Meanwhile in East Palo Alto...

tenants are protesting against their landlord. Two years ago, the apartment complex we live in was bought up by Page Mill Properties, a big housing corporation, that owns about half of the available rental units in East Palo Alto, about a million dollars worth of real estate. In the county a rent stabilization ordinance is in place to provide for affordable living for lower income groups.

Page Mill Properties (PMP) has attracted large scale investors by guaranteeing high profits of 13%. The way they realize that is as follows: tenants get illegal rent increases of 30-75%. If they cannot pay, they are evicted. Of course this is illegal, but at the same time PMP is suing the city to break the rent ordinance. While the PMP lawyers are dragging their feet, many tenants are forced to leave their houses. Some families are living in a car on the street.

It is outrageous that a company is trying to get away with this and enriches itself at the expense of the poorest people in the neighborhood. The tenants have organised themselves and are represented by a couple of lawyer firms who have taken the case on a pro bono basis. Neighbor Chris is a driving force behind this and has put together a very clear website www.epa-tenants.org which explains everything in detail. Take especially notice of the role of California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) in this. They drew up and signed a UN manifest in 2005 in which they pledged to socially and environmentally responsible investment practices. Three months later they invested 100 million dollars in Page Mill Properties's predatory equity scheme. Painful detail is that some evicted tenants are Californian public employees...

Last week I have been standing at the side of the road with a large protest banner during morning traffic to draw attention for this cause. One way to contribute is by contacting the districts Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. Please leave a message at her office expressing your concern and ask that she looks into this (Phone: (650)323-2984 or leave an email message). Every response counts!

Cheers,

Thijs

Life on board

“Three years in prison with a chance of drowning”, this is how Andy, one of the British guys of the autosub team, described the time has spent at sea in the last couple of years. This made me think: why did I want to go so badly on this trip? Away from home and loved ones for two months. No skiing, hiking or biking, no Thursday night at Gordon Biersch. No Sunday morning breakfast with Thijs… Instead working till 3 am, when you started at 7 am, being in the cold room (3 C) for 6 hrs per day in low light with a fan blowing over your head, no private cabin, bad coffee, grumpy people because of lack of sleep (of course I don’t suffer from that last one J) and a lot of complaining. Of course, there’s icebergs and penguins, but is that enough to make up for the discomforts? I don’t think so!

So what is it that makes life on board so great you want to sacrifice all the above? Partly, it has to do with the people on board. Before I started on the previous cruise, I had the impression that sailors are the though and rough kinda guys, you know, though on the outside, with a good heart buried somewhere deep inside. As it turns out, however, everyone is pretty mellow and friendly. We have to stick it out with the people on the ship for 8 weeks, so everyone tries to keep things workable (of course there are some exceptions). Also, working on these research vessels selects for social folks, who like to chat, joke around and are really interested in their fellow seafarers and the reasons for their research. Almost everyone tries very hard to do their work as well as possible, and enjoys the work (of course there are some exceptions). This holds true for the scientists and officers alike. The officers take pride in steering the ship in the best possible way through the ice and keeping the scientists happy. They would earn more money steering a supertanker as fast as possible from A to B, but they seem to enjoy working on a research vessel. And it’s quite easy to work around the exceptions.

The other part of being here is the Science (with a capital S). All worldly worries are in the background and one is totally focused on research (I heard Obama will pour a lot of money here and there in the US, including in science, but I haven’t bothered to find out more). Since there are people with different backgrounds on board, you get crash courses in various areas of science. It also allows for getting input on your results from very different angles which can be clarifying or confusing. In some cases you can try out some new, interdisciplinary ideas, because the people and equipment are available and people are always willing to measure some extra stuff if it can lead to some new ideas. Within our DynaLiFe team the collaborations are blooming and for me it is the first time to work together with a team of 6 smart, nice, and experienced people on a project. Because we all tackle different aspects of the phytoplankton productivity down here, it’s exciting to compare results and shed some light on different parts of the puzzle. It’s even more exciting to try to fit the different pieces together and see how comparing results makes sense in some cases, but creates more confusion in other cases.

Meanwhile, the autosub is back on board. It came back from it’s second long mission under the Pine Island Glacier. They picked up an emergency signal, but it was waiting for us at the surface of the site where they put it in last night. Apparently “it got scared” (these are the exact words of Andy) and then returned to it’s home where it was waiting for us, just like it’s programmed to do. Next time I’ll try to write something about the how and why of the autosub.

Take care everyone,

Anna

Science

What exactly are we doing over here?
In the lab at Stanford we study algae (phytoplankton) that grow in the Southern Ocean, because they take up CO2 from the atmosphere and take part of it down to the deep sea, or even the seafloor where it gets buried and removed from the carbon cycle for a while.
That’s pretty neat, but of course we want to know if it remains that way during global warming in the future. We are now in the Amundsen Sea, where the Pine Island glacier reaches the sea. This is the fastest flowing glacier in Antarctica, and the Amundsen Sea is an Antarctic area that is warming up very fast. So it is an interesting area to study and possibly predict the future using the results. The sea system is pretty simple here, there are no rivers that supply nutrients, there are only a few large animals that eat stuff, there are few bacteria and viruses, and there are only two different groups of algae that grow in the water: Phaeocystis and diatoms. These two groups have very different characteristics. In short, Phaeocystis is very good in taking up of CO2 and diatoms are more tasty for krill, the small shrimp that are eaten by penguins and whales. Factors important for growth of algae here are iron content of the water, and light. There is only little iron in the water here and algae need a bit to grow. They also need light, but to much light and UV radiation can be harmful, so the algae need to protect themselves against it.

We study which factors determine whether either Phaeocystis or diatoms grow, and how much CO2 they take up. And also if the adaptations to low-iron concentrations affect the way they deal with light. The ideas we are testing are the results of computer models that mimic the growth of algae and work that we did in the labs in Stanford and Groningen.
And now we test for real if it works in the water in the Southern Ocean they way we think it works. So far all our analyses and experiments work and we have not encountered any big surprises. We are now sampling at the Pine Island glacier and detect that the glacier melt water carries iron into the water. North of the glacier, many algae are growing and they deplete that iron pretty quickly. We have two incubators on deck for the algae to determine whether their growth is limited by iron and if they can use iron from other dissolved particles. Finally, it seems that when the algae are iron-limited, they use the available light less efficiently, and on top of that they are more stressed when they get too much light. We are now in the vicinity of the glacier to see whether we can get something out of the effect of the melting water on the algae. Unfortunately, that is easier said then done. Two samples that were taken 2 km apart vary wildly in properties, and also if you test the next day, there are large differences. We have to see how we can fit the results in the larger picture. For now there are algae to filter, incubate and results to be produced. We already try to make sense of the data on the fly, but the final interpretation has to wait until we are home and can sit back and look at it from a distance.

Anna

Busy busy busy

We started working! The first week we were busy sailing to the Amundsen Sea and preparing for iron-free sampling, validating iron measurements and experiments. Since we sail on an iron ship it takes a bit to prevent iron contamination. First trick was to build a “bubble”. A part of the lab is shielded by plastic and the air passes through a filter. In the bubble Matt and I walk around in white suits to clean our bottles while keeping dust out, which can contain iron. Zim, the technician who built it with our help has been nominated to “bubblemaster” after we measured 1000 x less dust particles inside the bubble compared to outside. For this we used the dust particle counter of Patrick (yes, those devices exist) en Zim was all proud. The next trick to get the samples on board without iron contamination is using a kevlar cable for the suspension of the bottles, instead of an iron cable. This kevlar cable was supposed to be on board, but upon closer inspection it looked suspiciously thin and was not made of kevlar at all! We envisioned our water samples dropping of to the seafloor, if the cable was not strong enough, so we first performed a stress test. The cable seems strong enough, but we got pretty nervous (and slept badly for two nights). But the frame with 12 liter bottles (6 of them) fortunately surfaced each time and we have calmed down a bit.

And the science has started! Chris was the first who started his experiments succesfully, but by now we are all up to speed. The test station caused some cursing and grumbling, but that is part of the experience. Leaking filter units and a cold room that gets warmer and more of those inconveniences. But the first hurdles have been taken and we are in business! I performed my first experiments and it looks as if the algae react differently than last year (I am not sure if I should be happy, but at least it is reproducible).

Patrick and Charlie determine iron levels and have their equipment operational. Gert is potting his first photosynthesis plot as we speak and is very proud of the results (and rightfully so). Yesterday we started the first big experiment, which took 6 people simultaneously doing different things with sea water and that went very smoothly without any cursing and grumbling. After 3 hours of running around we looked at each other: “We are already done!”

In the mean time it is incredibly beautiful outside. The icebergs are amazing, even more so than last year. We saw the first Adelie penguins on a large piece of floating ice, in a scenery of white icebergs. Yesterday people were dropped off on the ice to drill ice cores and two Adelie penguins came by for a look. The tracks of the people and penguins mingled in the snow, and also people in polar suits and penguins move alike!
Also it is light the entire night, and it feels ridiculous to go the sleep while the sun is still high in the sky. The weather is great and the scenery couldn't be better. Too bad we have to close our eyes now and then...

Due South

Hi everybody,

Anna has reached the Amundsen Sea and has started sampling. The lazy days are over. They are among icebergs now and have sighted the first penguins. Anna enjoys working with her colleagues a lot and is referring to them as the 'dream team'.
The no-alcohol-on-board part of the trip is easier to maintain then expected and she admitted that she is fitter than during the last cruise with the German ship 'Polarstern' that had a full bar on board. Anna's colleague Gert has been sending the coordinates of their locations during the last week.

Thijs

.Monday, January 5, 2009

Hi everyone!

We've set sail for Antarctica! On 5 Jan we left Punta Arenas and we sailed through the Strait of Magellan to the West. Since we arrived previously in Punta Arenas from the east, Charlie, Patrick and I have navigated the complete strait, and that is very cool! rior to the Panama channel, this was a major trade route. If you read nautical stories, there’s many accounts of sailboats being stuck in the Strait for months because of the strong currents and winds. Fortunately, we sailed through smoothly, from GPS waypoint to waypoint, with dark hills, with glaciers in the distance. At about 6 am we left the Strait, straight into the Pacific. It is very desolate here, brownish grass on the hills (or golden as they say in California?), with some snowfields at the summits. When we sailed off we saw a lot of dolphins and that means good luck according to the sailor's lore, so will will stick to that. Unfortunately, the Pacific waves were a bit much for most people, so everyone was pretty seasick, and unfortunately, my ‘stomach of steel’ proved vulnerable as well…

The first days one spends setting up equipment, making lab space workable, unpacking your crates, and generally looking for stuff. You also still need to find out the shortcuts through the maze of the ship, through heavy doors and different staircases, and get lost a lot (pretty annoying...). The Nathaniel B. Palmer is little bit smaller than the Polarstern, the German ship of last year, but everything works pretty similar. Our base of operations is the Hydrolab, which turns out to be the most seasickness-friendly space. It’s even got two windows! We were also shown to a nice place to hang out, the control room of the winches has a lot of windows and you can look at the waves crashing on the aft deck, and at the petrels and albatrosses circling the ship. Unfortunately, there’s beer to sip while watching the waves go by…

Chris from Canada was here since Jan 1 to build up his instrument. That is running now and he is the first one doing measurements! In addition Charlie and Patrick have installed themselves in the container to do iron-free work and they are very happy there. Matt learned that the New York Times is available on the ship's intranet (without images) and he is very happy about that, because now he can follow the American football results. I have a very nice cabin mate Katie. I have not discovered if she has a secret stash of liquor as well. My bottles are safely tucked away in towels under my bed :-). Most people have smuggled something on board. For a second I was afraid that there would be a luggage check (they are allowed to do that) and that would have been a bit embarrassing: to be caught with a bottle of liquor at 33 years old.

There are three different projects on the boat, a British crew will send an unmanned dive boat under the tongue of the Pine Island Glacier, a US team will put out a bunch moorings with all kinds of measuring devices and the DynaLiFe team (that’s us!) will look at the effects of Dynamic Light and iron (Fe) on the phytoplankton in the Amundsen Sea. Everyone on board is helping each other out, and is very friendly. So all systems are go for a nice cruise. You can reach me on anne.alderkamp@nbp.usap.gov, but please text only, no pictures.

All technicians are really super nice, so that is promising. The rest of the crew are philippinos and they speak little English. We do not interact with them too much, so we will see how the contacts with them develop. We have a good team with the 6 of us, so that is alright. And what is very important: there is a good cook! I was afraid of that, since apparently there was a terrible one last year...

We are in the rhythm of 3 warm meals a day (although I cannot say too much about breakfast, since we came back at the ship at 2 am I have slept through everything...) The days are very long right over here; dusk is at 10.30 pm and dawn about 4 am. We are now at 53 South, which is comparable with Holland I think.

OK, I wait for your emails! Like last year, text is not a problem, I will try to send along some nice pictures as soon as I have them. My email here: Anne.Alderkamp@nbp.usap.gov

Hope everyone is well!

Anna