challenge. The first release reports a problem and fails to release. The second release - (this function is so critical, we always use two releases) - confirms it has released, but still the mooring does not surface. We suspect that the very strong currents we are experiencing (4 knots, ~ 4 times the average current) have somehow jammed the mechanism. Our only option is to try and knock the mooring free. We lower hooks and weights to the sea floor. Then paying out ~ 300m of wire and with all eyes on the water, we steam in circles around the mooring position trying to snag the anchor. The strong current repeatedly pushes us off course. Our hopes rise every time the wire snags on something, but to no avail. The fog hovers near the horizon. Hours pass, until suddenly, without warning, the mooring breaks the surface to relief all round. However, just minutes later, the wire snags on something else. . and we now must free the wire, without losing sight of the drifting mooring. Some intense deck operations ensue - we have snagged an old mooring anchor, weighing ~ 800kg, which is now hung up on the hooks. But finally, we free the wire and recover it, bringing up also a stowaway sea star (below right), and we can return to the recovery of the mooring itself. Once the mooring has been spotted, the ship pulls along side it. Crew members hook the floating instrument (left top) and connect it to a rope line. The crew then uses the rope line to pull the mooring at the stern (back end) of the ship, where it can be attached to the winch. We use the winch to pull the mooring onto the ship (left bottom and below, left), and returning to us instruments which have been (we hope) recording data for the last year. Before reading the data, we first have to clean the instruments off. Any surface put into open water will be colonized by sea life, and our moorings are no exception. Barnacles, algae, and other small creatures attach to the moorings and grow in a process known as biofouling. One oceanographer's noise is another oceanographer's signal. The biologists among us catalog the organisms growing on the moorings, and then scrape them off and return them to the sea.    (left) The recovered mooring is
lowered to the deck
(center) Barnacles (~5cm long) and
algae cover the moorings
(right) Our stowaway sea star joins
us on deck
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Saturday 4th July 2015
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This  morning,
we are eager
to recover our last
mooring ... however, we are yet
again thwarted by fog. Our experience yesterday
underlines that we must have good visibility to attempt
recovery. But we don't have it. So instead,
pushing away haunting worries about the fog remaining
for the whole cruise, we collect CTD data, hoping the
fog will clear later in the day.We run the first of our CTD "sections" (a collection of casts taken in a line - think of it as a vertical slice through the ocean). This section is ~22 nautical miles (~24 land miles) long, crossing the US half of the strait (the remaining half of the strait is in Russian waters, where we do not have permission to work). Stopping every nautical mile to take a cast, for the next ~ 5 hours we work (through fog) from the Diomede Islands in the center of the strait eastward toward the US coast. There, we find the Alaskan coast is clear of fog, and even though the strait is still fogged in, we head hopefully back to the mooring site (midway between the Islands and the US coast). As we go, miraculously the fog starts to lift and a view of the full strait slowly emerges - stretching from the Russian coast in the west to the US cape, Prince of Wales, in the east, with the two beautiful Diomede islands in the middle (see photo collage below). Keeping an eye on the remaining fog, we set to recovering our last mooring - and this time, the mooring releases exactly to plan, and soon we have the mooring safely on board the ship. As we have been recovering moorings, we have also been redeploying to continue the data collection for another year (see photo collage left). Though the process looks simple, details are essential, as one small mistake in assembly can result in the mooring being lost during its year in the water. Every joint between instruments has a second safety mechanism to secure it. To reduce corrosion, components of different metals must be electrically isolated from each other.reduce corrosion, components of different metals must be electrically isolated from each other. Extra grab-points are included to make the mooring easier to recover. And meticulous details are kept of all this, especially of the instruments (which we will describe in later blogs). When all is checked and rechecked, we are ready to deploy. With the ship steaming slowly towards the desired location, we use the ship's winch to lower the top of the mooring into the water, letting the mooring stream out on the surface behind the ship. Finally, the ship's winch lifts the anchor into the water as well. As we reach the desired deployment site, a final tug on a rope frees the anchor from the ship's crane, the anchor plunges to the sea-floor drawing the mooring down with it, and we lose sight of it ... |
 Steps for deploying a mooring -
harder than it looks.
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 |
Photo collage of the Diomede Islands,
finally clear of fog in the evening. This view
is from the north, looking south. From left to right
- the smaller Little Diomede (in US waters) is ~ 3
nautical miles from the larger Big Diomede (in
Russian waters). To the far right of Big
Diomede, the coast of Russia (~ 20 nautical miles
away) can just be seen low on the horizon. |
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Sunday 5th
July 2015
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 With the mooring
recoveries and deployments accomplished, our remaining
tasks are the downloading (and initial quality
control) of the data we have recovered from the moorings
and supporting surveys of the Bering Strait region,
including the southern portion of the Chukchi Sea.
A ship at sea never sleeps. Like the ship's crew, we split into shifts to take CTD data around the clock - those now working "nights" being compensated, when the fog lifts, by glorious midnight sun effects (left), as we are now north of the Arctic circle. One of the instruments on our moorings is a hydrophone - an underwater microphone. This instrument "eavesdrops" on the underwater environment of the Bering Strait by recording the sounds that are made by marine animals, sea-ice, wind and ships. These data can provide information on the timing of migration of marine mammals that move between the Bering and Chukchi Sea or identify animals that stay in the Bering Strait region all winter, even under heavy ice and 24 hours of darkness. The data are used to study, for example, the singing behavior of bowhead whales, how sea-ice influences the occurrence of bearded seals, and how often ships move through the Bering Strait on their way to and from the Arctic. Integrating the oceanographic information obtained from other instruments on the moorings allows us to determine which environmental factors influence the presence of marine mammals. Although we just retrieved our hydrophones, we've already found some interesting sounds from walrus and bearded seals - you can listen to these by clicking the links on the right.  Though again hindered by
the fog, we are also making visual observations of
marine mammals species (and birds). Our marine
mammal experts man the bridge from 7am to 11pm,
recording numbers, species and behavior in a certain
area around the ship. We might expect
both "summer whales", those that come to the Arctic
only in the summer (e.g., fin, gray, minke and
humpback whales), and "winter whales", those who live
year-round in the Arctic. Of particular interest is
the baleen (filter-feeder) bowhead whale, so-called as
they have a large hump (bow) on their heads, with
which they push up sea-ice (up to 1-m thick) to create
an air pocket in which to breathe! Marine mammal
sightings have been few this cruise so far, not
unusual in July, but today we passed a pod of about 12
orcas (killer whales, see right). Orcas have been
more abundant in the Arctic in recent years,
possibly due to sea-ice retreat as their prey also
move north. Here again, the mooring data allow
a year-round assessment of "who" is in the Arctic
when. Birds are our almost constant companions. Bird species seen thus far include: Least, parakeet, and crested auklet; common and thick-billed murres; pigeon and black guillemots; pomarine and parasitic jaegers; short-tailed shearwaters; red phalaropes; northern fulmars; Brant geese; glaucous gulls; black legged kittiwakes; king and common eiders; and horned and tufted puffins. But our crested Auklet has left us, probably preferring company his own size.  Some
examples of birds sighted this trip (Left:
Common Murres; Middle: Pomarine Jaeger; Right:
Horned Puffin)
|
Sounds
from the Sea
Brief extracts from hydrophones on the moorings we recovered this year: Walrus in the Bering Strait in March 2015 Bearded Seal in the Bering Strait in May 2015  Today's sighting of orcas passing the Norseman II  Not Nessie - but a harbor porpoise also spotted today |
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Monday 6th July 2015
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A
research ship is a unique environment when compared
to land: its crew must function round the clock in
limited space, often on unforgiving seas. For this
reason, protocol dictates certain behaviors at sea
to ensure a safe and productive cruise.
 A scientist on day shift starts her morning at 0600 (6:00 AM), drawing back the black-out curtains on her bed in a shared cabin (bedroom). She heads up to the main deck as breakfast and coffee is set on the table at 0630. What is a morning meal for her is a late night snack for the night watch, who transfers over any important information of what happened over the previous 12 hours to the incoming rotation. Sitting down at the computer, she radios to the deck to prepare for the next CTD cast. Elsewhere aboard, the rest of the day shift takes their respective posts performing data quality control, mammal watch, and biofouling analyses, (or blog writing). Old maritime tradition gives us many of the terms we use at sea, including the rooms and equipment aboard a ship. One sleeps in a stateroom (photo left), while a bathroom is referred to as the head. The captain drives the ship from the bridge, while the cook works in the galley. At the front of the ship is the bow, and at the aft (back) of the ship is the stern. Aboard the Norseman II and other research vessels there is also a science lab where instrumentation is prepared for deployment and data are monitored. Actually, many nautical terms have made their way back to land. For example, to measure speed in old times, a line (rope) was tied to a log, which was then tossed off the back of a ship. As the rope was pulled off deck, one counted the passage of knots which had been tied into the rope at regular intervals, giving rise to the nautical unit of speed over water (knots). So, every time you "log on" to a computer, you harken back to the maritime tradition of writing these log-based speeds in a "log book." Back in the science lab, after several hours driving the CTD, the day shift scientist receives lunch relief at 1130 - another scientist fills in for her while she eats, so CTD operations can continue uninterrupted. At the lunch table, and indeed everywhere on the ship, any loose object must be tied down, Velcroed, or placed on a non-slip surface. Cups, plates, and flatware could all turn into dangerous projectiles in rough seas. People, too, must be cognizant of the roll of the ship and develop "sea-legs"- a safety paradigm of being at sea is "one hand for yourself, one hand for the ship", i.e., always keep one hand free to steady yourself against the ship's motion. Of course, the ship's operations could not proceed without the dedicated efforts of the Norseman II's crew members. The Captain (The Old Man), with the help of his First Officer (Mate), directs course and heading, as well as oversees all ship's operations. In the engine room, the Chief Engineer (Chief) ensures functioning mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. One Bosun and two able-bodied seamen (ABs) carry out deck operations, while from a tiny galley the Chief Steward (Cook), assisted by the 2nd Cook, prepares 4 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner and Midrats) for the whole crew of 16 people aboard the Norseman II. As the daytime scientist ends her shift, she sits down to dinner from 1730 to 1830 (5:30 PM to 6:30 PM). Done with her day, she transfers her watch over to the night shift, who, along with the ship's night shift, maintains continuous operations of data collection and the ship. And so the days roll round ... (above, a
stateroom of the Norseman II)
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 The Galley of the Norseman II , from which comes great food.  The Bridge of the Norseman II, from which comes great direction  The Lab of the Norseman II, from which comes great science |
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Tuesday 7th
July 2015
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| The primary mission
of this research is to investigate the physical
oceanography of the Bering Strait, but all disciplines
of oceanography benefit from interactions with others;
chemical and biological oceanography represent important
elements to any oceanic study. As well as having
interdisciplinary sensors on the moorings, on this
cruise, we also have representatives of these
disciplines to investigate oceanic nutrients and
acidification, and biofouling communities, as well as to
help us recognize and capitalize on moments of
opportunistic science. Recovered interdisciplinary instruments will tell us about the year-round variation in nutrients (i.e., food for ecosystems) in the water. Newly deployed instruments (see left) should yield the first year-round quantification of ocean acidification in the strait. One of the many consequences of the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is an increase in the concentration of CO2 in our oceans. Once dissolved in the ocean, CO2 reacts with the water increasing the acidity of the ocean. Increased acidity inhibits the ability of marine organisms to form shells, and the speed with which ocean acidity is increasing makes it hard for organisms to adapt. Many of these vulnerable organisms are a vital food source for the rest of the food chain, and more research is need to predict how the system will adapt. This is not just an Arctic problem - think about oyster beds off our coast in Washington. However, the particular (cold, fresh) properties of Arctic waters make them more susceptible to acidification, and we are seeing the effects here sooner - a bellwether for the global ocean. Biofouling, as previously mentioned, is the process by which organisms colonize and disrupt surfaces. Marine biofouling is especially problematic on ships, piping, marine structures, and instrumentation (such as moorings). Since the advent of seafaring, humans have made attempts to circumvent biofouling through various means - on wooden ships, a thin copper plating was common, while on more modern iron vessels (which would be corroded by copper), organotin (tin-based poisons) paints, especially the harsh chemical tributyltin oxide (TBT), were common until their ban in 2001. Today, antifouling research focuses on non-corroding copper-based paints, as well as biomimetic (bio-mimicking) materials that seek to emulate the natural antifouling qualities of, for example, shark skin. Tiny organic particles are the firs  t elements of
biofouling - they are attracted to surfaces by
electrostatic Van der Waals forces
(the same forces which allow you to stick a
rubber balloon to the wall once you have rubbed it on
your sweater). Once the surface is coated with these
tiny organic particles, bacteria chemotax
(swim in response to a chemical/nutrient gradient)
toward the surface and begin attaching as a biofilm
(a population of stationary bacteria held together by an exuded
organic glue). Algae join the bacteria, giving rise to a
green or brown slimy layer, followed by larger, more
recognizable creatures: barnacles, sea sponges, sea
slugs, etc.. We characterize the members of this
fouling community (see left) to
give us a sense of how organisms are responding to
changing environmental conditions in the Bering Strait over the years.
While we are on deck transferring the CTD in and out of the water, we also keep a watch for marine life that drifts by the ship during the cast. Our most common oceanic visitors have been ctenophores ("comb-jellies", looking like small, ~ 5cm clear jellyfish of various forms, see right) and salps (clear filter-feeding swimmers, again ~ 5cm long), with also frequent sightings of up to 1m long peach-colored jellyfish. The small, simple organisms can create dazzling displays in the water as they float by in great number. But with the winds increasing to strengths NOAA disturbingly calls "Small Craft Advisory", our time on deck is more focused on safely catching the CTD and getting as many stations done as we can, in case the seas come up. (Above, top) The ocean acidification assembly from our mooring (Above, bottom) A sample of biofouling organisms collected from a mooring, which included an annelid worm, anemones, barnacles, algae, and hydroids  The Chukchi Sea at 2am, reflecting the setting sun |
  Above: examples of the diversity of ctenophores Image top: NOAA photo gallery, via Wikimedia commons Image bottom: OAR/National Undesea Research Program (NURP), via Wikimedia commons |
| Day 12
- Filling the
unforgiving minute .. with CTDs Wednesday 8th July 2015 |
||
 CTDing off Wales, in the eastern side of the Bering Strait, looking south along our route home.  Tending to the CTD - the operation was a success  A pair of walrus spotted today by our marine mammal observers. A gray whale was also sighted by the Diomede Islands. |
It is 1am, and we have just brought the
CTD on board for the final time, and are
now steaming to Nome for offloading tomorrow..
While most of the
team sleeps to be ready for final packing in the
morning, the remainder run through the final
data collection tasks, backing up all the data,
performing initial quality control, and quickly
plotting up the preliminary data
to see what we have "caught". The
temptation is too great not to
- we can sleep tomorrow!
Over the last few days, we have taken 258 casts. As each cast is taken, it is carefully scrutinized for any technical problems. Sediment and biology in the water can jam the pumps on the CTD, compromising the data unless quickly identified. We have had tiny stones and likely jellyfish caught in parts of the CTD, but in each case have quickly been able to fix the system (see left) without data loss. Our focus has been on running sections (see example right). These are data we took this morning, along the line shown in color on the map at the top of the figure (right). The two panels below show slices through the ocean (as if you were looking north) of the temperature and the salinity of the water. Temperature and salinity measurements are the mainstay of physical oceanography. Firstly (and very remarkably) together they tell you where waters are from - you can think of them as the "accent" of sea-water, identifying the waters' origin even after a journey around half the globe. In our section (right), the warm, fresh waters on the eastern (right hand side) of the plot are from the Alaskan Coast, and form the Alaskan Coastal Current. Though small in volume (only about 1/10th of the flow through the strait), this current carries ~1/12th of ALL the freshwater entering the Arctic Ocean. Secondly, from temperature and salinity, you can calculate the density of the water and, from that, gain information about the currents that are flowing. All this information, combined with data from our moorings and also measurements of water flow we are taking from the ship during our sections, allows us to estimate not just the total volume of water, but also the amount of heat and other properties that are being carried with the water. For example, our prior work has shown that the amount of heat carried into the Arctic through the Bering Strait has doubled between 2001 and 2011. While 1/3rd of this change seems to be due to changes in the local winds, one of our goals is to find out what is causing the rest of the change. 
The
Alaskan
Coastal
Current
is a seasonal
current,
and our data
suggest that
it
has arrived
in the strait
in the 5 days
we have been
here.
This map
(right) shows
not only the
regions we
have sampled,
but also the
temperature
in the upper
layers of the
ocean.
The heat
within this
current is
thought
to influence
the retreat of
Arctic sea-ice.
The data we
have collected
from the
moorings
should
elucidate
the causes and
timing of
these changes
and will
advance our understanding
of how the
Arctic works.
But for now (and for many days ahead of us), we must focus on securing the highest quality of the data we have collected, and ensure that these data are available quickly and permanently (though national data archives) for use of scientists for years to come. We are homeward bound, and tomorrow will disperse to our own institutions - but with a wealth of information to study the role of the Bering Strait, the Pacific Gateway to the Arctic. |
 Sections of temperature and salinity taken this morning in the northern Bering Strait. Top shows the line on the map. Second and third panels show slices through the ocean as if you were looking north. The final panel is plotting temperature against salinity, a technique which allows oceanographers to identify where waters are from. In this final panel, the blue crosses indicate waters of the Alaskan Coastal Current, while the red dots show waters that have come from the Russian side of the Bering Sea. |
 Bye-bye Bering Strait - sunset, looking east towards the Diomede Islands, as we finally leave the Strait and head back to Nome. |
For use of any of these figures, please contact Rebecca Woodgate (woodgate@apl.washington.edu)
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