news and analysis from the arctic

[ljgeoff]

HLY1502 LETTER 05 FROM JIM SWIFT Monday, 07 September 2015, 7:00 pm, local date and time (2100 07 September UTC)
90°N (in the Amundsen Basin of the Arctic Ocean)
air -3.8 degC / 25 degF
water -1.4 degC / 29 degF
wind 16 knots from N (not certain what the “N” on the meteorological display means, considering our location!)
on station 34, at the North Pole

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

At 7:47 am ship’s time Saturday, September 5th, USCGC Healy became the first US ship to reach the North Pole unaccompanied by another icebreaker. I am not certain of this, but Healy may also be the first ship of any nation to reach the pole from Bering Strait unaccompanied. It was also a milestone of sorts for me, because there have been three scientific crossings by surface ship from Bering Strait to the Pole – 1994, 2005, and 2015 – and I was on all three, doing similar work each cruise (and thus learning about ocean change in this remote part of the World Ocean).

My informal observations of the Arctic Ocean sea ice we have been traversing continue in the same vein as during the past two weeks: much of the ice appears to be first-year ice and passage through it has mostly not been difficult. Yes, there are larger, tougher floes and some pressure ridges. [Pressure ridges form when floes and sheets are pushed together and pile up high (and well below the surface) and can be very tough to pass through.] But these can usually be avoided and even the ones we have crossed have not yet been significant impediments to our progress. Extra power (provided by bringing more engines on line) has been required remarkably few times for an expedition working in the central Arctic Ocean. This is very different from the experiences we had with the ice 10 and 21 years ago.

There was a seal near the ship at the Pole and people saw bear tracks on the way here, so the ecosystem we associate with the Arctic Ocean – a simple food chain from phytoplankton & algae, to zooplankton, to Arctic cod (a small fish that lives under the ice), to seals, and finally to bears – is active even at the Pole.

(...)

On Neven Acropolis' Arctic Ice blog, Kris commented:

(...) For sure Jim Swift ia a man of science, nevertheless he (and his fellow companions) missed the scoop as well as the most worrying important:

There was a seal near the ship at the Pole and people saw bear tracks on the way here, so the ecosystem we associate with the Arctic Ocean – a simple food chain from phytoplankton & algae, to zooplankton, to Arctic cod (a small fish that lives under the ice), to seals, and finally to bears – is active even at the Pole.

Seals and their Icebear predators shouldn't have any business in the center Arctic, at more as 1500 km from their natural habitats. Because the ice field is too dense thus the distance from one air hole to the next one is too long to allow seals to breath and evolve. And of course, where no seals are there won't be icebears either.

So, if seals are appearing in the center Arctic, even at the Pole, it means the ice has been fragmented that much already that seals are able to live and feed there. And icebears have been forced to follow their dinners into a rather icebear unfriendly environment - over 1500 km away from their natural habitat.

Making me repeating myself in saying 2015 even has been even worse as 2012.

It won't be a good nighty night sleep for me...