In and on the ice

In the early morning of June 3 we passed a suitable ice floe, quickly decided to conquer it, and in the morning the ship was fixed to the ice. As the gangway touched the ice the first exploitation was carried out, always carefully observed by the bear watch on the bridge. Flags were set to mark our station positions that we have discussed during several meetings prior to and during the cruise to the ice. Already on the same day, the first science teams spread out to install the first instruments. We actually needed two full days to set up the meteorological station 200 m away from the ship around a very visible red shelter hut we call the "tomato": several radiation stations, a 10 m turbulence mast and even more visible the tethered TROPOS-balloon for profiling of the Arctic boundary layer. A bit further away is our small "airport" for the Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV). There is a special sledge for mobile snow albedo measurements.  All over the station several holes have been drilled through the ice for regular sampling of oceanographic and biological properties underneath the ice. One bigger hole is the entry into the underwater sea ice world for our Remote Operating Vehicle (ROV), a tethered robot for a huge number of under water remote sensing and in-situ probing. Not really visible, but very important are the secured areas where no person shall go. Here, we want to see the changes in the sea ice surface properties during the melting season. Together with the meteorological measurements this will provide very valuable information on the melting processes and their effects on the Arctic environment on a local scale.

During the transit in the ice had beautiful clear skies, we have hardly seen any sun since we arrived at the ice floe. Mostly low-level thin clouds with occasional snow fall. This are good conditions for our cloud remote sensing team, but other teams are hoping for better weather for remote sensing flights and melt pond surveys.

Almost every day the two AWI research aircrafts, Polar 5 and Polar 6, visit our new sea ice observatory around Polarstern for horizontal and vertical profiling of the atmosphere.

Best regards from scientists and crew,

Andreas Macke, chief scientist